GoodWoodWatch, a collaboration of local environmental groups and the Canadian branches of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, has praised Vanoc for using renewable, local lumber in place of building materials like steel, aluminium and plastic, which have much higher carbon costs.

ECONOMIST: The 2010 Winter Olympics

Oh, and they decided to build the airplane out of plastic along with other novel materials and technologies, so it would have been a big experiment even if Boeing approached manufacturing like it always had.

FORBES: Boeing Has An Airplane Problem, Not a PR Problem

Worldwide, airlines have been slowly but steadily putting into operation two next-generation aircraft -- Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350 -- both of which have shells made heavily of composite materials, such as carbon-fibre reinforced plastic, instead of aluminium.

BBC: Increased comfort in the sky

Mr Twombly, who is being given his first retrospective in 15 years, uses materials that have come to him at random bits of wood, cardboard, bronze boxes, palm leaves and plastic flowers.

ECONOMIST: American contemporary art