There’s no denying that the cannabis sativa plant has played a huge role in the music industry for decades, but this newest usage might be the most surprising: hemp speakers. And in the case of Tone Tubby, using hemp as one of the main materials isn’t just a gimmicky nod to the love affair between weed and rock n’ roll – it’s all about the sound.

Take apart a speaker and you’ll find that one of the most essential elements to sound quality is just a cone made out of paper. But what if that paper cone were to be made with a material that retained many of the same qualities, but was stronger and more durable? John Harrison, maker of Tone Tubby speakers, claims that hemp cones give music more tone and make it sound fuller and more polished.

Harrison isn’t the only one who hears a little something extra in these speakers: he counts music industry greats like Carlos Santana, Neil Young, Metallica and Tom Waits among his best customers.

But you hardly have to be an axe slinger to appreciate these babies. You can “hemp your ride” with Hemp Hop speakers, which bear the slogan “Nothing hits like hemp!”

Or, if you’re not keen on the implicit connection with illegal activities, perhaps you’d prefer the same line of speakers under the name “Green Thunder”, marketed toward adults rather than the teen-to-twenties set.

So how did Harrison even come up with the idea for Tone Tubby? “There might have been some hemp involved,” he joked to Wired.

Image: Tone Tubby

Caffeinate Consciously with Grounds for Change

If you have a friend who has just moved, you’re well aware of the epic cleaning and sorting that took place before packing up her life in boxes, so why contribute to more clutter? Food and drink are always welcomed when it comes to housewarming presents, and nothing makes a house feel like a home more than the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Grounds for Change packs plenty of eco and humanitarian goodness into its beans: certified Fair Trade and organic, shade grown and carbon offset. That’s one powerful cup of java.

Designer Microfinance with Nest

Nest is one of those ideas that just makes sense. The nonprofit organization was established to empower female artists and artisans around the globe through micro finance. Nest partners with domestic designers to sell a wide array of beautiful, and exclusive, goods with the proceeds going to fund additional artisans (we’ve long been fans). Providing micro-credit loans, Nest ensures that women get to practice their crafts and benefit their local communities.

Nest sells everything from designer throw pillows to exotic jewelry, meaning there’s something in there no matter who is on your list. Start exploring here or track down a store near you that sells Nest products.

Know Who Made Your Purse with Mend

With most items we buy we can figure out their country of origin, but when it comes to who is behind the production we’re left in the dark. Mend was created to offer a solution to that problem, while at the same time helping to repair the lives of women in war-torn countries.

Buying a bag from Mend means you get to see and know the person that made it and be sure that they were paid a fair wage. All of the seamstresses were formerly abducted child soldiers, making all the handbags “story-driven.” Each piece carries the name of the seamstress who made it, and the purchaser can access online bios, videos and photos to learn more about her. Bags range from $75.95 to $175; buy here.

Promote Peace with Falling Whistles

Want a piece of jewelery designed to influence change? Check out Falling Whistles, a campaign for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC is home to the world’s largest and most deadly war. It is estimated that 1,500 people lose their lives daily, many of them children. During a trip to the DRC in 2007, Sean Carasso learned about “whistle blowers,” Congolese children too young to hold a gun who are put on the front lines of war, armed only with whistles. Their sole purpose is to frighten the enemy with their whistle blowing before taking the first round of bullets.

Carasso knew that he had to do something and upon returning to the US, founded Falling Whistles. The organization sells specially designed whistles, to be worn as a necklace, and all proceeds go to restoring the lives of war-affected children in the Congo. Buying a whistle from Falling Whistles lets you “make their weapon your voice and be a whistle- blower for peace in Congo.”

A sleek fashion piece, the whistles command questions, and questions lead to conversation, getting more and more people around the world talking about what’s currently happening in the DRC. There are four different whistles in different materials, ranging from $30-$100. Check them out here.

Doing Good for Your Skin and Others with the LUSH Charity Pot

It’s not often that you can buy a gift and have all of the proceeds go to charity. But body care brand LUSH understands the importance of supporting great causes, which is why they created the Charity Pot. A simple yet rich hand and body moisturizer, 100% of proceeds are donated to the charities that LUSH supports.

Some of the programs that have benefited from the LUSH Charity Pot include Sea Shepherd, where LUSH helped in efforts to end the Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt. Not only can you buy a couple of Charity Pots for you and your friends, you can also recommend groups you think LUSH should be supporting.

Images: DeaPeaJay, Nest, Mend, Falling Whistles, Lush

But step inside, and it’s beginning to look a lot like Hanukkah. You want tinsel? We got tinsel. You want some banners and dreidels? Come in, come in, have a jelly donut, sit by the fire. We know from decorating for the holidays. We’re yuppie Jews who majored in art.

For me, getting in the spirit of the season isn’t limited to peeling potatoes for latkes and lighting the menorah. I like going that extra mile (oy, my back!) to hang ornaments, gather festive decor and make merry the Jewish way. Have a peek, darling:

Hang Blue and White Ornaments

Etsy Star of David Ornament

Large handmade six-sided star surrounded by copper band. Pattern created with clear and light blue faceted beads, highlighted with golden foil lined beads. Golden glitter on back. 4×3, $33.

Etsy Mosaic Peace Crane Origami

Beautifully handcrafted at Etsy, $6 each.

Recycled Blue Glass Balls from World of Good

Support fair trade and suspend these balls or collect in a pretty vintage mercury glass bowl. $9 each, handmade from glass bottles from restaurants and homes.

Put up a Banner That Screams “We’re Fun, Too!”

2009 Happy Hanukkah, $25 from eco-friendly Land of Nod

Spread the Wealth By Scattering Gold Coins

Fair Trade Chocolate Gold Coins, $5.25 from Global Exchange

The cocoa used in these chocolates is from Kuapa Kokoo, a cooperative of 40,000 cocoa growers in Ghana. Spread them around the menorah or dining table to add to the festive motif. No snacking until you’ve finished that grassfed brisket and kugel!

Gather Menorahs Old and New, Borrowed and Blue

This mixed media Moving Lights Menorah was hand fabricated by British sculptor Richard Miller with a base made of Vermont green slate and nine movable stone candle holders. The earth-friendly conversation piece is $85 at Eco Atware. Assemble it on a table with other menorahs loved and cherished through the years.

Recycled Galvanized Steel Pipe Menorah. $185 from Two String Jane, at Etsy.

Everyone’s talking pops. Maybe it’s because the holiday season and its consequent consumption mania is upon us, but pop up shops are hot.

Gauging the type of brands that are taking part in this pop-up shop phenomenon, however, reveals plenty of great intentions. In fact, vacant storefronts everywhere are being tweaked into creative spaces with a good cause in tow.

Here’s the skinny: a pop-up shop is a vacant space used for a temporary retail setting, a trend EcoSalon has followed in New York where artists are making good temporary use of empty commercial spaces awaiting new tenants. The gimmick is an excellent way to give a high energy consumer shot to jolt this tired economy, but there are also several eco reasons pop-ups rock:

1. Pop-ups allow organizations to spread their message.

At the Environmental Justice Foundation’s pop up shop in London, where the term “pop-up” was coined, EJF is selling preview samples of their organic and fairly traded cotton tee shirts from the 2010 line. The t-shirts make a social statement, and are all designed around the theme of “childhood, lost innocence and hope” in order to represent the million-plus children around the globe who are forced to labor in cotton production.

2. Pop-ups give small eco-conscious brands much-needed exposure.

Portland-based company Looptworks is taking part in the pop-up trend. The brand, which launched in September, makes all of its garments with 100% upcycled garment scraps and is one of the featured lines in downtown Portland’s hip and trendy pop-up shop Flurry.

“Most eco-fashion is an attempt to do less harm in the production of clothing,” says Scott Hamlin, co-founder of Looptworks. “Many of the companies in that arena are small and trying to get exposure and sales. Pop up stores help them achieve that.”

Hamlin points out that there’s also an environmental benefit to pop-up shops, thanks to the “reduction of shoppers’ carbon footprint via utilizing empty space in a heavy traffic area.”

3. Pop-ups help spread the word about sustainability.

For beloved eco-clothier NAU, the concept of a pop-up shop is helping the brand spread a general message of sustainability, using the retail front as a vehicle for change. As Mark Galbraith, General Manager of NAU, says, “Our intention is to integrate into each specific community using repurposed and recycled pieces and parts, work with artists, musicians, not-for profits and organizations that allow us to be part of the dialogue for positive change.”

Photo credits: Anna Brones, Anna Brones, NAU

Your iPod can run off the grid with this solar powered iPod Case Charger.

Give someone Wheels When They Need Them with a ZipCar membership.

Great for hot and cold beverages, this tumbler will save a lot of trees and CO2 used to produce coffee cups. To emphasize your point, toss in a gold tone coffee filter to cut down on the paper ones that get pitched each day.

Your favorite tea lover can brew on the run with this combination tumbler-infuser.

Green those meals with a CSA Membership (Community Supported Agriculture). This site will find the closet farm throughout the U.S. for you to purchase from.

Rid friends and family of energy vampires with the Smart Strip Power Strip.

Power small electronics like a GPS or cell phone, with the Solio Solar Universal Charger.

Get your colleagues to ditch the plastic utensils in the office kitchen with reusable bamboo tableware that works great on the go. Utensil holders give plastic bottles a second shot at a useful life, and an opportunity to stay out of our landfills. Made out of RPET (recycled PET plastic).

Chico has taken the reusable shopping bag one step farther with The Messenger, a super hip bag that folds into a small pouch.

Instead of a gift card to the local mall, try the gift that keeps on giving with Microplace.com, a Microfinance organization that serves a range of focuses from Fair Trade to women.

Main image: alan_cleaver2000

You know the feeling. You’re standing at the cash register in the grocery store and you reach for your reusable grocery bag, only to realize it’s lurking at the bottom of your car right next to your old Vanity Fair magazines and that tube of organic deodorant that doesn’t work.

Further contributing to your RBGS (Reusable Bag Guilt Syndrome), every other customer is calmly loading his or her soy milk into a reusable bag.

But not to worry! We’ve got a line of reusable bags that are not only easy to clean, they are so cute you will never forget them in the car. June Fifteen offers eco-chic reusable bags that “make going green practical and stylish.”

Founder Sandrine Cassidy Schmitt wanted to bring an alternative to the world of paper or plastic. As Sandrine tells it, “I wanted to create a line of reusable bags that would give stores and shoppers incentives to reduce and ultimately replace paper and plastic shopping bags. We aspire to not only make the bags you remember to bring to the check-out counter, but ones that you can use as purses, book bags, beach bags and fashion accessories.”

And remember them you will. June Fifteen bags are adorable. Seriously, you will purposefully forget things at the store just so you can return to show off your bag. They offer tote bags, grocery bags, wine bags and children’s backpacks and are made from renewable jute, rattan cane and cotton. Bags are well-designed with bottle separators, inside-outside pockets, shoulder-length handles, drawstring backpacks and even matching bottle coaster with wine bags. The bags are lined with LDPE (low density polyethylene), a recyclable plastic allowing the bags to be waterproofed, which is great for shopping. And this makes them easier to clean, therefore cutting down on pesky, unwanted microbial guests.

June Fifteen will even make you a custom bag. The bags run around $15 and can be purchased online or at certain California store locations.

A successful swap keeps our wardrobes simple, timely and up-to-date. It’s a chance to gather with friends, put those great pieces you’ll never wear to good use and pick up “new” duds for free.

Here are a few tips for throwing your very own successful clothing swap:

Send email invites and ask everyone to go through their closets, pulling out anything and everything they no longer wear, like or want.

Include men’s clothing if possible, and shop for significant others and relatives. It’s never too early to prepare for an upcoming birthday or holiday.

Make it a gourmet potluck, too. Ask the guests to bring organic fruit (in-season), fine cheese, fair trade dark chocolate and organic wine.

You might want to subtly (or not) suggest application of a clear antiperspirant prior to attending. There’s nothing worse than a gorgeous dress with white deodorant marks.

Display everything on tables, hang it on racks and in manageable piles on a clean, traffic-free patch of floor.

Check that you have a variety of sizes available so everyone can “play” and no one feels left out. One size definitely does not fit all.

Create a semi-private dressing area. Use a bamboo screen or even a sheet to secure an area for trying on and off.

Make sure there are plenty of mirrors for oohing and ahhing. Have fun playing dress-up with a group of women telling you “Wow, that looks so good on you!”

Rules are key to a well-run swap. Draw numbers to decide who picks first, and so on. And once a piece is tried on and chosen, it’s off-limits.

At the end of the party, put all the unclaimed clothes in bags and donate the leftover stash to a local thrift store or women’s shelter.

The clothing swap isn’t for summertime only. Start off every fashion season with an eco-friendly wardrobe exchange!

Images: Idhren, and Nancy says

Remember the naysayers in the 80s? (Apologies if you were knee-high at the time). They told us green was a fad, that sustainability was unsustainable and that customers wanted low prices, not high principles. Strident words – and wrong, because today, the key to retail success is going green.

If the rise of greenwashing wasn’t a clear enough indicator of the way the wind is blowing, we now have the results of a survey of 20,000 customers across 10 countries undertaken by Havas Media. They found that:

80% of those surveyed favored brands with sustainable practices

72% would punish (i.e. neglect to grace with a purchase) eco-unfriendly brands

and 48% – nearly half - were perfectly happy to pay more money for sustainable goods.

Not doing badly for a fad, I’d say.

Source: Reuters

Image: Unhindered By Talent

Do you have your email set up for Google alerts? I do. One of them is for “eco-fashion” (go figure, right?).

A few days ago I got an email talking about Oxfam Great Britain’s secondhand and ethically-produced clothing you can buy online and was flabbergasted by how great the pieces were in both sections.

I’m ashamed to say I never knew the same Oxfam has over 700 shops, including specialist shops for books, clothes and music all over the world, which sell many fair-trade items and clothing. This all started in 1948.

According to the website, the proceeds from these usually get paid to different charities or are used to further Oxfam’s relief efforts around the globe. They rely on people donating things for free.

In just the Second Hand section, there are 1,282 pages and numerous others in the Ethical Collection. Where to begin?

Well, how about page four of their Second Hand store under Evening Wear for this stunning evening dress which goes for around $31.00?

Wait until you see the back of it…

Fashion this season has taken on a bright and colorful slant – it’s no wonder the world of furniture design is following suit. If a beautiful blouse or a sumptuous sofa is dressed in a dazzling color, it can create all kinds of crazy – the good kind of crazy, of course. The properly placed pop of color will catch your attention, whether you want it caught or not. It is that powerful.

Steel, on the other hand, doesn’t bring much to mind other than cool, modern, slick and smooth. But when said steel is slathered in non-toxic powder coated color, an entirely different style of steel emerges.

Take the Origami Side Table (above) made from two sheets of laser-cut, recycled steel. It’s the perfect little piece for next to the bed or reading chair. Made in the USA from locally sourced material, the table ships flat-packed and is simple to assemble without tools or hardware. Bend each piece and the folds lock the parts together. I bet there’s a color that suits your situation – bright red, brilliant white or sensuous black. Find it for $185 at Mio Culture.

I also found myself attracted to the Hive Bench/Table (above) the moment I laid my eyes on its intricate and sexy pattern. Made of powder-coated recycled steel, I think the reddish-orange is especially spectacular, although any of the color options are cool.

The Coral Bench/Table (above) is another winner, and would be just as stunning in white as bursting berry. Both pieces are manufactured in the U.S. by Arktura using solar and wind power. Purchase them at Vivavi for $1790 and $1495, respectively.

Image at top via stylebakery