You can’t budge on the web these days for adverts promoting Groupon, Living Social, Keynoir or Wowcher discount deal on spas, restaurants, 4×4 drives and even holidays.

Everyone and your gran has either been tempted by, or purchased one of these deals.

In fact, we know quite a few people suffering from compulsive Groupon disease that sees them buying vouchers for things they’ll never actually do and don’t really want.

But what if you’re an eco-worrier filled with middle class guilt? You’re in luck!

There are a few group-buying sites popping up that take a new spin on the popular business model.

Eco-friendly group-purchasing sites

Zipongo

Zipongo is a Bay Water, USA-based site that promotes deals for healthy foods (rather than the glut of cupcake offers a certain group-buying site prefers). It’s all about natural foods, like cereals and coconut water.

It’s not entirely a surprise to see a scheme like this succeed in San Francisco – a place known for its healthy habits –but it would be great to see it branch out. Whether Londoners feel the urge to bulk purchase quinoa, millet and bulger is moot, however.

Blissmo

Blissmo offers discounts on organic and eco-friendly products, ranging from independent jewellery designs to toxin-free nail products. Recent deals include plant-based iPhone cases, organic homemade dog treats (I wonder how that one did) and a water-powered alarm clock.

Currently only serving the US and Canada.

EthicalDeal

EthicalDeal helps you discover green things to do in your area. Deals include organic hair cuts, eco-friendly spa stays, discounted yoga clothing and tickets to Make It! Vancouver.

It’s currently only running offers for the US and Canada, but hopefully bleeding heart liberals all over the world will soon be able to acquire raw, vegan and sugar-free confectionary.

[Image: Ethical Deal]

Do you know of any alternative group-buying sites? Let us know in the comments!

A version of this article originally appeared on Jorg & Olif

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Supermarkets are soulless places, aren’t they? All those busy aisles of grumpy shoppers who wield their trolley/pram/wheelchairs like a lethal weapon, diving for the last cut-priced cuts of meat and avoiding the zombie-like members of staff.

This is exactly why they stick the wine aisle at the end of the shop, so you’re driven to bulk buying booze just to recover from the experience.

Oh, and food shopping online isn’t much better. Nothing quite like ordering a food shop only for it all to arrive with a use by date for the next day.

Thankfully, supermarkets are no longer our only option. Obviously, there are your friendly local shops that you should definitely support. But there are a few more shopping options you might like to check out too..

The People’s Supermarket
This actually started out as a TV series a year or two ago, but I’ve noticed various versions of the concept springing up all over the place.

These supermarkets are run by communities with members each working a day or two a month. They’re designed to connect urban areas with local farmers. Members of the community decide what stock they want, which the supermarket then orders from local suppliers.

Membership costs vary. The official People’s Supermarket charges £25 a year (which gets you a 10% discount in store). Near me, in Reading, there’s a not-for-profit called True Food Co-Op which does pretty much the same thing and doesn’t charge for membership.

City Farms and Community Gardens

In response to the huge demand for allotments, dwindling garden spaces and an appreciation of the Slow Food way of life, City Farms and Community Gardens are popping up all over the place.

They offer communities the chance to get away from the city and grow some fresh, organic fruit and veg. And they also help empower communities and connect those who may otherwise feel detached. Plus they make the limited green spaces in the cities look beautiful.

Head to Farm Garden to find out where your local city farm or community garden is.

CarrotMob

CarrotMob is a concept that approaches businesses and encourages them to commit to a more eco-friendly way of working. If a business agrees, they have to submit a deal. The agreement might be something along the lines of “If 500 members of CarrotMob turn up and buy something, we’ll commit to spending 50% of the revenue on more eco-friendly machinery”

How Organized Consumer Purchasing Can Change Business from carrotmob on Vimeo.

I love this concept. Boycotting has a negative feel to it, but buycotting? This feels like a positive move where both parties stand to gain.

What alternative ways do you do your food shopping?

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I don’t review cars often. I have a little Peugeot 206 that I drive like a go-kart and it gets me from A to B.  It’s nice but…well, lacking in gadgets and not exactly eco-friendly.

While I’m quite content with my little run-around, I’m still keen to keep an eye out for something a little better.

And if it can be eco-friendly as well, all the better!

So with rather excellent timing, the PR people at Ford got in touch with a new car they wanted Dork Adore to try out. In fact, they wanted us to drive it all the way down to eco hotel The Scarlet in Cornwall.

The Ford Fiesta ECOnetic is part of Ford’s eco-friendly range of cars that have “ULTRA LOW CO2 output without sacrificing power and performance.”

So, does eco-friendly mean you scrimp on the fun? 

In a word, no.

The Ford Fiesta Econetic is packed full of those gadgets I hanker for, including an eco-mode to help drivers achieve better fuel economy and Auto-Start-Stop which turns off the vehicle when it’s idle (say, at traffic lights).

Sadly our car didn’t have the rear camera that some of the other tester cars had, but the general consensus was that it was a handy tool (especially if you’re a nervous reverse parker).

We did have the Gear Shift Indicator, which lets you know when you need to change up a gear. This works with the ECOnetic system to get the most out of your car: you produce more power, but with less fuel.

There are all sorts of other eco-friendly tools too, but most of them work away with very little input from me.

Final thoughts

If you’ve driven a Ford Fiesta before, the actual driving experience won’t be hugely different. It’s just as good to drive on the country roads as it is to speed up the motorway (and it really can speed). But the gadgets enhance the driving experience, and it would be foolish to not consider an eco-friendly car when your transport needs an upgrade.

Prices start at £15,845.00 on the road for a 3-door Ford Fiesta Titanium Econetic.

PS. What about The Scarlet eco hotel?

Visiting The Scarlet eco-friendly hotel in Cornwall was definitely an added bonus to trying out the Ford Fiesta Econetic. The building itself is beautiful, with outside pools, balconies in all the rooms and scented fires that help you relax straight away.

The bedrooms are slightly odd….I think I’m a little too reserved for a bath tub in the middle of a shared room and a wet room shower that leaves the toilet soaking. That said, the rest of the room was luxurious, proving that being conscientious needn’t mean going basic.

A word of warning though, you’ll get very little wi-fi signal here. You can use the hotel’s, but I think they like to encourage you to disconnect. It goes in with the whole ‘retreat’ atmosphere I guess!

Ford Fiesta ECOnetic official website.

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It’s about time CFL bulbs had a makeover. Aside from the incandescent war being waged by a newspaper that has a bit of a thing about eco-bulbs, they’re not doing themselves any favours by being so downright plain.

Hulger hasn’t tried to tackle those who fear for the future of their dimmer switches, opting to appeal to the aesthetes instead. And it’s about time! Quite why so many CFL bulbs are designed to be long and lean is a mystery — it just means they end up with their ugly bottoms poking out of the base of your lampshade.

The Plumen bulbs are designed to be pretty enough to go completely nude — in fact, if you don’t get more than a flash of bulb bottom you might feel a bit disappointed.

You can buy them from the Plumen shop. They’re available with bayonet and screw tops and there’s a choice of US, European and UK formats. They cost £19.95 and they last eight times longer than incandescent bulbs.

Plumen [via Jorg & Olif]

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I’ll be honest, I thought nothing could tear my love away from my darling Henry vacuum, but my mind may have just been changed by this new product from Vax.

Student Jake Tyler designed the world’s first cardboard vacuum cleaner as part of his final year degree project after working with Vax under an industrial placement scheme.

The vacuum is made from recycled and recyclable materials which means less waste going to the landfill.

It’s also got a pretty cute way of cutting back on packaging: it IS the packaging.

Green cleaner

In a rather ingenious bit of design, the box the product comes in transforms into the main body of the cleaner itself, clicking neatly into place over the innards.

The cardboard parts can be replaced for around one tenth the cost of their plastic counterparts. The cardboard unit is fully flame retardant and — better than that — fully customisable.

Finally, something the kids can draw on with no hassle from mum and dad!

The manufacturing process cuts back on assembly lines and means the units can be produced locally with minimal distance distribution for a more environmentally friendly process all round.

To me, this is the future. Concern about unsustainable electronics and household appliances has been growing for some time now and the throwaway culture we live in can go on no longer.

The only concern is how flimsy these vacuums are, but I’d really have to test one for myself to judge that.

The project also demonstrates some of the brilliant young talent we have in our universities today. As Paul Bagwell, Director of New Product Development at Vax, says “It’s so important that manufacturers such as ourselves support young British designers like Jake, as they are they key to this country’s future success.”.

I’m all for it if it means more exciting new products like this!

Would you consider a cardboard alternative to your brown and white goods? Let us know in the comments below, or tweet us at @dorkadore!

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The aviation industry gets a bit of a bum rap when it comes to energy consumption. OK, it’s hardly the poster child for energy efficiency, but there are other industries out there guzzling power without a care in the world.

The tech industry for example.

Now, it’s not gone unnoticed that web companies are sucking up energy just so we can check our Facebook wall and run some errands in Second Life (is anyone still on Second Life?? It must almost be time for a retro revival), but the web’s a long way from beating itself with birch twigs over its carbon greed.

But, if you’re getting *your* birch twigs ready for a spot of guilt-ridden flagellation, why not salve your guilt by greening up your site.

Slow Living site, Jorg & Olif (and makers of those nice Dutch bicycles) has some useful advice on how to cut your online carbon footprint, including cutting your gadget waste and offsetting your online emissions.

Tips for greening your site

• Install Online Leaf – an energy-saving blog plugin that cuts back the energy consumption of your site
• Stick to ENERGY STAR rated gadgets, which use less energy
• Switch to a green web host. Make sure you check out green web host reviews before getting sucked into an expensive/actually not very eco-friendly after all service
• Offset your website. CoC02 will offset the energy used to produce and run your site. The Environment and Greener Living government site is full of useful information about carbon offsetting, which is well worth a read.

Check out more green website tips on the Jorg & Olif site.

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A few months ago we did a round-up of the latest iPad covers and cases in anticipation of its UK release. At the time choice was extremely limited, but we’re now inundated with options, matching the variety available to the iPhone.

Happily, there are also a few eco-friendly options available. One particular manufacturer, Proporta, currently offers business-like leather cases for various mobile and tablet gadgets (right) which are made from 100% recycled leather. The iPad version (£34.95) also doubles up as a stand.

So if you’re getting an iPad, it might be a good idea to limit your carbon footprint with this range (and don’t forget you can recycle your mobile phone too!)

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Call me a total nerdlinger, but I can’t resist a microfibre cloth (aka e-cloths). And being something of an eco-bore, I’m trying to assuage my guilt about procreating (possibly the single worst thing we can all do for the environment) by reducing the little one’s huge carbon footprint.

You can already get terry towelling and various types of multi-coloured bamboo and cotton reusable baby wipes (Babykind has a huge selection). But microfibre baby wipes (or microfiber baby wipes if you like your words spelled American) seem to be harder to locate.

Luckily, making your own reusable microfibre baby wipes is very simple. All you need is a big stack of cloths, some scissors, a tupperware tub and – if you’re feeling especially adventurous – a sewing machine.

B&Q sells packs of 50 cloths for £19.99 as does Screwfix. You won’t need anything like this many, but microfibre isn’t cheap and buying this way means you’re set for cloths for quite some time – plus you can make gifts for friends. Alternatively, you can treat yourself to these colourful cloths in packs of 10 for £6.85 from the Funky Chef.

Then, all you need to do is cut the cloths down to the size you’d like and store them away in their own tupperware tub, Thanks to the way it’s made, you don’t need to hem the microfibre if you’re not keen on sewing. It looks neater if you do, of course, but I’m sure your baby’s bottom won’t object. I just ran the machine round the edges to help reduce fraying, but they only fray a little way before settling down again.

You can wet your wipes with good old-fashioned water as and when you need them or you can buy special soaps to create ready-soaked wet wipes. Thrifty types can follow these recipes to make their own wipe solution.

And that’s it! Simple!

I know that some people are likely to point out that microfibre is made from man-made fibres and is oil-based, and I did fret about this. However, the fabric is so much softer on a baby’s bottom (most of the other fabrics lose their softness in the wash), extremely absorbent and fast-drying and it doesn’t need chemicals to wash effectively.

Non-organic cotton wool is harmful to the environment, organic cottom wool costs a fortune and “biodegradable” wipes create methane on landfill. So while I’m no expert, I figure the years of use I’ll get from these cloths, plus the fact that I’ll pass them on with the washable nappies when I’m done, means the wipes have more than atoned for their original sin. And with the money I save, I’ll plant a few more trees just to be on the safe side.

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