Let’s go ahead and just say it: wallpaper and tiles are long dead. New ecological paint job—well, baby, you can get a little more creative than that. The way to go, if you want to really make a statement for guests and live in something conducive to green all the way, is investing in an Ekobe wall. Composed of 100% natural materials, the tiles by the Brazilian company are veggie matter. We’re not talking about banana peels or apple cores; this stuff gets more tropical and exotic, like the insides and outsides of coconut shells. The Membira line goes so far as to mix in rice peel (you can peel rice?). The surfaces are often presented as mosaics that have their own particular discoloration or irregularities in texture—all aspects that reflect their truly natural origins. Consumers can apply Ekoba products to pretty much any internal surface but are advised against making major pathways with the square pieces because it seems they’ll disintegrate with all that wear and tear. As you can see from the photo, surfaces made with Ekobe tiles lend themselves to stunning interiors and stand apart from anything else out there. I’d jump at a chance to attend a meeting in that room. The tiles are available at Nemo Tile in NYC.

If we ever wanted to create a nursery with an “Animals Our Children Will Never See” motif, this Global Warming rug by the Mexican design team at NEL (and available at Spanish retailer Nanimarquina) would certainly tie that room together. Maybe you can’t see it, but they surely intended this to be a Big Lebowski environmental metaphor: you see, the carbon-spewing corporations, those are the “carpet pissers.” Society is like the Dude, who just wanted his rug back. And Al Gore? We’d like him to be Walter, but see him as more of a Donny.