Swedish multinational retailer H&M has joined forces for a three-year global collaboration with the World Wildlife Federation, adding French actress/singer Vanessa Paradis to be the spring face of H&M’s Conscious Collection.

Paradis sports fashions made from Conscious materials such as organic cotton, recycled polyester and Tencel.

“I like being part of something like the Conscious collection at H&M," she said in a statement. "I try my best to shop consciously, and vintage is very much part of my wardrobe. I love the style and it works in an eco-friendly way because I like to use and reuse old clothes.”Continue reading...

Like any massive corporation that has a lot of dough and a lot of interests, Coca-Cola has tangled itself in plenty of politics, though your average soda drinker couldn’t likely care less. However, there are some that do and Coke doesn’t want to lose their dollars.

That may be why the company has ditched out of the conservative lobbying group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that denies the existence of climate change, helped author a law in Florida that some believe helped cause the Trayvon Martin situation to arise, and is pushing for voter ID registration (which critics deem a form of voter suppression), according to TriplePundit.com.Continue reading...

Australia's Qantas is expanding into Asia with a joint venture between budget carrier Jetstar and China Eastern airlines. The new regional discount airline, to be branded as Jetstar Hong Kong, will launch as HK's first low-cost carrier in mid-2013. Qantas also just announced it's launching Australia's first commercial flights using biofuels, with the first flight using SkyNRG's World Wildlife Fund-endorsed sustainable fuel scheduled for April 13th.

Today is 11.11.11, a day in which filmmakers and inspired citizens are documenting the entire 24-hour period for the global project, "One Day On Earth." The mission is to answer the question: Who are we? It’s an invitation of heightened value as cameras of every kind explore and record the known corners of a world now shared by seven billion inhabitants.

It was 1999 when the world population reached an estimated six billion. Estimates are it will take 14 years to reach eight billion and another 18 years to reach nine billion, sometime between 2045 and 2050.

The first "One Day On Earth" media event occurred on 10.10.10, an unprecedented venture in simultaneous global filming with every country in the world participating, resulting in a geo-tagged video archive of 3,000 hours of footage from 7,000 amateurs and professionals, to be released as a documentary this year.Continue reading...

It's a truth of the modern era: anything and everything must have a mascot. Sports team? Pick a mascot. An event? Of course, get a mascot. Government agency? Mascot. Promoting your city? Mascot. How about just a section of a city?

The Chinatown in Vancouver says it will be the world's first such designated neighborhood to adopt a mascot. Canada's National Post reports this news with the less-than-encouraging headline, "Tattooed pandas to be mascots for Vancouver’s Chinatown."Continue reading...

You can imagine the kind of environmental sniping sustained by a company like Coca-Cola, the world's leading soft drink company. Criticisms of its plastic bottles alone could fill several thousand recycling centers and landfills.

So it was with some amount of fanfare that Coca-Cola announced a breakthrough in packaging a year ago called the "PlantBottle," which, the company said, is manufactured from a blend of petroleum-based materials and up to 30% plant-based materials, making it fully recyclable.

Coca-Cola was shrewd enough at the time to get conservation organizations to endorse the new packaging. "The Coca-Cola Company is a company with the power to transform the marketplace, and the introduction of the PlantBottle is yet another great example of their leadership on environmental issues," said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund U.S., in the press release.

The good news: PlantBottle is performing as promised.Continue reading...

Mixed retail sales and weak back-to-school numbers, including the teen apparel sector, raise fears for the upcoming US holiday shopping season [NYT]

When brands might not collide after all: Europe to review Oracle's takeover of Sun. [WSJ]

Amazon and Google square off in court over book rights. [AP]

YouTube talks to Hollywood about streaming movies for a fee. [NYT]

Or, just use Yoostar to edit yourself into one of the classics. Co-star with Marilyn or Gable! [David Pogue]

A brandcameo with some shelf-life: Santa Barbara's wine region weathers the recession, thanks to the 2004 comedy "Sideways." [LAT]

iPhones strain AT&T's network, angering customers. [NYT]

Desperate dads invent apps to turn your iPhone into a kiddie distraction device. [LAT]

World Wildlife Fund ad comparing 9/11 with the Tsunami backfires. [Ad Age]

Gee, that was fast! Michael Jackson to be buried tonight. [MTV]