Last week in New York City the Greener Gadgets 2010 Conference, produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) turned the spotlight on the latest green designs and innovations in consumer technology. Green themes at the conference included sustainable product design, green technology in the home and environmental issues affecting the industry.
Bring Sexy BackYves Behar, founder of the integrated design agency fuse project, kicked off Greener Gadgets with a challenge to designers to "put the sexy back into green." Behar said this is the most exciting challenge that designers have had in the last 20-30 years and will lead to innovative products. Behar showed off examples of his own work for clients: One Laptop Per Child, Jawbone, Mission Motors and Swarovski.
Sarah Rich, formerly of Dwell magazine, moderated the panel, “Green Living Begins at Home,” which focused on the challenges and opportunities for creating a sustainable lifestyle within the home. The panelists all agreed that consumers have to be responsible for their energy consumption and must
be equipped with the right information. Architect Ellen Honigstock stated, "You can't change what you don't know."
Vote Green with Your WalletOn Thursday morning, Jaymi Heimbuch of TreeHugger.com interviewed Jeff Omelchuck, founder of the
Green Electronics Council and EPEAT, a green electronics certification program required in more than $60 billion of government and enterprise purchasing contracts worldwide. The program will be re-launched as a consumer facing brand and will appear on products in retail stores later this year. "What can we do to increase the greenness of consumer electronics products? Buy them," said Omelchuck. "Manufacturers are good at listening to the market."
In the afternoon session, “Gadget Talk,’ Tom Hadfield, COO of LaboGroup, demonstrated the award-winning Andrea air filter purifier, which uses household plants to rid household or office air of toxic substances, including formaldehyde. Based on an aesthetic approach and designed by French designer, Mathieu Lehanneur, and Harvard professor, David Edward, Andrea accelerates the rate at which the plant is cleaning the air.
The second compelling ‘Gadget Talk,” was given by Leo Bonnani, founder of Sourcemap. Bonnani described Sourcemap.org as a collective online tool for life cycle assessment and supply chain transparency to help consumers know where the elements within their devices come from and what they are made of. Sourcemap, an open source project of the MIT Media Lab, calculates the carbon footprint of laptops and other CE devices and allows users to build lifecycle maps of different products.
For the afternoon “Green Spotlight” session, Joe Hutsko, author of Greener Gadgets for Dummies, interviewed Maria Tate, senior industrial designer, Hewlett-Packard and Peter Fannon, vice president, corporate and government affairs, Panasonic, about their company's sustainability strategies. Tate discussed HP's innovative closed loop eCartridge recycling process.
TV industry going greenFannon gave an update on Panasonic's success in reducing its C02 emissions one year ahead of schedule and how the company incentivized all employees to develop and meet environment targets.
Fannon discussed the industry-wide effort by television manufacturers to improve their energy efficiency significantly. He noted the average large screen now uses less than 100 watts of power. Also, he pointed out the green aspects of video streaming capability on TVs and predicted that we will soon see a future that allows consumers to control their home energy use through their TV's remote control.
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