Electronics industry far greener than we are
Larry Thomas, Business Editor -- Furniture Today, September 16, 2007
With the formation of the Sustainable Furniture Council and the development of a number of "green" products, the furniture industry has taken environmentally friendly steps in recent months.
But our efforts pale in comparison to the measures taken by producers and distributors of consumer electronics, products that are the driving force behind many furniture purchases.
The electronics folks, as you might expect, are striving to develop products that consume less energy, and they're also putting a lot of effort into recycling. Their reasoning is fairly straightforward: Make it easy to get rid of, say, an old VCR, and consumers are more likely to replace it with the latest and greatest DVD player and recorder.
A Web site operated by the Consumer Electronics Assn., myGreenElectronics.org, contains a searchable database of electronics recycling programs and a calendar of national recycling events.
Plus, the site has suggestions on ways to reuse old gear. The advice is especially valuable for computers, but it includes links to non-profit organizations that also accept donations of used TVs, cell phones and other gadgets that are refurbished and passed on to less fortunate families at home and abroad.
The environmental downside to this strategy: The new gadget the consumer buys likely uses more electricity because it's bigger, faster and more powerful. As a result, the industry believes it must develop more energy-efficient products.
A recent study cited by the CEA shows that energy consumption from consumer electronics is double what it was only five years ago, and now accounts for about 11% of U.S. residential energy consumption.
That's less than the amount consumed by lighting and cooling devices (17% and 15% respectively), but more than common household appliances such as refrigerators, water heaters, clothes dryers and freezers.
However, the jump in energy consumption isn't because today's electronics gear is less efficient. It's because sales of everything from TVs to stereo systems to cordless phones to computers have roughly doubled.
The CEA's "green electronics" Web site has an interactive calculator that tells you how much power is used by a variety of electronics devices and, perhaps more importantly, how much it's costing you to use them.
(I was surprised to learn, for example, that a DVD player uses almost as much power when it's turned on, but sitting idle, as it does when playing a movie.)
The site also has a searchable database of "green" products for consumers intent on making a new purchase, plus tips for saving energy and extending the life of existing products.
All told, it's an impressive effort that can only help to promote consumer electronics. The furniture industry would do well to emulate it.
