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The rise of the sharing economy has disrupted our relationships with objects, services, energy and spaces. And when it comes to the workspace, innovative work environments such as Hub Bay Area are saving young entrepreneurs money while exposing them to new ideas traditional office spaces cannot offer. Now a Silicon Valley start-up, with its new app on the loose, makes it easier for any freelancer or group of professionals to score a co-working space or conference room rental quickly and efficiently.

A review of green building certification systems has some commentators worried that the federal government is about to weaken its green requirements for construction and upgrades of federal buildings.

The sharing economy is really an exciting new development that can and will continue to take on many new forms as innovation continues to broaden our horizons and break down the barriers that once stood in the way of the world becoming more like one big family.

Flooring is a key consideration in sustainability within the built environment -- including reuse and recycling -- so we were pleased to chat at length with Rudi Daelmans, director of sustainability at Desso, which manufactures carpets and carpet tiles for applications in more than 100 countries. Its products are supplied to corporate offices, education, healthcare, government, homes and also hotels, cruise liners and airlines. Desso has a long-established reputation for reliability, quality, design and functionality as well as its Cradle to Cradle approach.

In David Korten’s 1995 classic book, When Corporations Rule the World, he talks about the three-legged stool of people, government, and business and how an ideal society is the one that achieves a working balance between the interests of these three entities (parallels to the triple bottom line should be clear). To allow any one of the three to achieve dominance is to tilt towards anarchy, socialism, or some kind of feudal hyper-capitalism that subverts the needs of the many to the whims of the privileged and well-connected few.

In case you haven't heard, dolphins are awesome. Sure, we come from different worlds and all, but our ocean-going mammalian counterparts possess many admirable qualities and characteristics that endear them to us like few other species on Earth.

Still not sure about investing in recycling for your business? A study released by the World Bank late last year should be your wake up call.

According to “What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management,” the volume of municipal solid waste is expected to grow worldwide from 1.3 billion metric tons per year to 2.2 billion metric tons per year by 2025. And it’s going to cost the world’s cities $375 billion to manage it -- almost double the current $205 billion.

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KPMG’s recent research, tellingly entitled The Transformation of the Automotive Industry, observes that, “The global automotive industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation due to increasing consumer preferences toward vehicles with a lower carbon footprint.”