Amazon Green, a new store from Amazon, focuses on listing environmentally friendly products. Included already are eco-friendly cleaning products, EnergyStar approved lighting products and office electronics.

Currently, they’re also asking customers for their Green 3 products: the three green products that they wish everybody had. The current top three are reusable shopping bags and a couple of different CFL bulbs (fourth is a push reel lawn mower).

The 2008 Summer Olympic Games has started in China, and with a very impressive ceremony both in terms of scale and execution. But as well as the opening ceremony, the sporting events and the inevitable political commentary that will surround the games, this year there is also a focus on the environment.

Earth2Tech has a list of ten companies who have provided some eco-friendly equipment for the games. Everybody from LED lighting experts Cree, who provided LED displays for the swimming cube and the bird’s nest National Stadium, to companies like GE who are involved in all kinds of projects at the games, including wind turbines, solar lighting and even rainwater recycling.

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There have been a number of eco-friendly transportation announcements over the past few days, so here’s a quick round up of the ones that caught our attention:

• A cardboard bicycle from a student at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. Created initially in an attempt to reduce theft, the low cost cardboard bicycle which is made almost entirely from recyclable and recycled materials and uses interchangeable mechanical parts.
• Inhabitat reports that Mercedes Benz intends to convert their entire line up of luxury cars to alternative fuels by 2015. That might sound like a long time in the future, but it is only 7 years away!
• SolarLab will be launching a solar powered rickshaw in London next year as a pilot program. If it performs well there, it will be released into other cities around the world too. The solar hybrids are human/electric hybrids combining pedal power and solar electric power from an array of photo-voltaic panels on the roof of the rickshaw. [Via InHabitat.]
• In Austin, Texas, Doug Pelmear claims he has modified a 1987 Ford Mustang engine, perfecting ideas his grandfather had 60 years ago, and his car now achieves 110 mpg. The car produces 400 bhp, and is claimed to go from zero to 60mph in just 3 seconds.

As oil prices continue to rise, consumers will become more and more interested in lower cost alternatives. Luckily for the planet, many of the solutions for reducing our dependency on oil are also good for the environment – a win, win situation.

A simple change that everybody can make around their house is to change some of those old incandescent light bulbs into new, energy efficient ones. That not only helps the planet, but it will reduce the household electricity bill too. But how much difference does it make, and which option should I choose?

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Welcome to the Vertography blog! This blog is our way of sharing planet-friendly hints and tips, other green resources we find on the internet as well as our forum to give you information about the on-going development of the Vertography application (more on that soon).

Who Are We?

Vertography is run by a small team of engineers who care about the environment, and want to make it painless for anybody to live green. We think we can help you see that living green doesn’t need to be difficult, and even better it can save you money; money that is much better spent on enjoying your life.

What Are We Going To Write Here?

While we’re busy working on the main application, we’ll be sharing with you some of our hints and tips for living a greener life. And don’t worry, we’re not into hugging trees. We like to enjoy life to the max, but at the same time avoid hurting the planet – after all, it is the only one we have.

We’ll also be writing about new green technology that we hear about; everything from light bulb technology to high performance electric cars are in scope for the blog. If you find something cool out there too, please share it with us either by leaving us a comment or by emailing it to us at feedback@vertography.com.