Green Is In At CES, But Is It Real?

OTL writes "You've heard the talk of 'Green' throughout the whole of 2008, but the way a product affects the environment will be a huge consideration in consumer buying habits, at least when it comes to gadgets. But, the CEA report also said that consumers are very skeptical about the green claims made by high-tech firms for their products. More than 38 percent of those interviewed by the CEA said they were confused by green product claims and 58 percent wanted to know the specific attributes that prompted hi-tech firms to label their products green."

Comments

Pea soup!

[Anonymous Coward]

We should all eat it. It's the greenest soup.

Buzzwords

[Spazztastic]

It's a buzzword. It'll get people to buy your product regardless because it catches attention, along with terms like "This new design is very Web 2.0." Want to know more? Watch Penn & Teller's: Bullshit!, they have an episode on Going Green.

Really?

[cayenne8]

"...the way a product affects the environment will be a huge consideration in consumer buying habits, at least when it comes to gadgets. "

Is this really the case?

Honestly, I don't know anyone that takes into consideration how 'green' something is before they purchase it...especially gadgets.

I know there is a sizable minority growing that is concerned about everything 'green', but, really...in the general public, while they may even be vocally in favor of 'green' things...does it really affect their everyday life and their purchases?

Those green advertising dollars are certainly lost on me...I buy stuff I want because I want it, without regard to greenness or anything else.

Re:Really?

[denis-The-menace]

The Greenest is the Fit-PC

http://www.fit-pc.com/new/

but you wont get performance or Vista running...

Re:Really?

[Fozzyuw]

Honestly, I don't know anyone that takes into consideration how 'green' something is before they purchase it...especially gadgets.

Actually, there are some but the general market research that my company has conducted (as well as many others I'm sure) will show that almost no consumer will pay more for a "green" product but they will likely choose a "green" product over a "non-green" product if all other things are equal. Which comes down to a simple idea of perceived value. In this case, the "green" product will make the consumer feel like they're getting more for their money (as intangible or obscure as it might directly be).

However, there is a very small segmentation of society that will "walk to walk", so to speak, and spend considerably more money on products labeled green. Most will not and most that do buy green products buy them for financial, not environmental, reasons. Meaning, they bought a Hybrid because they figured they'd be saving on gas costs. Or they bought CFL bulbs to save money on the electric bill. Stuff like that.

Very few consumers, if any, will pay more for green products. Simply said, spending money on making your product green, which will increase the price of your product, is not a good business decision. Luckily, most companies are finding out that they can do "green" things and save money. Turning off the lights and computers at the end of the day. Finding ways to reuse/recycle manufacturing waste or even implementing better recycling programs can save a company a lot of money while benefiting the environment.

I'm close enough to these ideas as the Market Research guy sits right across from me and has shown me our report on the "green" topic. I'm also part of my companies "Green Team" for which we've implemented and discussed some of the above examples. Just by implementing a better recycling program, we're cutting down a sizable percentage of waste going to a landfill, which in-turn, means less cost because waste removal is charged by the weight. As well as, once being charged for hauling away recyclables, there are companies who will do it for no cost because they actually make a fair amount on turning in recyclables.

Though, one interesting statistic from the last Executive Leadership Team minutes was that my company has managed to reduce overall electrical consumption by a few percentage points but the total costs more than doubled. Ouch.

Though, the whole "green" push has turned into "green-washing", where companies are overstating or trying to point out excessively small environmental impacts for the sake of PR.

Re:Really?

[plover]

Though, the whole "green" push has turned into "green-washing", where companies are overstating or trying to point out excessively small environmental impacts for the sake of PR.

And what's wrong with that? If there's no effective difference between Brand X and Green Brand, what is wrong with putting an extra filter on your smoke stack, tossing it in a green bottle and slapping a couple of 'Green Brand saves the planet!' stickers on it? It's Marketing 101 -- differentiate your product. It just has to be factual -- nobody said it had to be meaningful. Really, it just has to get a handful of shoppers to throw your product in their cart rather than the other guy's product. It's all statistics.

People seem to forget that businesses are in business to make a profit, and that means they have a responsibility to their shareholders to get people to buy their products. Making customers "feel better" because they picked ***TreeHugger Magazine's Greenest Product of the Year!*** is a perfectly legitimate sales tactic (when it's true.)

Business' other responsibility to their shareholders is frugality. If they can manufacture the product with 10% less energy, they may reduce their power bills. Again, Marketing 101 says "take credit for the action", even though it was done purely to save the company money, and none of those savings were passed on to the customer.

Green computing in a nutshell

[damn_registrars]

I had lunch last week with a former colleague who is now working for a company that does setup and support for data centers all over the country. The conversation of course at one point went to "green computing".

He told me that the most common application for "green computing" that companies request is to help with heat management. In particular companies in climates that need regular heating are moving their datacenters to the lowest floor possible to try to re-use the heat from the servers on higher floors.

In short, a big part of "green computing" right now comes down to (moving) hot air.

Which of course many of us IT guys have been good at for many, many year already.

Re:What the hell is green anyway?

[girlintraining]

I'll start taking you "Green is BS" people a little more seriously when you stop using your FUD.

Well, as long as you asked me to look it up, and because you just had to take my general statement and turn it into a specific instance, well then okay -- here you go. Word from Toyota itself stating that most emission ratings are higher in the Prius than gasoline powered vehicles -- with exception only to the driving cycle.

In plain english, your champion green car is less green to produce than those evil gas burning cars.

The Truly "Green" Products Are Those Not Made

[Ron Bennett]

The truly "green" products are those that aren't made to begin with.

Reducing global human population growth would go far further at conserving the environment than all this "green" nonsense combined.

Ron