The Designers Accord has just published a progress report which provides an over view on adopter growth and initiatives developing under its umbrella.

Recipients of our newsletter, The Occasional, may recall that Citizen Scholar “took the pledge” so to speak and is operating under recommendations adopted from The Designers Accord for integrating, improving and sharing sustainable responsibility in design practice.

If you didn’t get that update, you can sign up here and never miss a beat.

Last August we shared that we’ve been working with our dear friend on his recycling program in Monteagudo, Bolivia.

Ross is still in Monteagudo and is seeking funding that will allow himself, his team, and members of the community to implement a plastic recycling program that will create recurring revenue for some residents in the extremely poor region.

H.A.M.M. (Mayor’s Office of Monteagudo) has adopted a progressive waste managment campaign to eliminate all plastics from its city dump and other areas (in some cases rivers) where the plastics pile up and facilitate water born diseases. The keystone for H.A.M.M.’s campaign is to develop a self-sustainable recycling center that would solve the areas discarded plastic problem and supply locals with an option of a small income. The recycling program would operate in much the same way we know of in United States; Plastic bottles are purchase by the redemption center (in this case by the kilo) by anyone who collects them, processed at the center, then shipped in large volumes to the city where the bottles are sold to a plastics purchaser – and the revenue produced by the sale of the plastics would then sustain the costs of running the recycling center in Monteagudo. As well, 2 dozen steel cage containers will be fabricated and dispersed around the city in specific high traffic areas to provided the public with available areas where they can correctly dispose of plastics. Other strengths of this project include a cross media awareness campaign and environmental and recycling workshops for all local schools.

Although their commitment to the environment is stronger then most communities, H.A.M.M. is very much like the majority of Bolivian Municipalities – poor. This is in fact the first time that H.A.M.M. have invested so much into an environmental project and now requests support from Partner assistance, to help finance the rest of the building materials needed to construct the recycling center.

See the Peace Corps page to learn more and find a link to make a contribution to the project.

Here’s a clever spin and segmentation to elicit action against global climate change: engage people whose hobbies and recreation preferances will be negatively affected by rising temperature. This is exactly what the Save Hockey and Save Our Slopes campaigns from Global Exchange are doing. Brilliant.

Tree Nation is smart project whose goal is to plan 8 million trees in Niger. On their site they outline the causes and negative effects of desertification. Beyond the necessity and worthyness of the action, the most exciting thing about Tree Nation is how they’re using technology to engage supporters. By tagging trees and using GPS technology, supporters can select specific individuals locations to help plant a tree and later track back to the tree. It’s poetic, really.

(via PSFK)

Direct mail for magazine subscriptions has seemed to really pick up lately. All I can figure is that our address got on an extra list from somewhere, and boy are they rolling in.

All the design magazines and professional organizations must share lists in some ways, especially those from the same publishing house. We recieve regular solicitations for subscriptions and renewal offers from Metropolis, Dwell, I.D., Print, How, and Step Inside Design (thoughts on each in an upcomming post).

It’s also typical to recieve the standard business offers like those from Fast Company, Businessweek, Business 2.0, etc. I assume those come along with filing business forms with the state or from subscribing to even a single tangential publication. Membership in the World Futures Society has brought on another wave of mailings. This time, I’m pleasantly disturbed by how well metrics predict my interests. Offers for WSJ and The Economist begin to arrive; it’s a favorites newsstand pick-up of mine.

The strangest piece of all has got to be the one I recieved today from Mother Earth News. First, the title of the publication seems oddly outdated, as if coming from some other decade’s environmental movement. Looking at the publication’s site, I can’t help but feel some sort of tension. The spirit seems right, I want to like this magazine on principle, but in reality it’s all wrong. The site could just as well belong to a low-end outdoor recreation magazine, and the promoted content seems like a naturalist’s answer to Real Simple minus all of the design, beauty, and taste that make that publication so appealing.

Perhaps the worst part of all, for Mother Earth News and otherwise, is the amount of paper wasted in attempting to get me to subscribe. Respect my time, respect materials, and most of all, live by the premise of your publication. Please, stop sending offers, I’m busy reading Worldchanging, Plenty, and Treehugger.

Alissa Walker has been taking the busses…in LA! No, I’m not kidding and neither is she. Her experiment is profiled and she shares some tips on KCRW’s Design and Architecture (DNA).

Recently posted on Speak Up: an interview with Stefan Sagmeister about his design for Worldchanging: A User’s Guide For The 21st Century. In our conversation, Stefan explains his thinking behind the design, his enthusiasm for the content, and looks back on “big books” as a wasteful invention of the 90s. Oh, and much more.

They key word here is “home.” Sadly, we’re in an apartment, but homeowner’s can take advantage of a stellar service offered by The Citizenre Corporation. They’re service, Renu, is a low-cost, long-term solar power solution. As they explain, homeowners don’t have to purchase the equipment, it’s owned and installed by Renu, when customers agree to purchase the power it generates are highly competitive rates. It sounds to me like a plan that’s destined to succeed, and I’m ecstatic to think that the entry point for home solar power is becoming more and more accessible.

I was tipped off to it by Worldchanging, and have been seeding it to friends and family since.

Now, I can only wish that a similar arrangement could be made for renters. Would it be possible for the building owner to invest in these and then bill tenants for the power? I’m not confident that’s allowed under the local law, but it seems reasonable. Let’s see how the landlord reacts….