Handmade for home: Go natural for your home with award winning Cobonpue full organic furniture from the Philippines.

Whether you like solo shopping or shopping with a friend, there is one shopping partner you should never leave home without. No, it's not a credit card, it's your global consciousness.

For the Singapore-based organisation Qi Global, this is the way of the future and the ticket to a better world.

By becoming a conscientious consumer, it means that what you buy is based less on economy and more on value - not only for yourself but for the creators and their communities.

Qi (pronounced like Chi) Global looks to unifying the threads that weave between Design, Innovation and Sustainability; and it is here that discerning shoppers can find and support completely new perspectives far removed from business as usual.

Designed by Singgih Kartono of Indonesia, these wooden two-toned radios are individually serial numbered and iPod/MP3 ready!

Since its foundation in 2009, Qi Global has been concerned with spreading new ideas about sustainable development.

Every October Qi Global hosts a conference in Singapore where some of the world's most progressive thinkers and doers meet and discuss solutions to some of our most challenging social and environmental problems.   

Products That Care

Throughout Asia, there are people and communities who embrace globalisation, but on their own terms.  For them it means making products that not only look good, but ultimately do good.

What Qi does is bring this ideals to the attention of people, and provide a way for this growing community of creative and conscientious designers to maintain their local environment and ways of life.

Fancy a bag made from recycled aluminum tabs?  How about a flower-shaped solar battery charger?

Drink To This! Recycled aluminum pull tabs make sleek and stylish handbags by Escama Studio

Solio so good: Charge up your mobile devices anywhere under the sun with this amazing little gadget

Closer to home there are the retro-inspired objects being made by Central Javanese villagers under the Magno brand, where radios, office accessories and “toys for the soul” help not only create livelihoods, but also preserve a traditional way of life.

Or the award-winning furniture of Kenneth Cobonpue, who uses the natural materials of his native Cebu Island, to create stunningly beautiful furniture. These are all useful and practical objects, that blend form, function as well as help improve the lives of others.  Who would have thought that making the world a better place could look so cool?  

The next Qi Event is at the SOTA, October 11-16.  Their office and showroom is at 17A Jalan Pinang. Visit their website www.qi-global.com.