Gallery: Green Design Predictions for ...

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Piers Fawkes - Trend Forecaster, Founder & Editor-in-chief of Trend Agency & website PSFK.com

In 2012 I think we're going to see a lot more 'Social Pairing'. This will be through existing or new social networks where the systems mine members' profiles and updates and then matches people up based on interests, needs, location. Examples are Crush + Lovely that finds similar people to do activities together or the Swedish farmers co-operative that formed Restdejting to get single people to dine together to eat food that would otherwise be thrown away. Social Pairing won't only drive green behavior but this trend seems to be creating hyper-efficiencies - where people can connect in a way that would have taken forever before - and also allows the optimized use of products - people can share or use unwanted products. This in turn fosters a feeling of community (geographic or activity based) and further collaboration could follow as a result.

1. Peter Ward, Ph.D – Paleontologist, Author of On Methuselah’s Trail: Living Fossils and the Great Extinctions, Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle

2. Cameron Sinclair – Founder, Architecture for Humanity

3. Katie Fehrenbacher – Editor, Earth2Tech.com and Writer, GigaOM.com

4. Bob Vila – Home Improvement, Home Remodeling, and Home Repair Expert, Host of This Old House

5. Zem Joaquin – Founder & Editor-in-chief, Ecofabulous.com

6. Piers Fawkes – Trend Expert, Founder & Editor-in-chief, PSFK.com

7. Jennifer Schwab – Chief Sustainability Officer, Sierra Club Green Home

8. Tafline Laylin – Managing Editor, Green Prophet; Inhabitat Contributor

9. Mike Chino – Managing Editor, Inhabitat

10. Yuka Yoneda – Senior Editor, Inhabitat

11. Jill Fehrenbacher – Editor in Chief and Founder, Inhabitat

Did our experts’ predictions for 2011 hit or miss the mark? Read what they had to say about last year here…

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