• With more and more companies claiming to be eco-friendly, it's becoming increasingly difficult to determine which products are truly green.  EVO currently showcases 400 handpicked companies, representing more than 20,000 green products and services.  The site uses a simple ratings scale (1 to 5 leaves) to highlight green attributes, factoring in what a product is made from, how it's produced, the distance it travels to reach the consumer and what type of energy is used to power it.  The more green leaves displayed next to a product, the greener it is.  All products featured have a minimum of one green attribute - i.e. recycled content, bamboo, solar-powered, etc.

Food & Beverage

• Innovative restaurants around the world are letting patrons decide how much their meal is worth. At Salt Lake City's pay-what-you-like restaurant One World Everybody Eats, customers deposit cash into a "treasure box" or use the customer-operated credit card machine. The trust based concept has some customers so enthusiastic, they end up paying more than their fair share. This trend has also popped up in Seattle, Australia and Austria, and a similar restaurant is in the development stages for Durham, NC.
• The Nutricate Corporation has created a sales receipt for restaurants that lists the nutritional value of each item ordered. The receipt lists a breakdown of each item's calorie, fat, carbohydrate and protein content. A calculation of percentage of daily values from the total of items purchased - reflecting figures for daily intake of both 2,000 and 2,500 calorie diets - is also given. California-based Silvergreens restaurant is the first to use the Nutricate Receipt.

Fashion & Retail

• LA-based SilverJewelryClub gives away jewelry pieces to spread the word about the quality and craftsmanship of their designs. Customers only pay for shipping, and there are no limitations on the number of pieces a customer may receive. The website displays four pieces at a time, and visitors have 15 minutes to order each piece, after which a new product takes its place. In their own words, "Giving away our jewelry for free is our way of introducing our products. We know the competition is fierce, and we want you to experience our jewelry so that you will remember our brand...and consider our full catalog site http://www.peora.com/ for your future jewelry needs."

Marketing/Advertising/PR

• 81 billion return envelopes are sent through U.S. mail each year in credit-card statements, utility bills and other direct mailings. ecoEnvelopes, a Minnesota-based company, aims to eliminate the use of reply envelopes with a line of reusable envelopes that zip open, allowing users to insert their response or payment and seal them up again just like a regular envelope. ecoEnvelopes are manufactured with up to 100% post-consumer recycled content and recently received approval from the U.S. Postal Service. According to studies, companies that use ecoEnvelopes instead of two separate envelopes can save anywhere between 15 percent and 45 percent on envelope and related mailing costs by eliminating the need to print, insert and include a second envelope. They also boast increased direct mail response rates as high as 8 percent.
• Vice, the New York based free glossy, has figured out a new way toadvertise products on its cover - glow-in-the-dark ink. The magazine's Canadian edition is running an ad for BMW 1 Series, visible only in the dark, on the cover of its latest issue. The ad appears on the magazine's entire print run of 55,000 copies.

Media

• HachetteFilipacchi recently announced that Ty Pennington at Home, launched as a one-time special interest magazine last year, will be publishedas a quarterly, with a circulation of 500,000.
• Glam Media recently launched GlamLiving, a new vertical network for home, design, food and travel. More than 25 new websites, magazine sites and blogs, have joined the GlamMedianetwork of over 450 websites. The Glam Media family now features eight separate channels: Fashion, Beauty, Entertainment, Living, Health, Wellness and Shopping. Each channel offers a combination of original editorial, as well as media partner content created by industry insiders and experts. Glam Media reaches 29 million unique visitors in the U.S. and 44 million worldwide.
• Family Circle has joined forces with NASCAR to promote a new television series, "NASCAR: Serving It Up." The 40-episode show, running in syndication from September 2008 to September 2009, is a cooking competition show taped at NASCAR events. "Serving It Up" will show NASCAR fans cooking Family Circle recipes. The series is intended to build brand awareness, and sales, for both companies. NASCAR boasts 75 million fans, while Family Circle has a readership of 21 million.
• This week, Yahoo launched its new women-focused property called Shine. The site, headed by former Jane editor in chief Brandon Holley, will feature original material as well as media content from Redbook, Harper's Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, Prevention, Men's Health and In Style. Yahoo Food is also now housed within the Shine network. Shine will directly compete with Glam Media and NBC Universal's iVillage.