The Viridian Design Movement, the brainchild of science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, is an on line collective of designers and technologists dedicated to the use of technology to create resource-aware products and "inspired innovations" to a variety of modern society's problems. Employing a flexible, temporary and scalable design philosophy, this group promotes the human benefits of consumer products, and shuns the worship of permanent objects and systems.

One of the more interesting aspects of this movement is their advocacy of the concept of giving creativity away. Contemporary artists and designers should not horde their ideas, but use the variety of channels available to willingly share them worldwide, for free. Love it or leave it, but its not often to hear an articulate call for design action and self promotion.

http://www.viridiandesign.org
Main site of the organization, with lots of links and resources.

http://www.bespoke.org/viridian
Viridian mailing list archive, with a variety of thought provoking articles.

http://www.sustainer.org/Viridian
Results of the recently completed Viridian design competition for electric meters.