Thanks to Marc Alt for inviting Sourcemap to the CEA’s Greener Gadgets conference this past Thursday – the talk generated a lot of buzz; here is some of it:

Click to See Where Everything Comes From: Sourcemap.org from the MIT Media Lab documents the global supply chain of the things we use every day. [The Daily Green]

GREENER GADGETS LIVEBLOG: Inhabitat Reports Live From Greener Gadgets! Inhabitat

We finally settled on a version of Mar’s design for our business cards, and we decided to make a Sourcemap to decide whether to order half-sized non-recycled business cards or full-sized 100% recycled business cards from Moo. So, Matt and I made two different maps (spoiler: these are a sneak peak at our new interface), assuming the paper and plastic were made in Canada and shipped to Providence for printing. Surprisingly, the non-recycled cards have 33% less carbon footprint than the recycled cards (120 grams compared with 180 grams) – you can see from the graphs that this is because the of the additional paper outweighs the benefit of being recycled. What do you think? (Your opinion is especially important if you work for Moo)

The fashion industry is the poster child for un-sustainable practices, as we’ve already seen from the myriad of social and environmental problems plaguing the cotton trade. Fashion designers share the responsibility, because they are so remote from the means of production – usually outsourced to Southeast Asia, Africa or South America – that their designs reflect few of the practical concerns on the factory floor. Parsons’ Timo Rissanen is the proponent for a new form of sustainable fashion design: a “no-waste approach” that avoids altogether the 15% waste typical of the industry (read his paper here). Timo’s no-waste designs (above and below) show the creative potential of eliminating waste as part of the fashion design process. At heart is a humbling realization: “Fabric ought to be considered a precious resource once again.” Timeless designs like these only strengthen his argument.

Last week John took me to see Highland Wood Energy, Scotland’s largest biomass heating company. While the idea of burning wood is not particularly new, modern chip and pellet furnaces provide a uniquely sustainable solution for regions with a natural overabundance of wood (whether from natural growth or industrial waste). In particularly isolated regions like the Highlands, the near-zero footprint of wood is an especially attractive alternative to shipping heating oil or gas from where it’s extracted. HWE’s Bruno Berardelli showed me this map (above), which illustrates the oft out-of-the-way locales where their stoves are being installed. Each installation has a strategy for sourcing the wood fuel, which in many cases can be obtained by chipping local wood. As a result, some of the forested islands of Scotland are now self-sustaining in terms of heating fuel. It remains to be seen how sustainable biomass heating will be in the future and whether any other waste streams will be reasonable as ways to heat locally.

I’m in Paris to accept the Forum Netexplorateur prize at the French Senate, and I just watched this video montage of all the winners this year – including one of the first (and hopefully not the last) knock-offs of Sourcemap! The video is embedded here below; the Sourcemap clip starts at 2:30

We’ll be hosting the first of many Sourcemap workshops at the MIT Media Lab tomorrow, Wedneday, January 27th, in room e14-244 from 1-4pm followed by an optional work schedule.

Yesterday I had the honor of standing among astronauts, organists and television personalities to present Sourcemap at Michael Hawley’s Entertainment Gathering in Monterey – a moving experience for which I was a little more nervous than usual but overall came away inspired and feeling warm and fuzzy all over. Thanks!

Connie presented Sourcemap at Google two days ago, alongside a virtual Matt, as part of our feet-on-the-ground approach to recruiting users (and volunteer developers). Congratulations to both of you!

Sourcemap was selected as part of the I.D. 40: ID Magazine’s list of 40 Transformative Design Projects of 2009. Congratulations to the entire Sourcemap team who helped make this possible! (You can see a high-resolution version of the article here).

Chief Cartographer David Zwarg presented Sourcemap at Ignite Boston – great job David!