slate.com’s green lantern does comparisons like this regularly:

http://www.slate.com/id/2174662/landing/1/

The most important ecological impact factor for me is whether or not products are tested on animals. That is one immediate criteria that I can use to select products that I am comfortable with using, and, I suspect that company concerned with being cruelty-free will also be reasonable enough to consider and address other ecological impact factors as well.

How do (or can) the ‘avoided costs’ created by technology get factored into the footprint analysis to get a net effect. For example, the better communication technology have significantly changed my legal practice over 20+ years with far fewer plane and car trips now than in prior years because of my Blackberry, video conferencing, real time document editing (and, yes, I did get an iPad too and love it) allow me to stay in the office and still service clients far and wide? Trading transportation environmental costs for other costs incurred in building the gadgets?

Thanks

It does seem incredibly complicated to fully evaluate the ecological impact of any one thing from concept through burial. Going to the library for a book is an example…on the surface seems very low impact, but does it consider the the impact of someone who lives 9 miles from the library using their vehicle to get there (and returning it too)??

Tom,

To many products say “GREEN” to no effect on truly being green.

Lost me on this years ago.

I put a great deal of thought into my purchases and attempt to select the options with the least impact: I buy refurbished phones, used books, locally-produced foods, reusable products. I re-use everything I can as often as I can, even rinsing out Ziploc bags and re-using them until they fall apart.

But I found the Sony Daily Edition eReader irresistible.

So, to help assuage my guilt:

What about the weight of books? I travel quite a lot for work and read an awful lot of books, often big, thick heavy ones. It saves me so much weight and space in luggage… I can fit several on my eReader, as well as daily electronic delivery of a newspaper. Does this represent a significant offset to the purchase of my sleek electronic toy?

I used cloth diapers for my first child and plan to with #2 coming in 2 weeks. I use a lot of water and energy washing them. Are they really more eco friendly than disposables?

What about the cost of drilling, transporting, then refining the oil into gasoline. What about the pollution created transporting the gasoline to the pump?

People always say “What is the pollution cost of generating electricity?” but NEVER say “What is the cost of delivering oil from the ground to the gasoline pump”.

Life-cycle footprint is not only hard to see at the point of purchase – the impulse to buy greener, more responsible choices too often gets sacrificed to a simple price-tag comparison. Note how shoppers bypass organic food, even as they recognize that its nutritionally better for them.

If consumers could see the overall eco footprint cost right on the price-tag, it would shift our purchases dramatically – towards locally-sourced and made, and towards green.

The sad fact is, even though ecological costs are hidden from the price-tag, we end up paying anyway – in direct dollars, or at least in lifestyle impact. Like we can ignore the impact of packaging materials and chemicals on end-of-life disposal, but then we end up paying taxes to provide the Superfund cleanup of our landfills.

Rather than (or in addition to) providing eco cost data as a side benefit in the store, doesn’t it make sense to move society towards requiring manufacturers to fund the cost of responsibly discarding or recycling their products and manufacturing processes, including funding solutions for depletion of non-renewable natural resources. If they had to include these costs in their manufacturing budget, then the costs would show up on the price-tag, no?

-Jim Smith

If there was ever a job for the government, this is it — take a step back, analyze the worlds resources, pollution, and report on it. Explain why if we continue this way what the repercussions will be. With consumers and governments informed , the government can stear this ship on a sustainable course. Saving our planet one would think would be the most uncontroversial thing in the world.

In addition to chasing consumer dollars, smart companies have found that taking a sustainable approach to manufacturing good makes good business sense and they can be more profitable than conventional manufacturing.

Tom, you may recall there was a presentation by the CEO of Stonyfield Organics last week at the conference you also spoke at Babson. He made this very point.

Also, the market needs clarity in labeling these products and the non partisan verification and auditing to make sure the claims are accurate.

Karen Coyne
Chairman of the Board
BRIDGES to Sustainability Institute (non partisan NGO),

and

Past President
The Auditing Roundtable

Tom please ask which is better. Keep my ’78 volvo (clean running rebuild engine) or junk it for a high tech new vehicle?

2points
1st when speaking about cost of books did they figure in the excess books printed and then recycled also aluminum plates press chemistry and distribution to and from local store front.
2nd
what about energy vampires chargers, tv remotes, clocks on microwaves, vcrs, other appliances that the doe estimates consumes 10% of household energy use without providing any useful benefit ?

Hi Tom and guests,
can you give some background on the field of ecological intelligence? Are there any public or private universities with degrees in this or related fields (natural resources, etc.)
Thanks for the great show!
Dan
Doctoral studen, The Ohio State University

Does Government have a role in the green consumer movement? While tools like Good Guide provide greater transparency, the process of LCA is complex and highly subject to manipulation. Who oversees the process to ensure that information remains useful, understandable and fair.

The amount of detail going into measuring things is also not environmentally friendly. Our government spends so much time measuring, labeling and regulating things already; everything we add to do more measuring, and regulating, has a huge hidden cost. We may be spending as much energy on regulating, as we are on producing, and that isn’t very green.

Regarding the 100 cups a day.
Why can’t they just use plastic and wash them?
Fill up a sink with hot soapy water, rinse, reuse.

I think until people are willing to do more work on their own, this will always be a problem.

“I have tried bicycling computers and printers a few miles across town to a high-school sponsored take-back-your-junk undertaking. Exhausting.”

Good point, I drove mine to the HS recycle. I couldn’t have done it with a bicycle. I have a Prius so I wasted no fuel and produced no pollution while threading through the 1/2 hour long line. Can’t be said for 99% of the vehicles there. How much ‘idling’ pollution was created on ‘mass recycle’ day that would have been avoided if people could just drop them off any day? A half hour of idling uses about as much gas as it takes to start the vehicle once a day for 1/2 year.

The idea that a single number from 1 to 10 can fully encapsulate the scientific, cultural, political, and manufacturing issues involved in deciding “greenness” seem overly simplistic. Surely this is a complex equation of many variables that does not have a simple solution.

But more importantly, I don’t want the process of protecting society to depend on a number, one which may or may not include all the factors or account for what is truly important in the long run.

And what about the role of government and health organizations? Shouldn’t they be the ones enforcing policies on companies that put carcinogens and toxins in our products? How about focusing on not having lead and PCBs in consumer products in the first place? I would rather there not be a carcinogenic shampoo than having a number that tells me to avoid it.

Don’t forget about disposal of prescription drugs. Antibiotics in the water supply that force bacteria to evolve and adapt so they are immune to the drugs, and besides aren’t good for us water-drinkers. I think twice now about tossing expired prescriptions into the toilet, the trash — actually, I suppose the millions of prescriptions actually ingested would also end up in the water supply via sewage. Just a thought.

“Which is most environmentally positive wood stove, natural gas, propane, or electric?”

Tough question.
- Wood is renewable but even the best wood stove puts a lot of nasty stuff up the chimney including very small particles that cause lung issues.
- Natural gas and propane burn clean without a lot of pollution but are not renewable.
- Electric resistance heat will break the bank.

Expensive, but I would look into geothermal heat pumps. They run water (or other fluids) in a loop into the ground where it is naturally warmed to 50 – 55F then a heat pump extracts the heat. The pump that runs the loop uses very little electricity. They are usually connected to forced air systems. They can also run in ‘reverse’, cooling in the summer. LOTS more efficient than an air to air heat exchanger, especially as the air temp drops (for heat) or rises (when you want to cool). Consider the electric cost to squeeze 70F air out of 0F or 100F air.

I wonder if one built a really well insulated house, with a lot of winter sun exposure, you could just run a loop from the ground line through the house on a ‘hot water’ baseboard loop and not require much in the way of supplemental heat.

Great show!
Tom, your show and a professor I had in college (UMB) have been the only sources I’ve heard speak of electric cars adding to our power plant uses. Why haven’t the rest of the media picked up on this yet?

What about obsolete electronics? Sure there are cell phones, TVs, computers, etc., but there’s also plotters, printers, digitizers and other large pieces of equipment.
One solution is to donate them to schools or other countries, when municipalities or businesses get new equipment. Yet even if the old equipment is kept, whoever is using this equipment will run into maintenance issues and the lack thereof of replacement parts and tech support, never mind the incapability of new software and USB/port connect-ability.
Though I believe everyone should upgrade to the 21st century, I also understand that it’s expensive and adds to our waste. How do we begin to upgrade our machines efficiently, when it’s financially beneficial to Sharp/HP/etc. to sell us brand new inventory?

People are,at their core, sheeple. They will do whatever they are trained and programmed to do. Just as America has been hypnotized into being glutinous pigs that despoil the environment all in the guise of commercialism being good for america (since WWII). So we can all, over time, be re-programmed to want the right choices that are good for the environment and good for all animals once we recognize that the “real cost” to us in the long run is not to only look at the economic well being of coporate america. Unfortunately the solution, it’s all about the dollar.

I went to the goodguys.com website during the show. all it appeared to be was an ad for go daddy. Where are the links to the information discussed?

Tom,
There has just been the expense of 25 lives in the West Virginia coal mine. Why don’t you talk about Acountability for the CEO and Corporation that killed those 25 miners. Look it up and see how many violations were at that mine. That is not only a foot print – that is 25 grave sites.
Marylin

Tom please do not confuse hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with electric vehicles.
Hydrogen is not a fuel source, you need to convert some other energy source, either by reformatting natural gas(cheaper & nonrenewable) or by electrolysis(expensive & inefficient).

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are a boondoggle that the energy companies push to keep us using oil.

Electric vehicles can use energy from a variety of sources so they can easily use renewable power and they are so efficient that using them releases less CO2 than gas cars even if the power source is a coal fired power plants.

The batteries in electric vehicles can be recycled into new batteries.

Interesting show. I hope sometime in the future Tom will talk about the pros and cons of recycling as well – as in which types of materials recycle easily and cheaply and which end up taking more resources during the recycling process than making something from scratch. For instance, I can buy milk in plastic, cardboard, or glass jugs. The first two go directly into the recycle bin. But which has the smaller footprint after the fact.

This was a great show, if just to challenge people to think about what they buy. I once floated the idea that every cheap electronic gadget should publish the amount of fuel used in its production and shipment but was told by many people that they would still want their new 42″plasma. All these transparency assessments are great for those of us who do care.

One straightforward solution, which is politically inexpedient, in today’s economy is simply to tax bad stuff, i.e. CO2, mining activities, landfill, emissions, effluents, waste, etc., and incentivize good stuff renewable energy, telecommuting technologies, organic farming, etc.

Such taxes and incentives will send a strong and reliable signal to people — from consumers to retailers to manufacturers — to change their ways and align themselves with today’s needs.

Of course, if you tax US-made products, imports might become more attractive, but that’s where we need strong international governing organizations (IMF? UN?)

But, meanwhile, consumers should always remember that “not consuming” is probably always the best option.

“All technology is guilty until proven innocent.” — David Brower