While there is lots of talk about greening cities and how cities themselves are more green than patterns of sprawl, these images from the planned Chinese city of Tianjin show what a true eco-city might look like.
On the whole, the city looks green, clean, and futuristic. Would a city built in this manner look as good as these pictures? And is this something that could easily be replicated elsewhere or will it need to be heavily subsidized and monitored?
When a consumer goes shopping, there are many products that claim to be “green.” Unfortunately, what exactly this means is unclear and may be just plain wrong. This process, which has come to be known as “greenwashing,” might be limited once the Federal Trade Commission develops new guidelines:
The guides originally were developed in 1992 and last updated in 1998. For the past two years the FTC has worked to revise them to account for consumers’ increased interest in environmentally conscious products and product-makers’ increasingly noisy marketing claims, a practice that’s come to be known as “greenwashing.”…
Some companies have complained in the past that the government did not strictly enforce the existing Green Guides, leading to more consumer confusion. So the more specific rules are welcome.
If these new guidelines are enacted soon, consumers may discover fewer “green” products on the shelves.
While it may not be the most ethical activity, is it a surprise that numerous companies have claimed to have “green” products when these sorts of items draw extra attention from some consumers?
The biodegradable SunChips bag has been pulled from the market because it is not convenient enough for customers. The issue? It is too noisy:
The noise of the bag — due to an unusual molecular structure that makes the bag more rigid — has been compared to everything from lawnmowers to jet engines. There’s even an active Facebook group with more than 44,000 friends that goes by the name of “Sorry But I Can’t Hear You Over This SunChips Bag.”
“Clearly, we’d received consumer feedback that it was noisy,” says Aurora Gonzalez, a Frito-Lay spokeswoman. “We recognized from the beginning that the bag felt, looked and sounded different.”
The bag illustrates the sometimes unexpected bumps that can trip up companies trying to do the right thing environmentally. SunChips sales have declined more than 11% over the past 52 weeks (excluding Wal-Mart, which doesn’t share its data), reports SymphonyIRI Group, the market research specialist.
A little noise doesn’t seem to be a bad price for having a compostable bag. If products have to be convenient to be successfully green, then one might suggest many consumers aren’t terribly serious about being green.
Also, what is with the journalistic trend of using the size of certain Facebook groups to lend weight to certain “movements”? “Even” 44,000 Facebook users are against the product – is the company reacting to this group or other consumer pressure or data?
A recent study compared hybrid models to their traditional counterpart models and found that the hybrids are not a very good value:
Everyone knows hybrids get better fuel economy and emit less CO2 than their conventional counterparts, but they also cost more because of the added technology. And that makes them a lousy value because you won’t recoup that added cost in fuel savings.
So say the car gurus at CarGurus.com, who repeat a common argument against hybrids but back it up with some stats. They examined the purchase price and operating costs of 45 popular hybrid models and discovered the average gas-electric automobiles costs 25 percent more to own and operate than its gasoline-only sibling.
This may help explain why hybrids still are only a small part of the market – just under 3% according to this study.
But for those who currently drive hybrids, is financial value the primary reason? While this seems to be key to the larger market, I would guess there are a lot of current hybrid drivers who drive them for other reasons like being (or perhaps appearing) green. If more people truly wanted to be green or were worried about pollution from cars as opposed to saving money, then they would probably purchase more hybrids.
Legally Sociable 