Designers: Jinok Kim & Sanghee Ryu

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Today, more and more “socially responsible” companies are launching new environmental programs – not all of them are only meant to act as some nice PR or advertising for those companies -  to try to make things change. They aren’t revolutionnary, as every one of them is more like a stone which helps build the big wall which at the end will give the big picture. But at least, they help.

Nokia has launched beginning of December, a great green travel resource that is up in beta mode called Green Explorer.  It features travel news, eco-centered information about destinations, tips from fellow green travelers, easy carbon offsets, mobile device access, and loads more.

According to Jaymi Heimbuch on treehugger, this resource “is geared specifically for people who want to travel in an eco-friendly fashion and provide their own travel tips, and the site has quite a few features that can make it a top resource when it comes out of beta”

And for those of us who are dyed in the wool environment lovers who can’t stand the idea of leaving a Big-Foot environmental print every time they fly, Nokia has developped the world’s first CO₂ emission offsetting tool to your mobile: we:offset. It’s already available in 46 languages.

Tired of your neighbors? Feel like reniewing the visual perspective on the buildings accross the street you’ve been sharing for the past years? Want to have your new home built in three days (without the help of the noisy team of

If you’re either an industrial design concept lover, early adopter or “stay mobile” fan (but too posh to accept living in a mobile-home) you’ll probably love the idea developped by Adam Kalkin, an “artist, architect and many other things” as he likes to describe himself…

Adam Kalkin is most recognizable for the shipping container coffee shop he designed last year for Illy. Now, Fast Company has a profile on Kalkin with a bunch of pics of his other structures.

Kalkin’s prefab homes use anywhere from one to six, or sometimes even 12 shipping containers as the frame for the home. Kalkin’s homes tend to range in price from $150-$400 per square foot, with the cheapest container house costing $50,000.

Some are very simple, merely containing a room in in a single container, where as others have whole other structures built inside them.

The key idea behind this project: «Cheap, transportable and recyclable” homes.

I think I just have to forget this cool idea of living in a reconditioned container, as my mother would really start to worry for me and show compassion, probably accusing this era of economic downturn to be responsible for giving me no other solution that moving from my appartment to “a can”. As for my fiancée’s father, I guess he’d probably advise her to look for someone who can afford giving her a decent place to live.

I’m afraid that neither one or the other could get this subtility of living this way. But when I’ll move to the country and buy some acres of land, I’m sure they won’t notice in the distance, what will seem to them to be a rusty old shipping container…

* “moving in a moving thing”

“Where will I be” you say?

my guess: “mmm, working from home?”

“Just to let you know that snow has caused havoc here. Most people WFH so just wanted to give you a heads up if you were trying to get hold of anyone.”

As this “alert” left me a little puzzled, I went on the website of the BBC to know a little bit more about what was going one there. One breaking-news article explained that “thousands of people are unable to travel as London’s transport network has been disrupted due to snow”. To make it short, here is the situation in London on Monday February 2^nd 2009:

• London buses suspended
• Circle, Hammersmith and City, Waterloo and City lines suspended
• Southeastern Trains and Gatwick Express cancelled
• Reduced service on Southern and First Great Western
• London City airport closed
• Both runways at Heathrow closed
• Treacherous driving conditions
• All schools closed in Westminster

Snow can be a real curse for all those big cities which are unprepared to face such extreme weather conditions.

So I think we shall also give the “increasing environmental pressure”, one of the dominant market accelerators which will influence the growth of teleworking worldwide we identified earlier, a double meaning: it shall not be narrowed to the “green issue” (aka to reduce congestion and pollution caused by mass commutes, coupled with the inability of transportation infrastructure to keep pace with the urban population) but it should also take into account the fact that mother nature can also be fierce, fight-back and be the one that put pressure on us (and this is a fair play)…

Also in the future we shall be prepared to face similar environmental extreme, burning hot or freezing cold, as they are unfortunately very much likely to be something we’ll have to deal with commonly.

Those of you who can do so, don’t forget to ask your boss today before leaving the office, if you can telework tomorrow…