successful? if so how or why?

11 Powerful Environmental Messages

These Images from Various Ad Campaigns Around the Globe Remind Us That the Planet Is in Peril

Do environmental ads work?

Has Environmental Advertising Gone Too Far?

While looking for images for my previous Kleenex post, I found some interesting advertisements done by GreenPeace and other environmental advocate groups. Often, these advertisements paint a grim picture of current decaying landscapes or a future view. I thought it was ironic that Kleenex promotes a "feel" campaign when most of their resources for paper products come from leveling ancient forests. Here are some grim examples of environmental advertising.These ads are for promoting clean air and auto emissions. Environmental advertising is raising its own brand of controversy. How far will we go to protect our environment and place blame on the large commercial businesses and manufacturers?Comments:

These are some very interesting examples. The grim nature of advertisements for environmental policy must be this bleak because our situation is a desperate one. No one would pay attention if the pictures weren't in some way shocking.

Posted by 147.92.247.242 on December 03, 2008 at 12:45 PM CST #

I never really trust those Green Peace claims, because they never seem to have to back anything up. 90 years for a box of Kleenex? Please, name an alternative, I bet even the perfectionists of Green Peace blow their nose with a Kleenex when its running. I do agree with the smog and traffic problems of the big cities. It will be interesting to see what anyone can do about that. If I were a big Green Peace guy I think I would quit complaining about the little things and start focusing on something that someone can do about.

Posted by Todd on December 03, 2008 at 01:14 PM CST #

Environmental Ads

During the last U.S. presidential election Bush's environmental policies came in for much discussion globally. During that time Cottons natural tampons in Australia ran this ad to highlight the brand's 100% natural positioning.  The headline reads 

"Not every Bush Harms the Planet"

Grand Destiny Hotel plans

November 09, 2007

What's Syracuse's Destiny?

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

Promotors say it will be one of the most spectacular green building projects in the world ... but some detractors at the national Greenbuild Conference see it as an auto-centric, anti-community, white elephant.

What they're referring to is Syracuse, New York's, ambitious Destiny project, being developed by real estate mogul Bob Congel, founder & managing partner of the Pyramid Companies, a major mall developer.

At Wednesday's Greenbuild Conference in Chicago, a panel of project boosters -- including Congel (on far right in photo) and Syracuse Mayor Matthew Driscoll (second from left) -- laid out the case for this mega-project.

Destiny is being called a "destination retail city." That is, it's planned as an enormous 75 million square foot retail, hotel, and entertainment complex intended to draw visitors/shoppers from well beyond the immediate Syracuse area.

It's location is outside the city's downtown -- expanding on the existing Carousel shopping mall (see photo below). One way to view it as a mall on steroids -- perhaps along the lines of the Twin Cities' Mall of America.

But what makes the project interesting -- besides its unique blend of private, city, state, and federal financing -- is that it's being designed to incorporate a full panoply of green building practices, such as using recycled industrial materials as part of its construction, and having its own 22 MW renewable-energy power plant.

This is in keeping with Mayor Driscoll's vision of Syracuse as "Green Capital of the World." At the Conference, the Mayor spelled out a series of "aggressive" steps the city has already taken to reduce energy consumption, including an ordinance that requires all municipal buildings to be LEED-certified.

Dan Tomson, Managing Director of Citigroup Global Markets (second from right in photo of panelists), which is instrumental in putting together Destiny's financing, said that "we believe in combatting climate change with market-based solutions."

But the project financing relies on a number of state and federal financial "sweeteners," including $228 million in federal, tax-exempt green bonds designated for energy-conserving projects, plus a huge brownfields tax credit.

At the Greenbuild Conference, Congel also announced the latest addition to the Destiny project, a $450 million dollar, 1342-room hotel and conference center, which would make it the largest hotel in New York outside of New York City. (See illustration at start of this post; the hotel is in the foreground).

Congel described how he came up with the design concept for the hotel: "We needed to get an icon type of thing. I wanted to have it look like grass growing up 600 feet." The hotel, which Congel said would meet LEED-platinum standards, would also "change the skyline not just of Syracuse, but of the United States."

So what's not to like about what would be one of the largest green projects in America? One concern raised at the Conference by Ken Kortkamp (on right) a San Francisco-based engineer is the "auto-centric" nature of the project. As Kortkamp commented, "you're not creating a community, let alone a sustainable community." Others also questioned the absence of any residential component of the project, and its dependence on visitors coming by automobile.

In response, Mayor Driscoll said the project "will be a trigger to development elsewhere in the city" and would help fight sprawl. The challenge for Syracuse, he added, will be "how do we take this project and help benefit the rest of the city." For Congel, the project will "create the demand that other private developers will take care of." In terms of transportation, Congel also mentioned the possibility of designing a monorail system as part of the project (hopefully connecting with the Syracuse airport and downtown).

The U.S. Green Building Council is also behind the project, having purchased one of the new federal green bonds issued for Destiny.

For an economically depressed city like Syracuse, Destiny offers an attractive vision. But will the visitors arrive in the number expected? And will Destiny deliver benefits to the rest of the city, including its downtown?

Update posted on 11.26.07: An interesting post on the Veritas et Venustas blogabout the transportation-related factors in "green buildings" -- something that came up in questions about the Syracuse project:

"Designers and builders expend significant effort to ensure that our buildings use as little energy as possible. This is a good thing—and very obvious to anyone who has been involved with green building for any length of time. What is not so obvious is that many buildings are responsible for much more energy use getting people to and from those buildings. That’s right—for an average office building in the United States, calculations done by Environmental Building News (EBN) show that commuting by office workers accounts for 30% more energy than the building itself uses. For an average new office building built to code, transportation accounts for more than twice as much energy use as building operation."

Jumbo Hostel

Stockholm welcomes the world’s first Jumbo Hostel to its runwaySwedish architects Thomas Blom and Daniel Monsen partook in a novel design challenge when they were chosen to create the world’s first jumbo jet hostel which opened last month. Undergoing a complete overhall of its interior, the Jumbo Hostel, grounded at Stockholm Arlanda Airport since 2002, now accommodates 85 beds in 25 rooms of approximately 6 sq m. The Boeing 747 plane also contains separate bathrooms, a newly fitted seventies-retro lounge/reception area and retains many original features including business class seats and oxygen masks.

Both guests and visitors can enjoy breakfast and snacks in the onboard cafe, as well as being able to heat up your own in the jumbo’s microwaves! With rooms costing from just £28 the re-fit has turned a scrap-heap bound plane into one of Sweden's newest landmark tourist attractions.

Call a 747, home!

Woman to build house out of 747

Francie Rehwald inspects the Boeing 747 wing which will be used to build her house Enlarge Image A California woman is going ahead with the construction of a house made of elements from a 747 Jumbo jet. Francie Rehwald wanted her house to look "feminine", have curves and be eco-friendly. Her architect's answer was: "Let's use a 747!" The wing of the Boeing jet will be used for the roof, its nose as a meditation temple while its trademark "bulge" will serve as a loft. The plane's parts were obtained from an aeroplane scrap yard in California. They cost around $100,000 (£56,000) to purchase, while the construction of the project, which is expected to start in June, is thought likely to cost several million dollars by the time it is completed. Ms Rehwald's family owns one of California's largest Mercedes-Benz dealerships. The property will be set on a 55-acre (22-ha) piece of land on the remote Malibu hills, looking out onto a nearby mountain range, a valley and the Pacific Ocean. Sustainable The project's architect, David Hertz, says he came up with the idea of using an aeroplane to build a home to Ms Rehwald's specifications.  It seemed to make more sense to acquire an entire aeroplane and to use as many of the components as possible, like the Native American Indians used every part of the buffalo  David Hertz, architect "It soon became apparent, that in fact, an aeroplane wing itself could work," he says on his website. "In researching aeroplane wings and superimposing different aeroplane wing types on the site to scale, the wing of a 747, at over 2,500 sq ft, became an ideal configuration to maximise the views and provide a self-supporting roof with minimal additional structural support needed. "As we analysed the cost, it seemed to make more sense to acquire an entire aeroplane and to use as many of the components as possible, like the Native American Indians used every part of the buffalo." The green aspect of the project was also important, he says. "The recycling of the 4.5 million parts of this 'big aluminium can' is seen as an extreme example of sustainable reuse and appropriation. American consumers and industry throw away enough aluminium in a year to rebuild our entire aeroplane commercial fleet every three months." Ms Rehwald has to obtain various permits to go ahead with construction. In particular, she has been asked by the civil aviation authorities to mark the elements of the plane visible from the sky to show that they are not part of a crashed aircraft.

Francie Rehwald of California is trading in her plain home for a plane home. "My mom is definitely a hippie at heart," says her daughter in the AP video clip below. TreeHugger reported the original plans to build the recycled 747 house already in 2005. It takes time to get approvals for building a house that will need to be marked so rescue teams know it is not debris strewn by a crash!

The Wing House is a sleek and elegant design, without doubt. But we ask the hard questions which the mainstream media, so enthused about the jet plane aspect, neglects to ask: does this newest mansion exemplify sustainable architecture?

It looks like the Rehwalds are getting exactly the house that architect David Hertz planned: the plane's wings form the two main roof sections of a multi-level house. All the sections of the jet plane will be used in some aspect of the project -- which includes outbuildings such as a cockpit meditation chamber and a fuselage art studio. The jet plane itself cost a bargain $40,000, less than half the budget for running the helicopters transporting the sectioned plane to the building site.

But is it eco-friendly? On the one hand, it represents a novel use of recycled materials. Integrating the components of a 747 into glass-and-concrete structures is a different approach from previous recycled plane architecture, such as the recycled jet plane student pavilion or the recycled jet plane library proposed for Guadalajara (both projects by design firm LOT-EK).

On the other hand, this could be seen as greenwashing for another Californiamansion. There are options for recycling airplanes which do not require construction of a $2 million residential palace. Nonetheless, reclaiming the energy invested in assembling the finished jet plane from its respective raw materials has a certain value. However, the question here is not: "does this keep one more jet plane out of the landfill?" The question is: "Is the jet plane merely a clever structural material in an energy-efficient, sustainably built residence?"

The architects, studioea, confirm that "Solar power, radiant heating and natural ventilation will be incorporated as well as high performance heat mirror glazing." Well, given that palatial residences will be built, at least let them be beacons for development of sustainable building techniques.

Awareness Architecture

The Toilet-Shaped Househas a very unique design, and was built by Sim Jae-duck, the chairman of the organizing committee of the Inaugural General Assembly of the World Toilet Association, and he hopes his toilet house will highlight the global need for better sanitation.. The Toilet-Shaped house is in fact named Haewoojae, which signifies in Korean “a place of sanctuary where one can solve one’s worries“.The house is a 419sq m structure with two bedrooms, two guestrooms and other rooms, the two-storey house of course features three deluxe toilets. Toilet-shaped house offers relief to the WC-needy

Tue Oct 9, 2007 8:16am EDT

SEOUL (Reuters Life!) - South Korean sanitation activists will mark the launch of a global toilet association by lifting the lid on a lavatory-shaped home south of Seoul.

The steel, white concrete and glass house, with a symbolic opening in the roof, will be ready to receive visitors next month, said the World Toilet Association in a statement.

"Among its many amenities, the house features four deluxe toilets," said the group, started in South Korea and dedicated to providing clean sanitation to the more than 2 billion people who live without toilets.

The home has a showcase bathroom located in its centre. Other toilets have features that range from elegant fittings to the latest in water conservation devices.

The toilet house was built by Sim Jae-duck, chairman of the organizing committee of the Inaugural General Assembly of the World Toilet Association to mark the association's first general assembly in November.

The house is named Haewoojae, which signifies in Korean "a place of sanctuary where one can solve one's worries".

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