Concrete companies are among the nation’s most energy-intensive but are tackling their poor reputation head on with a symbolic move from diesel to natural gas-powered cement mixers.

A fleet of the “green” mixers, wrapped in colourful flower-power designs, took to the streets in Australia yesterday to promote Boral’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.

Thanks for the link Ad’s -  The Australian - Thanks for the Copy.

Check out this billboard for the World Wildlife Fund campaign that uses the sun to fight global warming.  Simply put, it is great work.  The video above shows the ad across the time span of a day.

Save energy when you’re between the sheets with the Hourglass Nightlight.

The nightlight becomes active when you turn it over and syncs up with a stream of sand. The battery and plug-less lamp powers purely from the internal energy generated by the sand, so when the sand ends, the light turns off.

Created by Sun-Young Lee, the Hourglass Nightlight will hopefully have you resting easier knowing you’re going green.

Alchemy Goods a company specializing in Turning the useless into the useful has found a good use for old outdoor banner ads…

 
The adbag is constructed from recycled vinyl mesh that had previously been installed on various buildings throughout Seattle. Since no two bags are alike, the only thing being advertised is individuality.

Posterchild, a street artist in Toronto, takes on guerilla gardening in this project, in which flowerboxes filled with celosia plants were erected on telephone poles around Kensington, Canada. I was surprised to learn that when the guerilla gardener returned, three plants had been watered already, and only one had been ripped out.

 

Readers of Colombian news magazine Semana were amazed when they recieved with their December issue, being that it contained an ad insert created from banana leaves.

The aim of the single page insert, which had been screen printed with an ad for the new special edition Prado Cruiser, was to tell Colombians to keep in touch with nature. The message was literally driven home by use of a natural product as one of the magazine’s pages. (The effort is similar to one by liquid detergent Coquel, whose recent ads made of fabric ran last year in Brazilian magazines Cosmopolitan and Vogue.)

The logistical effort to produce this innovative insert was no small feat. Six-foot banana leaves were purchased from distributors. Each leaf had enough coverage to produce eight ads – but here’s catch - the ads had to be hand-printed within five days of distribution to ensure the leaf would still be in prime condition by the time it reached the readers of Semana.

The message was delivered in issues that went to the homes of more than 20,000 subscribers in Bogota and Medellín.

That’s Dope.

I just calculated my monthly fuel bill for June. It stung. It’s so bad that I have actually considered selling my ride and buying a hybrid – and I’m not the only one I’ve heard other people saying the same thing.

This got me to thinking: who else is going green? Tom Peters – says that the uber-target in the marketplace right now is Boomer Greenie Wellness Women, we talk about marketing here a lot, so let’s take a look at the greenie part of that equation.

“Green marketing is a good thing,” says Jack Barkenbus of the University of Tennessee’s Energy Environment and Resources Center. “Consumers have begun to respond to it. That’s why you’ve seen so much growth.”

Here are five noteworthy examples:

• Wal-Mart - As much as we all hate Wal-Mart, they made a good step recently by erected a sustainable test store in Texas that employs 26 energy-saving and renewable materials experiments.

• Hybrid cars – Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Ford, Mercury, Chevy, GMC.

• Ethos Water - Starbucks bought the water company and will donate a nickel for every bottle they sell to a foundation that brings clean water projects to underdeveloped communities.

• Method Soap - All natural ingredients that get people and dishes clean in a bottle that makes a fashion statement.

• General Electric - The new focus is what they’re calling “eco-imagination” and they’re starting with a train engine that produces fewer emissions and showing their commitment by investing – $1.5 billion a year in research.

My question to you - Is there an own able opportunity in your category to be the green-friendly leader?

Using media as a means to demonstrate a product is an increasingly common tactic for brands that want to drive the message home with their consumers.

In some cases, media is used to mimic product function and in others a competition forces consumers to sample a product, if they want to participate. This example offers a third way, a media message that demonstrably connects with the obsessions of the target audience.

The brand is Coquel, a liquid detergent that cleans without damaging fibers and keeps clothes looking as good as new for longer. The insight behind this campaign was that women, especially those that read fashion magazines, spend a lot of time and effort to buy the right clothes so it makes sense to go the extra mile when it comes to laundry.

The solution that put the product in consumers’ hands was a different kind of print ad, one made entirely of brightly colored fabric and soft to the touch.

The ad ran in high circulation magazines such as Nova, Cosmopolitan, Caras and Vogue.

The tagline: “We also like clothes so much that our ad could not be made on paper.” Further information was included on how important it is to take care of clothes to keep them looking good for longer.

The music channel is making available to its networks in 162 countries a series of 35 public service announcements under the banner “MTV Switch.”  In addition to the Public Service Announcements, the network will also incorporate conservation messages into its original programming, throughout the remainder of the year.

Short spots with celebrities and artists such as Good Charlotte, MIMS and Kelly Rowland will air on MTV’s channels in an attempt to drive viewers to www.mtvswitch.com.

“Trees” one of the PSAs, shows an animated tree struggling to breathe as it attempts to walk around a city crowded by pollutants from cars and trucks. It closes with the tagline, “Trees can’t reduce CO2 emissions alone. You can help.”

This is a great move for MTV as environmental concerns are resonating heavily with younger generations because they know they are going to be effected most by the outcome if changes are not made now. 

Starbucks is rolling out a summer movie promotion designed to raise awareness about climate change and build on its corporate commitment to environmental causes.  The coffee company will kick off July 31 an in-store marketing campaign in the U.S. and Canada around “Arctic Tale.”  

On Aug. 15 environmental experts will visit 10+ retail locations and will address climate change issues.The film, produced by National Geographic follows the story of a walrus pup and a polar bear whose habitats are being threatened by global warming. “Arctic Tale.” will be released July 25 with a nationwide opening Aug. 17.

Starbucks is no stranger to environmental campaigns. The company in April launched an online game to teach customers about climate change. The “Planet Green Game” is available at PlanetGreenGame.com