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From Greenwash to Greentech: the Consumer Electronics Industry Gets a Clue
by Lee H Goldberg
If you judged the Consumer Electronics Association’s Greener Gadgets conference by what was going on in its small exhibit area you’d have to conclude that our planet is doomed. All but three booths on the sparse show floor were either laughable examples of greenwashing or outreach programs from various industry organizations which, for the most part, have treated any environmental issues their members encountered as simple marketing problems. One of the more priceless moments of the day came when a representative from a major Japanese battery manufacturer that was pimping their landfill safe disposable batteries tried to convince me that their products were better for the environment than rechargeable batteries.
The results of Greener Gadgets' design competition were nearly as dismal. Over half of the 50 entries that made the final round were based on imaginary technologies, bad science, or came even close to heeding the contest’s instructions: to “seek ways to minimize the environmental impact of consumer electronic devices at any stage in the product lifecycle.”
Fortunately, the thoughtful conversations going on inside the conference sessions stood in sharp contrast to the fluffy doings in the exhibit hall. In fact, it was the first time I’ve seen the mainstream electronics industry asking itself the difficult questions it’s been actively avoiding for the last decade.
By trying to answer tough questions such as, “How do you quantify the green-ness of a product or service?” or, “Where should companies devote their efforts to make the most environmental impact?” the participants at Greener Gadgets got a good look at the challenges the tech sector faces in creating a future that’s sustainable – both economically and environmentally. While the conference produced even fewer conclusive answers than pieces of practical hardware, the questions it raised contain the seeds of new technologies and business models that could help save the planet: and jump-start a flagging global economy in the process.
Attendees got a sharp wake-up call from opening speaker Saul Griffith, who wasted no time in getting the audience’s attention with his physicist’s-eye-view of global climate change, its causes, and the choices we’ll have to make in the near future. According to Griffith, the energy that it takes to support the average American’s lifestyle consumes the equivalent to 23 lbs coal, 23 lbs of oil, and 200 cubic feet of natural gas per day. Even if we could continue to find enough fossil fuels to drill, dig and pump, they probably represent a level of consumption that will raise atmospheric CO2 levels to an apocalyptic 800 parts-per-million in our kids’ lifetimes.
A dozen slides later, it became clear that stabilizing CO2 at survivable levels of 450 ppm, or less, is a difficult but achievable task that could require a complete re-engineering of the global economy. To meet the aggressive timetable to hit levels of CO2 that most scientists agree are sustainable, Griffith proposed a two-pronged approach of reducing how much energy we consume and meeting most of the remaining demand with a mix of sun, wind, geothermal and biofuels. Even if we trim per-capita energy consumption significantly, the world will need around 16 TW worth of power – only 2 - 3 TW worth can be generated from fossil fuels if we don’t want to exceed the 450ppm limit.
If there is a bright spot in Griffith’s analysis, it’s that the so-called “Age of Consequence” we are entering represents real and significant opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs. We’ve already seen lots of imagination being applied to developing renewable energy systems as well as the smart grid technologies we’ll need to make the best use of them. But while most of today’s cleantech investments are being directed towards the supply side of the clean energy equation, this scenario makes it apparent that there are an equal or greater number of opportunities for demand-side solutions. And pursuing those opportunities could mean a dramatic shift in the way consumer electronics does business. Here’s a sampling of what the future might look like:
The higher cost of transportation in a carbon-constrained world will certainly not eliminate business or leisure travel, but it could lead to fewer, longer trips – and increased demand for innovative, energy-efficient teleconferencing and tele-presence technologies. I wonder how long it will be until Kinko's, or some enterprising hotel chain, starts offering comfortable, well-equipped tele-presence suites (maybe with 3-D capability?) that would allow people to hold meetings that are nearly as good as face-to-face meetings for a fraction of the cost (and carbon impact) of airfare? I’d also predict that those tele-presence centers will do a brisk business selling their weekend time slots at off-peak rates to families and grandparents.
We’ll also see a boom in any technology that does more with less energy. Whether it’s smart building technologies, efficient automated product recycling, or low-till agricultural systems, the rising cost of energy is creating new markets that represent most of the next decade’s opportunities for the tech sector.
Since manufacturing is responsible for a significant fraction of our overall energy consumption, Griffith proposed that consumer goods makers adopt an Heirloom Technology business model, producing long-lived goods that provide long-term satisfaction in their ownership. These heirloom tech products would be designed to age well, with the companies that made them deriving a significant portion of their ongoing revenues from repair and upgrade services. It’s sort of interesting to imagine a cell phone, computer, or other piece of electronics gear with a case that takes on a warm patina as it ages and is refreshed every year or two with upgrades purchased on a subscription basis.
Most of the rest of the sessions at Greener Gadgets were more practical, but equally exciting. Of particular note was the “Measuring Your Hue of Green” session where panel host Adam Aston, Energy and Environment Editor of BusinessWeek, sought to find more useful ways of defining the environmental friendliness of consumer goods. It was the first mainstream electronics conference I’ve attended where industry actually started to think about a product’s environmental impact in terms of how it’s manufactured, what it does while it is in service, and how it’s disposed of or re-used at the end of its life. Despite the diverse opinions of the panelists, there was some consensus that a truly useful metric of a product’s real environmental contribution would also have to include the efficiency it adds to another system, such as smart building technologies and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
It will be a while before there is a commonly-accepted metric for product green-ness that goes beyond compliance with the simple hazardous substances restrictions in use today, but the lively dialogue that occurred at Greener Gadgets is a sign that this will happen sooner than later. For the moment, I’ll just be satisfied with seeing them show up on the exhibit floor of next year’s conference.
Comments? Questions? Other priceless examples of greenwashing or real green-tech you’d like to share? Write me at lhg at en-genius dot net or post your comments on our blog.
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