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."

The specific attributes

[getuid()]

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.

It won't be really green...

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they add the "eco" prefix. Nothing truely good for gaia comes without the "eco."

Re:The specific attributes

[stokessd]

I'm #ff0000 #00ff00 colorbind you insensitive clod!

Sheldon

Re:I was putting it back ON topic...

[2.7182]

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.

Re:What the hell is green anyway?

[N1ck0]

In this day and age everyone needs to take responsibility for the environment, so it is our pleasure to announce Foomatic Industries Green Initiative and it new line of Green* Widgets.

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* Green products are those made with natural materials** only

** Natural materials are considered those found naturally within our universe consisting of normal matter***

*** Normal matter refers to matter which does not contain dark matter or exotic particles****

**** Please note some of our products may contain exotic particles and forms of matter but these were not explicitly added during the manufacture or created by a man-made process*****.

***** Please note Foomatic industries is only aware of the actions made by Foomatic Industries Employees****** during the manufacture process.

****** Some components of Foomatic Industries products are outsourced to other companies, and Foomatic Industries is not liable for the manufacturing processes or regulation of exotic matter in the creation of those components.

Re:Very unlikley

[plague3106]

Some issues? You mean like catching fire?

Re:Really?

[RobinH]

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.

Having given this scenario a lot of thought recently, consider what happens to the money that the company saved. The "control" case is that they money is spent on energy/waste whatever. The "better" case is that less money is spent on energy/waste. Let's assume this translates into the company spending X dollars *less* on these expense accounts.

At the end of the accounting period, assuming revenue and all other expenses are the same, the company actually has more money in the bank. What happens to that money?

a) If the company leaves it in the bank, the bank will loan it out to other people/companies, all of whom will use it to purchase stuff, all of which will consume energy.

b) If the company re-invests the money in itself, it will spend it on capital projects, which of course consumes energy.

c) If the company disperses the income as dividends to shareholders, then the shareholders either put it in the bank (see (a)) or spend it (see (b)) or invest it. Investment increases the capital pool, which is all money available to companies to use and spend, presumably on stuff that will use energy.

Now all of these things are good *for the economy* because money is being spent more efficiently (we as humans are getting more of stuff that we value). However, I just can't see this kind of activity making any kind of difference on total energy, because what's happening is that we are getting more for the same amount of energy. The total energy used by a society will be roughly correlated with the amount of money spent in the economy, or depending on how you look at the relationship, vice-versa.

Has anyone else followed this line of thinking? Any thoughts?

I know that there are "clean" technologies vs. "dirty" technologies, so theoretically, expending equal dollars on a clean alternative might work (certainly common sense says it will). The immediate effect would be a lower price of the dirty technology (supply and demand), and then some suppliers of the dirty technology would stop producing it because it's no longer as profitable, until the supply drops enough that the price returns to a profitable level.

So from what I can tell, reducing consumption (and waste) of a commodity is good for the economy, but not necessarily for the environment. However, switching to an alternative "cleaner" commodity that costs the same *is* good for the environment, but neutral to the economy.