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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."
We should all eat it. It's the greenest soup.
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.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
58 percent wanted to know the specific attributes that prompted hi-tech firms to label their products green
#00ff00 maybe?
Thank you, I'll be here all week! Try the veal.
What, do they paint it green? Is it because it consumes less electricity? Is it because the circuit boards are made out of cardboard and bio-degradable silly putty? Or is this whole "green" movement nothing but an excuse for the boomers to try to look responsible in the waning years of their power, covering up the gross excesses of the past few decades, living amongst superfluous abundance while the rest of us watched the economy go straight to hell? These people jabber about carbon footprints, kilowatts, and they act like this is hard science. Most of the terms these "greenies" use are vague and could be defined many ways. People think driving an electric car is green -- but then fail to take into account that those high performance batteries are highly toxic and need replaced every few years. And the aluminum required to build those cars to be light enough to be practical requires huge amounts of electricity -- and most of that energy is created by burning coal.
The problem with the green movement, and any product that caters to it, is two-fold: One, lack of total picture. There is no objective way to compare two products in a similar category in a cradle-to-grave capacity. Fundamentally, it can't yet be done because we don't know what's more or less harmful than the next thing -- does a ton of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere equate to "more harm" than several ounces of CFCs? Without a way to make a direct comparison, or have a way to objectively measure a products "green performance", calling something green is meaningless. The second problem is... Many green products are of inferior quality and are higher priced than their non-green counterparts.
Why is this sham movement getting attention in the technical community? I'm not saying this as a troll, I honestly want to know -- how can you people as engineers and scientists look at this and say that any aspect of this so-called movement is objective?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
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.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
There is a big difference between what people interpret as being green. If you believed Greenpeace, we would all be back in the stone-age since everything has some type of impact on the nature. If you believe Apple and set it as a standard then all of our stuff would be more expensive, in line with the Apple products, no more $200 laptops. If you believe Dell 'green' is everything that is painted white (or black) in order to attract/detract heat or other types of radiation from certain components.
Then there are the politicians trying to define what is green and if you believe them, selling vouchers of cubic meters of carbon exhaust to 3rd world countries is their form of becoming 'green' while China and other 3rd world companies are becoming burial grounds for and are 'recycling' valuables from our dead gadgets in what they call 'green' initiatives.
A few years ago (60's-80's) becoming more environmental friendly was burning trash and putting exhaust pipes of factories higher in the sky effectively moving our problem higher. Now we've gone to burying our trash, effectively moving our problem again.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Like Energy Star?
Uh... would that be a bad thing or a good thing? Since this would presumably be specific to advertising, it's not exactly doublespeak.
Well, let's see the track record of the biggest consumer electronics green endeavor - lead free solder, enforced under ROHS. It replaces a very small amount of material (lead) which was 85% post consumer recycled content, with silver and tin which are mined from coral reefs. True, the waste when the product is thrown away (in a regulated, lined landfill in a rich green nation) is less toxic. Coral reefs and rain forest mining is a small price to pay. Perhaps we could make even less toxic, "organic" solder from baby seal pelts.
Gently reply
From TFA:
"More than half are willing to pay a little more for 'green'," said Mr Koening. "22 percent said they were willing to pay up to 15 percent more for it."
Green as a marketing gimmick is dangerous. The general idea is that green somehow is more expensive.
White wine vinegar is a nice natural cleaner, and it's cheap. So is ammonia in water. Why spend so much money on other alternatives?
Reducing package size is green and it costs less to produce. Why increase the price if cost is lowered?
If you can recycle all of a manufacturing plant's waste within the plant, you don't need to hire waste disposal, so why increase the price of goods made at the plant?
Business is constantly trying to get people to buy crap and justify it. Many of them are using the green label to justify their price tag, which is bullshit. In economics, the price of an item is not determined by the cost of the single item, but how much it is in demand, how much supply there is, and how much people perceive it's value. Companies go green because it either saves them money, or because a government tax break or tax penalty makes it more expensive not to go green.
Do not pay more for green products, demand the current products go green and don't increase their prices. On your own, look for natural alternatives which are just as good and easy to procure, but aren't made by big name brand labels.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Energy Star deals with electricity consumption in operating and standby modes. I think that this discussion is about more general "greenness". How much water is the factory polluting? How many cancer causing chemicals are present in this product? What is your recycling plan, and how many 3rd world countries does it include? Etc, etc.
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I'm all for being a good steward of the environment (that probably gives you a good hint as to my worldview, too).
But when it comes to "green," unless we're talking about dumping pollutants into various ponds, lakes, and oceans, the primary thing that I would be interested in "green" about is monetary. Like most things.
Specifically, if it uses less electricity, power, etc., and I don't need it to use more, that's a Good Thing (tm). For example, light bulbs. Unless it's a reading light (I don't like the "weird" light when I'm reading), the electricity-saving bulbs are nice on my electricity bill. I assume the same about other large appliances, though I haven't had to buy one yet.
But the "green" craze that companies seem to be going through is kind of annoying. Sort of like the organic fad. I'm actually into the organic food stuff (read: anti-hormone, somewhat against certain GMO stuff, not a fan of ingesting pesticides, and organically grown food usually tastes better, too), but the rich-posh-styling-trendy organic thing (the typical Trader Joes or Whole Foods crowd) is silly. A trendy, posh thing is one thing; a good reason to do it is another. I prefer good reasons over trends. Fashionable organic food or fashionable "green" consumer items are usually silly and overpriced, it seems. Like most lemming-reaction trends.
exactly what I was going to say
The products folks are clamoring for to be green are because "going green" saves them money; which is really what consumers are concerned about. CFLs are huge right now because in some markets (e.g. Southern California) they are cheaper than incandescent lighting and reduce ones electric bill, even if only by a small margin. "Green" cars were in when gas was $4.00/gal, but now that prices have fallen, I'm seeing more and more 07-08 Priuses having been traded in. Those buyers weren't "true believer" green purchasers, they just felt being "green" would be cheaper in the form of lower engergy costs. When driving a 17mpg car became cheaper than the car payments on a hybrid or the maintainence (having to go to the dealer for service) folks are now unloading them (I'm car shopping and have seen a big raise in the number of used hybrids available; part of which may be that they are just becoming more common and the 3-year/car dirvers are now starting to move to their next purchase).
I think the however that a small part of them that feels like they are doing the "right thing", because it does seem when two products are the same in price and quality the green one is chosen; but it is definately secondary for most people. I'd say the best test for that was to see how many consumers would but the more expensive product that was identical except the "green" bottle was $.10 or $.50 or $1.00 more; particularly for consumer goods that don't have other buying decision reasons such as being "organic" like food.
Companies love it because like the consumer, it saves them money, particularly when they can sell the product for more money "because it is green" when it cost them less to make it, or pass the savings on to the customer and beat their competitor at the price game. It is a win-win in either scenario; and gets their foot in the door with the truly eco-conscience consumer who may never have bought form X vendor due to their environmental history. In this case, lip-service is still service.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
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.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The big problem for consumers is that when buying an assembled product such as a computer, there's really no way to determine whether or not it's actually "green" other than by taking their word for it. There's just too many pieces from too many sources for a consumer to realistically track it all down. What needs to happen is the industry needs to rally around a third party grading system that tries to objectively measure and then certify finished products.
The example that comes to mind is the LEED system that is used for buildings. The architecture/construction world has the green building council, and through all that there's some standardized education systems for helping people learn how to do sustainable design, and there's a point system that is used to basically grade buildings on the basis of green/sustainable design/construction/etc. This system allows a building owner/tenants/etc to be confident that their building is actually sustainable, and not just take the architect/contractor's word for it. But it also has other positive side effects, because it gives the architects/contractor's some solid goals to shoot for if they're attempting to design sustainably, and it also gives building component/materials manufacturers good benchmarks to shoot for when designing their individual products.
There are a number of competing systems to LEED, but at least in the US, LEED is the main game in town.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I think to clarify the situation it should be pointed out that pea soup isn't the greenest soup. That would probably be broccoli. Can the parent be modded down for culinary trolling ? He probably knew that all the broccoli people would jump in screaming to the thread.
Parent is posting off-topic - it has nothing to do with pea soup - in an attempt to attract moderator attention. This is gaming the /. moderation system and it should not be tolerated. If you are uncomfortable moderating Off-topic, please use Overrated.
To the parent: if you have something to say about the article, reply to the article like everybody else.
While true that the article has nothing to do with pea soup, it has plenty to do with buying green products. Pea soup is green.
The parent post will get a +1 insightful to grant karma, and then get modded to +5 funny. As for your post, sadly we lack a -1 Joyless Whiner mod, so you will have to settle for Off-topic.
The Mod Squad
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
Some issues? You mean like catching fire?
[...] CO2 and other poisonous gases.
CO2 is not poisonous... It helps make the environment greener :-P