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Philips Electronics has come up with a new logo to help consumers identify environmentally friendly and safe products.

(Credit: Philips Electronics)

The new "Green Tick" logo will label gadgets with "significantly better energy efficiency than the nearest competitor products in the same category as well as having other environmental benefits such as the use of flame-retardant materials," the company said.

Products bearing the logo have been certified by external auditors as being 10 percent more energy-efficient than other products on the market within a given consumer electronics category, according to Philips.

Currently, 7 of Philips' flat TVs carry the Green Tick logo, with the company aiming to double the number to 14 by the end of 2007. Philips says it will continue to increase the range of Green Tick products to include DVD recorders, home theater systems, wireless solutions, portable accessories and other devices.

If you're lucky, as I have been in several cities, you might occasionally flag down a rare taxicab bedecked by its driver with disco balls, mood lighting, tinfoil hearts, or even a menagerie of stuffed animals. This week, San Franciscans got the option to hitch a ride in a novelty taxi of a different sort, as start-up Green Cab's single hybrid Honda Civic hit the road. Next month the fleet could total five gas-electric taxis painted in low-toxic green paint.

"It's not only environmentally friendly, it's good financially for the driver," said Green Cab co-founder Thomas George-Williams. Fuel for the hybrid Civic costs $8 per shift, a fraction of the $45 to quench a gas-guzzling Crown Victoria, he said.

Mark Gruberg and Thomas George-Williams high-five their launch of Green Cab.

(Credit: Green Cab San Francisco)

Eight taxi drivers who wanted to improve their working environment while providing an ecofriendly service launched Green Cab, which provides them workers' compensation and will soon offer health insurance. Thirty drivers have joined the hiring wait list. George-Williams said he hopes to establish a model for other cities.

Green Cab is the latest sign of the growing greening of taxi, limousine, and rental-car services around the country. Some 180 hybrid and natural gas taxis currently roll the streets of San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom wants all cabs to have alternative fuel systems by 2010. Yellow Cab and Luxor Cab introduced hybrid Ford Escape SUVs to their fleets here in 2005. And since New York City taxi companies followed suit later that year, Treehugger.com has reported that hybrid riders tend to tip better.

But George-Williams isn't worried about competition from larger cab services. "They can't call themselves green because they're yellow," he joked.

For those who like to ride in style, ecofriendly chauffeur services are also on the rise. Bauer's corporate limo services are expanding nationally from their core green service, shuffling around Google employees in luxury electric and natural gas limousines. The Eco Limo operates in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C.; Vail, Colorado, visitors can sip organic beer and wine inside a posh, biodiesel Ford Excursion airport ride from Green Limousine.

Travelers looking to get behind the wheel while lessening their carbon footprint might pick a gas-electric Civic, Toyota Prius, or Highlander from EV Rental in six California cities and Phoenix, Arizona. Fox has hybrids in most of those cities as well as in Florida and Colorado. Tourists can zip around Maui or Los Angeles in a biodiesel Volkswagen rented from Bio-Beetle. The ever-expanding car-sharing companies Zipcar and Flexcar offer hybrid models that members can rent by the hour in more than a dozen cities.

Large car-rental corporations are slowly going green as well. Enterprise offered biodiesel options last year to customers in Portland, Oregon, and is introducing Saturn hybrids to three California cities. Avis and Hertz have focused on adding tens of thousands of vehicles that achieve at least 28mpg, about half the touted urban efficiency of a Prius.

And for when that rental car--green or not--breaks down, the Better World Club pitches itself as an ecofriendly foil to AAA and offers help for those stranded with an auto or a bicycle.

Carmanah's solar power for NEC monitors

(Credit: NEC)

File this in the "not there yet" folder. A bunch of blogs have covered a new, solar-powered system for NEC monitors, yet none show how it looks. My mind's eye pictured a tidy, laptop-size solar panel. But when I received this photo from NEC, I couldn't stifle a chuckle. Who wants to claw their way to a corporate window seat only to have mammoth solar panels block the view? Oh, and try not to kick that battery pack.

The equipment is designed for big businesses that aim to cut costs with clean, off-the-grid energy sources, but the $1,999 (monitor not included) price tag seems hard to swallow. NEC maintains that the 800-watts-per-day panels, made by Carmanah Technologies, are "very light" at 32 pounds each and "do not distract [from] any work space." A company could install them on a roof, for instance. Maybe the picture doesn't show the best use. Even so, why would you want solar power only for a monitor? You could probably run a connected computer at the same time, but not very well if you're seriously multitasking. In a power outage, you'd have a bright display but no guarantee that the computer would stay on.

Meanwhile, inroads in display technology are creating a new class of energy-sipping monitors. Those with LEDs or OLEDs are especially efficient; running them on a clunky solar system would be hard to justify. Why not install a comprehensive system of rooftop solar panels for the entire office building instead? Plus, in the coming decade, thinner, more compact solar panels that maximize available sunlight are likely to come to market. Solar roof tiles are neat, for example, and holographic technology could be promising. On a smaller scale, lots of portable solar gizmos charge handhelds, laptops, and even headsets.

NEC has demonstrated a commitment to ecologically sustainable technologies, but this product needs more time and trimming before it can look convenient.

iPod, color green

(Credit: CNET Networks)

During his Macworld keynote speech, Steve Jobs played a congratulatory voice message from friend Al Gore on the droolworthy new iPhone, then used that device to locate the DVD of An Inconvenient Truth at the top of Amazon's bestseller list.

Outside the convention center's doors, however, Greenpeace activists handed out flyers painting Apple as less than hip to ecological problems, urging the company to remove toxicants from its products and set up free hardware recycling. Several blocks away, members of the environmental group also projected pictures of Asian electronics waste scrap yards onto a wall of the downtown San Francisco Apple store. Discarded electronics are the fastest-growing portion of the global waste stream. Shiploads of the First World's e-waste routinely reach developing regions of Asia and Africa, where people take apart the machines by hand to sell valuable metals, but endanger their health and the environment in the process.

A greener, imaginary iPod

(Credit: Greenpeace)

Pushing its Green My Apple campaign, Greenpeace created a spoof video of Jobs' keynote, in which the imitation CEO announces an eco-friendly MP3 player: "Green iPod contains no PVC, no brominated fire retardants, no lead or mercury. It's powered by solar panels and the kinetic energy of your body when you move around. It's not only recycled, it's recyclable, and it won't poison any kids in China or India anymore."

Last month, Greenpeace's Green Electronics Guide ranked Apple dead last among computer and mobile device manufacturers. Apple has neither phased out toxic flame retardants and PVC nor set up free hardware recycling programs, such as the one provided by Dell, according to Greenpeace. Apple says it complies with European Union rules that went into effect last year forcing the makers of consumer electronics to reduce toxic metals and fireproofing chemicals in their products. Apple pulled some noncompliant products, including iSights, eMacs, and iPod Shuffle battery packs, from the European market last summer.

(Credit: Mr. Smith, Inc.)

I'm one of those wannabe Luddites who doesn't even own an iPod. I nearly scoff whenever I spy those telltale white strings dangling from ADHD-afflicted ears around town. Nor do I use any other MP3 player in public; the ambient sounds of belching engines and Super Mario Bros ring tones are street music to these ears. But if I did have an iPod Nano 1.0, I'd probably get one of these $15 recycled plastic Jimi cases. The U.S.-made, polypropylene and polycarbonate Jimis come in red, blue, clear, and orange flavors. You can keep one attached with a clip or a lanyard. There's even a mirror on the back so you can touch up your lipstick or easily change your nose ring in a pinch.

The Jimi case is brought to you by Mr. Smith Inc. of Massachusetts, which makes the recycled, "less equals more" , Jimi wallet. One percent of your Jimi purchase goes to One Percent for the Planet, so you can feel fuzzy about throwing down six pennies to fight poverty. Now that you can get a greener iPod case, how about a greener iPod?

I was psyched when a reader said this little box can show in dollars and kilowatt-hours just how much every last lightbulb, TV, and forgotten camera charger in your house costs you. The Energy Detective, or TED, will flash an alarm when your hourly or monthly power consumption reaches painfully expensive levels, and when spells of high or low voltage might damage connected gear.

At $150, TED costs the same as the Kill-a-Watt and its ilk, which can measure only one gadget's power hunger at a time. You could recoup that cost in a tax refund and then some, when you consider the future utilities bills TED might help you shrink. Its maker, Energy, Inc., says TED only takes 15 minutes to set up--15 minutes with an electrician, that is.

So, I asked an electrician for a sight-unseen estimate. "Nothing takes 15 minutes," said Bill Ferrerra of Ferrerra Electric in San Francisco. "To give you a price at this time would be a wild guess." His company's rate is $158.00 to show up and then $99 per hour after that.

Poor TED is looking less thrifty after all. However, its price might be a drop in the bucket if you're renovating, or if the energy bills for your McMansion are forcing you to consider another interest-only mortgage.

(Photo: Energy, Inc.)

To go on a proper energy diet, first you'd have to measure the power consumed around the house, outlet by outlet. Just like counting calories, that would take all the fun out of gobbling up electricity. But if you're really geeked about saving money and greening your home, then you might follow the lead of one Silicon Valley engineer who crusaded around his apartment with the Kill-a-Watt energy meter, measuring the appetite of nearly every appliance.

Eric Boyd calculated that over a year, his refrigerator, desktop PC, and iMac used the most electricity. He estimated that his stove, oven, and air conditioner demanded a bit less power than the computers. (Government figures, on the other hand, list heating and cooling as the biggest energy eater.) The toaster, microwave, washer, and dryer were hungrier for watts than anything else in Boyd's home, but their infrequent use led to low operating costs overall. Lighting didn't cost much because he already used compact fluorescent bulbs instead of ravenous incandescents. And in case you needed more motivation not to clean the floor yourself, his Roomba ate up a piddling 43 cents of his annual electrical bill.

Unfortunately, Boyd concluded that he'd barely notice a dent in his utilities bills if he conscientiously unplugged every gadget from the wall when not in use. But various studies show that standby power drained by those dormant appliances might quietly eat up as much as one-tenth of your energy expenses.

(Photo: Think Geek)