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To present the project for creating, developing and producing the eco-efficient window (EEW), ECO123 interviewed its creator, architect Miguel Veríssimo. ECO 123 – What led you to design this window?   Miguel Veríssimo – The EEW is a project dating from 2005/07. It arose from a practical need: a lack of eco-efficient building solutions on the market that could be mass produced, are easy to apply and are able to guarantee results when fitted in buildings. Once the idea was launched, I set up partnerships with the Physics and Technology of Buildings Laboratory at the University of Minho and with …

What you need to live is a good idea, a little bit of creativity together with an education, and a good helping of self-confidence. Take the same quantity of optimism, along with a sprinkling of realism. Don’t forget to shake well. Mix everything together well, examine it again in detail and critically, reflect on the whole thing and ask your friends for their advice and opinions. Then you’ll get quite a good product. A bit of start-up capital is also necessary, of course. You can get that from www.ppl.com.pt or ask Mum and Dad, your best friends or, when there’s …

The Portuguese oyster is that best appreciated by the French, the largest European consumers of this gastronomic speciality. However, because its development is slightly slower and smaller in size than its rivals, Portugal is now importing sprat Asian oysters from France and raising them along the Algarve coastline, where they are able to grow more rapidly before sending them back to their country of origin for consumption. And the local Portuguese oyster is steadily disappearing off the three still existing beds. Lisbon’s Márcia Santos and Madeira’s Maurício Namora, while students of Marine Biology at the University of the Algarve, decided …

We live in an era of entrepreneurship, a concept that means creating business opportunities (1). In this sense, if anyone deserves the title of entrepreneur, it is Andresa Salgueiro. She already had what most people are looking for at present: a stable, well-paid job, a house and a car, but she decided to swap everything – with the key word being “swap”. Until recently, Andresa was a training manager in five-star hotels. But on the day her marriage ended, in part because of disagreements relating to attitudes on sustainability, she gave up everything and decided to live off 1111€ for …

Sagres. After 15 years, the Forte de Beliche has, like Sleeping Beauty, been woken from its sleep. Once upon a time, guests could eat well and sleep here. But then the small, loss-making, 5-star pousada was closed by the state, given up, forgotten. In the mid-1990s, a landslip underneath the chapel of Henry the Navigator (1391-1460) triggered fears that the whole monument could slide into the sea. The work that is needed to make it geologically safe is today more a question of high architectural art, of the money needed to provide this and of political will. In the search …

The ceremony presenting the eCobus, organised by Salvador Caetano and Siemens Portugal, took place on 8th October at Inter Airport Europe (international trade fair for the airports sector) in Munich. Being presented as the first 100% electric airport bus, the eCobus is derived from the Cobus diesel vehicles produced by Caetano Bus (the factory of the Salvador Caetano group based in Gaia) to which electric motor conversion systems are applied, developed by Siemens Portugal. The project also involved the collaboration of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Management in the optimisation of each model. With an investment of one …

There are still people who don’t ride bikes because Portugal is not a “cyclable” country. But Rui Araújo, a Portuguese researcher from the University of Minho, decided to solve the problem: he made a prototype of a kit that can turn “normal” bicycles into electric bicycles. Costing €500, this device can be fitted to all bicycles, providing a range of 60 km and a maximum speed of 25 kph. This project was Rui’s Master’s thesis for the course in Industrial Electronic Engineering and Computers he is attending, and although it’s not ready to be sold commercially yet, a new kit …

The private educational programme for schools “Faia Brava” was successfully financed through crowdfunding  (www.ppl.com.pt) . €4,150 was used for six safari tents so that classes of school children could be given practical eco-lessons on the ground in the Faia Brava gorge in the wilderness of northern Portugal. €4,508 was raised from 77 private investors and donors. Themed walks, bird watching, seminars and educational games in the over 850 hectares of the unique nature reserve of the river Côa to the north of Guarda are intended to ensure increased understanding of our flora and fauna in Portugal.

Every day, thousands of cosmetic products are consumed, the majority of which contain some kind of chemical agent which tends to affect one’s health. It was with this concern it mind that the sisters Rita and Cátia Curica founded Organii, the first Portuguese company dedicated to organic cosmetics with personalised solutions for each skin. Products are cultivated without any use of pesticides and produced without the addition of any artificial ingredients. Organii’s idea is to obtain purer and more active extracts, and in parallel reduce their environmental footprint. It is not only that the products were not tested on animals; …

At a time when clothing-related allergies are becoming increasingly worse, the online shop Tecidos Ecológicos (Ecological Fabrics) has invested in supplying ecological fabrics. This means that the manufacture of the fabrics is sustainable (1) because, by avoiding the use of chemicals, the effect on the health of the planet and its inhabitants is reduced to a minimum. But also because all types of synthetic dyes or those produced through genetic manipulation are avoided. All the items sold by Tecidos Ecológicos have certification from GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standards), an organisation involving the USA, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan. The …