I've just had a thought.
It came to me while reading the December 2006 CAR magazine.
In the bulletin section there was a pretty alarming article about the envoronmental impact that undoes just about everything I've ever understood about eco-friendly automobiles.
I can't find the report on the magazine's website but I did find it here.
Normally, we're led to believe that a car is green by looking at it's fuel consumption and emissions. However, Oregon-based CNW Marketing Research took a step back and looked at it globally. What they discovered was in my mind astonishing in its obviousness.
If you look beyond fuel consumption and take into consideration a car's "dust to dust" environmental impact, factoring in fuel consumption, factory manufacturing costs, parts manufacturing costs, plus the energy used in R&D, the energy used by the workers communiting to the factories, the car's recylability and it's durability, the traditional references are turned on their heads.
By way of illustration, the greenest car available in the UK is, according the Greenpeace, the automotive incarnation of Beelzebub, the Jeep Wrangler 4x4.
The previous envoronmental champion, the hybrid Toyota Prius, has a "dust to dust" energy cost five times higher than the second-place Toyota Yaris.
Art Spinella, president of CNW, sums it up quite nicely. "If a consumer is concerned about fuel economy, it is perfectly logical to consider buying high fuel economy vehicles such as hybrids, but if the concern is the broader issues such as environmental impact of energy usage, some vehicles with good economy actually cost society more than conventional or even larger models over their lifetime. Basing purchasing decisions solely on fuel economy does not get to the heart of the energy usage issue".
How painfully obvious is all this?
How much does discovering a truth that exposes our short-sightedness for what it is burn our pride and uproot our intelligence?
Couldn't see the woods for the trees?
Winning the battle but losing the war?
Taking an even bigger step backwards, it made me wonder if this oversight also applies to marketing.
For example, how often consumers fed solutions that resolve the problem but neglect the cause? How many products and ideas (and remedies for that matter) have been introduced that do nothing more than smear away the stains left by the previous mistake?
In my own little world of IT solutions, I can't help thinking if there's a bigger picture we're missing.
The fact that Greenpeace is putting pressure on electronics manufacturers into making their products more environmentally friendly is a case in point.
How much of the efficiency comes from the machine itself?
- If manufacturers busy making computers work faster forget that humans have to live with the consequences.
Does the pursuit of increased efficiency/performance in one area damage another?
- I'm thinking of the Sony battery disaster but I'm sure there are other more distant relationships.
How much human-involvement is missing from the equation?
- Is technology improving yet becoming so complicated in the process that we as humans are being blinded by it? If SatNavs and GPS phones take away our ability to "see" where we're going, and SMS text-messaging is undoing one of civilised man's key qualities (literacy), just how much is technology driving us towards a catatonic state of high-tech dependency?
Breaking down the barriers between people and technology might not be a bad thing, as long as we don't put up others along the way.
