Food and drink

NEW YORK--The team behind 4food, a burger shop opening next month on Madison Avenue and East 40th Street in midtown Manhattan, might have put forth the most idealistic concept that the fast-food industry has yet seen. There will be custom online orders with more than 140 million possible combinations, employees armed with iPads, free Wi-Fi, and a socially minded "green" mission that aims to use local, high-quality ingredients and compost everything that's thrown away.

Having gone to a preview event hosted by Gawker Media gadget blog Gizmodo on Thursday night, and having spent about an hour on 4food's Web site the prior day to lovingly craft a customized salmon burger on a brioche roll with Brussels sprouts, gruyere cheese, and hummus, I can say that the food component of 4food really is surprisingly good.

The three-level space is impressive, with power outlets at every seat (your receipt comes with a Wi-Fi password) and a massive video screen that projects, among other things, recent tweets and public Foursquare check-ins to the venue. When 4food opens in the second week of September, there will be a half-dozen iPads for self-service orders, as well as iPad-equipped employees walking around to speed things up.… Read more

It turns out that the winner of the Starbucks-sponsored Betacup Challenge, a design competition aiming to solve the problem of the billions of disposable coffee cups discarded annually, isn't a cup at all. Rather, it's a chalkboard.

Called "Karma Cup," the jury-selected winning concept envisions a chalkboard at the counter of every Starbucks. Bring a reusable cup for your coffee, and you get to put a check mark on the chalkboard. Every 10 check marks, the next person to come in with a reusable cup gets his or her coffee on the house. "Think of … Read more

Water is not only the next big environmental issue, but also the next savings opportunity, according to several companies.

A survey conducted by research analyst Ethical Corporation in May 2010 found that 99 percent of corporate sustainability managers saw water becoming a top priority for businesses in the next 5 to 10 years. The report "Unlocking the Profit in Water Savings" found that 52 percent of sustainability managers ranked "water stewardship" within the top five most important issues they now deal with.

But more interesting is the hard data supporting the trend. Companies have found that … Read more

It started with a guilt trip.

As is the custom these days, when digital-media strategist Toby Daniels sets up meetings, he goes out for coffee. When he would meet with Graham Hill, the founder of TreeHugger.com, Hill would bring along one of his side projects--a ceramic coffee cup in the manner of an old, diner-style paper cup, which he sells at WeAreHappyToServeYou.com.

"Every time I used to meet Graham, he used to bring me one of these ceramic coffee cups sort of as a way to suggest I shouldn't be drinking my coffee out of a … Read more

An aggressive, meant-to-shock Facebook and YouTube campaign on behalf of Greenpeace has led food conglomerate Nestle to modify its policies regarding the use of palm oil.

Nestle announced early Monday that it has partnered with The Forest Trust, a nonprofit group that helps businesses develop practices to harvest forests sustainably. The partnership is designed to reduce the social and environmental impacts of Nestle's corporate supply chain by severing ties to companies that contribute to deforestation. The first issue addressed will be its use of palm oil--the harvesting of which has been connected to the loss of rainforests and the … Read more

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico in conjunction with Chevron is breaking ground Thursday on a 1-megawatt solar farm on land owned by Chevron Mining near Questa, N.M.

The concentrator photovoltaic systems (CPVs) are being provided by Concentrix Solar. The solar farm, which was originally announced in February, will provide power to the Kit Carson Electric Cooperative through a power purchase agreement it signed with Chevron. Kit Carson is an electricity cooperative that supplies power to rural New Mexico communities in Taos, Colfax, and Rio Arriba counties. The solar farm is scheduled to be up and running by the … Read more

Talk about killing two birds with one stone. Those who happen to be stranded in Copenhagen by the ash clouds from Iceland's spewing volcano can check out the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers--if there are still available rooms, that is.

The 366-room Danish hotel, located five minutes from Copenhagen International Airport, is offering a radically cool eco initiative--possibly the first in the world--by letting guests pedal away on exercise bikes for a free meal. This not only provides a good workout, it helps reduce hotel guests' carbon footprint.

Two stationary bicycles are hooked up to generators, with an iPhone … Read more

IBM and Saudi Arabia's national research group are opening a solar-powered desalination plant in the city of Al-Khafji.

The pilot plant will supply water to about 100,000 people and pump out about 30,000 cubic meters of potable drinking water per day. It will run exclusively on solar-powered electricity, and showcase two technology breakthroughs that were the result of a multi-year collaborative research agreement signed in 2008 by IBM and the Saudi research group known as the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST).

On the solar end, the plant will use ultra-high concentrator photovoltaic (UHCPV) cells … Read more

A group of scientists with funding from the Department of Energy has presented a new type of roof coating that would allow all the benefits and none of the drawbacks of black and white roofs combined.

It's long been agreed that a white roof, because it naturally reflects sunlight, reduces the amount of heat a building absorbs in extremely hot and sunny situations, thus, contributing to keeping the building cool (think Greece). Some have even gone as far as to propose white "green" roofs as a geoengineering idea for reducing global warming because they may both reduce air conditioning use and reflect more sunlight … Read more