December 2007 Archives

The Daily Green is reporting that a scant 1 in 5 of us recycle old electronics.

 

Disappointing.

 

With many consumers upgrading to newer versions of their gear this holiday season, replacing existing gadgets such as TVs, monitors, cell phones, video game consoles, etc… it’s troubling to think that only 21% of that e-waste is destined for proper disposal.

 

The article directs consumers to a variety of sources to help with recycling their used electronics, notably E-cycling Central, a national database maintained by industry of local recycling opportunities, and eRecycle.org, which lists additional options.

USA Today has an item online that sheds some light on what some of tech’s wealthiest individuals are doing to help the world become a little greener.

 

The article describes Vinod Khosla, a leading venture capitalist, and how his children view his rising passion for renewable energy.

 

“They think it’s cool Dad is saving the planet,” he says.

 

The article goes on to laud the efforts of other notables such as Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Nobel-winning ex-vice president Al Gore, and eccentric billionaire Richard Branson.

 

It’s defintiely worth a read.

 

 

The Toronto Star has an item today about green living and a message to the citizenry of Ontario that going green doesn’t have to be all about sacrifice.

 

 

 

Of course, whether or not recent polls showing that consumers would be willing to pay more or take that extra step for a greener planet will translate into real world changes remains to be seen.

 

Clifford Maynes, executive director of Green Communities Canada, told the Star: “You have polls where people say, ‘Yes, we’re willing to pay more to be green.’ I think this is a premise that has yet to be fully tested.”

 

To check out the article Is new social climate needed for green living? click here.

 

As the environmental movement has gained momentum, one of the key questions facing companies that felt pressure to “green up” was “would consumers pay more for green tech and related products?”

 

Well, according to a recent Forrester Research poll, fully twelve percent of U.S. adults, or what amounts to nearly 25 million people — are willing to pay extra for consumer electronics that use less energy or come from a company that is environmentally friendly.

 

Forrester has termed these consumers “bright greens” and believes they are at the forefront of an emerging class of consumers that will be an attractive target for marketers at technology companies.

 

The report, based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. adults, identifies three distinct segments of U.S. technology consumers:

 

 

The report, In Search Of Green Technology Consumers, is available from Forrester.

A recent Investors Business Daily feature holds forth that venture capitalists are forecasting another solid year for investing in clean, “green,” technologies.

 

According to the report, based on a consensus estimate of 170 venture capitalists polled by the National Venture Capital Association, a full quarter (25%) of survey respondents forecast investments of $30 billion to $39 billion. The $39 billion number would represent the largest investment year since 2000.

 

The results show increased interest in clean technology investment, with 80% of respondents believing they will saying they will increase activity in the space.

 

For more, check out the article here.

Todd Woody over at Green Wombat writes that “Big Solar’s time has come.” He’s referring to the news that Ausra Inc., is building the first U.S. manufacturing plant for solar thermal power systems in Las Vegas.

 

According to the press release on Ausra.com, “The 130,000-square-foot, highly automated manufacturing and distribution center will produce the reflectors, towers, absorber tubes, and other key components of the company’s solar thermal power plants.”

 

“Ausra can fill four square miles with solar collectors every year from this one factory, enough to provide market-priced zero-pollution power to 500,000 homes. Americans want clean power, and are tired of the market fluctuations, price increases, and pollution from fossil power plants. With market-priced solar power, we are entering the Solar Decade, in which massive construction of solar plants will take place. We are investing now in the systems and capacity to serve that need,” said Bob Fishman, president and CEO of Ausra.

In the early 1990s, just as the Internet revolution was getting underway, many tech companies and analysts were predicting that the Web and the rapidly advancing business solutions of the day were going to result in a drastic reduction in paper consumption – not only in practically every business sector but also in education, government, not-for-profit -- even in consumers' homes. Of course, this “paperless society” didn’t quite pan out: Although there has certainly been shift in terms of how paper resources are used (for one thing there are less printed bills filling consumer’s mailboxes these days), organizations of all types and sizes, as well as individuals, are actually consuming more paper today than they did 15 years ago.

And -- let’s face it -- it’s mostly because people are printing stuff from the Internet left and right. The “print” button has become ubiquitous through the Web and users are happy to irresponsibly click on it anytime they want something printed out – even if they don’t really need the whole thing on paper. In many respects, the simplicity and ease of using the “print” command has only made us less conscious of how much paper we are using: It takes much less effort – and as a result much less thought – to simply click “print” in order to get 25 copies of a document than it does to take the document to a copy machine and print copies “manually.” Here’s another example: It used to be that when you went to your local library you would go and find the book you needed, put it on a copy machine and copy a few pages. Today, people are finding the book they need online and printing the entire thing – whether they need every page or not. Indeed, we now live in a society where “paper abuse” has become an even greater problem, if not simply because of the ubiquitous nature of “print” buttons, which seem to be everywhere you go on the Internet these days. (Maybe we need more buttons that say “Stop. Think Before You Print. Do You Really Need it on Paper?”)

Helping companies to get a better handle on their paper usage is South Florida-based Equitrac Corporation. The company offers software that tracks office equipment output activity, enabling businesses, schools, government agencies and other organizations to eliminate paper waste and control costs relating to document production. Equitrac accomplishes this by helping organizations get a better handle on the “who,” “what” and “how” of printing and copying in the corporate environment. Equitrac not only sees this as a way for organizations to do their part in improving the health of our planet, but also as a major step in controlling costs and eliminating waste.

According to a recent article published in the Miami Herald, Equitrac has been seeing a surge in customers recently, as consciousness about “green” initiatives, including “green technology,” have been foremost on people’s minds. Driving this, of course, is the whole “green” movement which is now underway – this in response to recent scientific reports illustrating to the global warming trend and the new focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. This, in turn, has put more pressure on companies to become eco-friendly – and many businesses are now embracing this concept not only because it saves on operational expense but also because it has a positive effect on corporate image and public perception.

Recently, Equitrac became involved in the ABA-EPA Law Office Climate Challenge, an initiative that encourages law offices to reduce paper consumption and waste. The company even went so far as to offer a 10 percent discount on products for law firms that were willing to take the challenge.

Equitrac started off with a focus on serving law firms and today about one-third of its 15,000 customers are in the legal field. In 2005 the company launched a website (www.endprintwaste.com) to target the education sector and now it sells its software to numerous universities to cut back on excess student printing on campus.

“I think environmental awareness is really foremost in people's minds today,” Michael R. Rich, Equitrac president and chief executive, was quoted as saying in the Miami Herald report, published in September. “Whereas 10 or 15 years ago, while it was a concern, it certainly didn't have as much mind share as it does today. People are being extremely diligent in terms of their use of energy, paper and other natural resources that are of critical importance. The things that we do play into that broad theme and also help people take tangible action in terms of making a difference in reducing their waste. So we feel very good about that.”

Rich added that many businesses are now talking openly about their green objectives, whereas this wasn’t the case even just a few years ago.

“You hear companies saying ‘it’s our goal to reduce our energy or electricity consumption by 10 percent in the next five years,’” he said in the report. “These are huge corporate objectives that are really getting a lot of publicity nowadays.”

As such, Equitrac has shifted from being a hardware only company to being a hardware/software company with an ongoing mission to help organizations reduce paper consumption while at the same time gaining new efficiencies.

“Over the last four years we've experienced something close to a 30 percent year-over-year growth rate in the enterprise and education markets,” Rich said.

For more information about Equitrac, visit www.equitrac.com. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this company and its goal of helping every business become a “green business” in the months and years to come.

Passengers flying out of the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas airport during the next three months will have an opportunity to make their travels a little bit more ‘green.’ Continental Airlines and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration are piloting a program that lets travelers use their cell phones or PDAs in lieu of a paper boarding pass.

 

Houston Chronicle reported Tuesday that the system involves displaying encrypted bar codes on mobile device screens. The information displayed onscreen is then scanned by airport officials at boarding checkpoints.

 

If everything goes well with the pilot program, mobile device-based boarding passes could eventually do away with the need for paper documents entirely—with the exception of photo ID. Continental, Houston Chronicle reported, is the first U.S. airline to test out the technology.

 

Of course, Continental and the TSA are not just trying out this new system out of a moral obligation to reduce paper use. Instead, the program is designed to heighten airport security, in particular to (hopefully) eliminate ticket fraud. In the past, people sometimes succeeded in using fraudulent paper boarding passes to get past checkpoints. The TSA is confident that the new tech can’t be cracked.

 

TSA is also looking at expanding the use of encrypted bar codes for tickets, both on paper and on screens, Houston Chronicle reported. Data encrypted in the pilot program includes passenger name and flight details.

 

The TSA has another reason for going with encrypted digital flight info: regulation by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which has mandated that all airlines stop using magnetic strip technology on boarding passes by the end of 2008. Houston Chronicle said in its report that IATA also is requiring airlines to start using two-dimensional bar codes (which look like a rectangle of TV ‘snow’ rather than parallel lines) by 2010.