This blog was printed on recycled, uh, Internet tubes?

Green Design, edited by Buzz Poole and featuring an introduction and additional essay by yours truly, is due out in stores any day now.

Here's the catalog description:
Green Design colorfully documents the rising trend to create and market new and innovative products that help consumers downsize and upgrade their lives. Through a carefully chosen selection of green toys, objects, fabrics, paper and alternative energy sources, the photographs and articles in Green Design illustrate what happens when green-minded lifestyles meet well-designed, high quality products. Many of the examples in this book show how successful business plans can flourish when ecological and social responsibility are core considerations.

What can I say? I think the future of the planet is one of the most pressing issues of our time and I believe, as I explain in my introductory essay "Can Designers Save the World?" (updated from a piece that appeared in the now-defunct magazine eDesign), that creative people have an important role to play in developing products that cause less harm rather than more. It's not always easy, of course. Case in point: In my second essay, "What a Drain," I talk about the challenges batteries pose to sustainable design. But it's certainly worth trying.

The book also features great essays by Buzz, my wonderful pal Colin Berry, and others. So check it out. In the meantime, you can read my introductory essay here.