The Happy Cog-designed social network for Brighter Planet is now in public beta. Come on down and kick the tires. Brighter Planet helps you take control of your environmental footprint: measure your climate impact, discover simple ways to reduce it, track your progress, and share your experiences with other people who who want to make a difference.

Happy Cog‘s New York office developed this project. The team:

• Aaron Gustafson, front-end development (blog, articles, Twitter)
• Naz Hamid, design (website, Twitter)
• Whitney Hess, user experience (blog, Twitter).
• Erin Kissane, content strategy (articles, blog, Twitter)
• Kelly McCarthy, project manager
• Jeffrey Zeldman, creative director

This truly collaborative project could not have been conceived or completed without the brilliant and generous work of Brighter Planet team members including:

• CTO Adam Rubin (bio, blog, Twitter)
• Co-founder and Product Design Director Andy Rossmeissl (Twitter, bio)
• Senior Systems Engineer Seamus Abshere (bio)
• Rails developer Rich Sturim (Twitter, bio)

Not only is this young, passionate team dedicated to reducing climate change and all things green, they are also marketing kingpins, shrewd user experience designers, and badass developers.

We love our clients. These folks and this project are dear to us. And it’s a fun way to make a difference. I hope you’ll check out Brighter Planet’s new beta social network.

[tags]brighterplanet, climatechange, beta, site, launch, launches, webdesign, projects, work, happycog[/tags]

To claim the gift, visit my One Day Carbon Neutral page, created by Brighter Planet.

So far, Brighter Planet has given away over 3,300 gifts and offset more than 440,000 pounds of CO2. That’s like everyone in America turning off their lights for a minute. The goal is to give away 5,000 One Day gifts and offset 680,000 pounds of CO2.

The average American emits 136 pounds of carbon dioxide each day. About 36 pounds come from driving, flying, and other travel. Another 22 pounds come from heating, cooling, and powering our homes. The final 78 pounds come from producing, transporting, and disposing of all the stuff we buy, and from shared services like schools and street lights. 136 pounds would fill 5,000 balloons—imagine releasing that every day.

Brighter Planet supports renewable energy projects in communities across the U.S.

[tags]climate change, offsets, gift, holiday[/tags]

[tags]climate change, environment, global warming, carbon footprint, brighter planet, video, competition, contest[/tags]