what happens when moral meet tech buying? by peter judge

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Sep 19 2011)

1. 

   Last time, I was looking at the issue of pollution – one of the tougher parts of the Green IT.  If you make your data center more efficient you save money as well as reducing carbon emissions. If you cut other forms of pollution, it is a cost to you.

   In situations like that - where behaving better is a cost - the only things that change companies’ actions will be government regulation, and consumer choices. Governments rarely do things which would inconvenience business, so it is down to people. If enough people choose one device over another  - and let the manufacturers know they did it for environmental reasons - then things might change. 

   How is that going to happen? Well, I don’t know.

   There have been consumer campaigns, going back to slavery campaigns in the 1790s,which were repeated through the 19th century. Activists bought sugar from non-slave-using sources, artists and business people go on board, and merchandise such as branded sugar bowls and the famour Josiah Wedgwood Slave Medallion advertised the idea.

   Slavery is stil around - and so are some of the original organisations that opposed it. There are newer ones too, with newer consumer campaigns. Hitting one company or another can be arbitrary - as today’s webs of trade are more complex than those of the 18th and 19th century; one response is the Free2Work app, for Android and iPhone, from campaign group Not For Sale. In theory it uses the phone’s camera to read store barcodes, and then checks them on a register which rates companies accoding to their record on employment rights.

   In practice, the whole thing isn’t there yet - it needs more information at the back end (there aren’t many companies in the listings) and more work on the front end (the barcode bit doesn’t seem to be there). But it’s a sign of how consumers could get engaged and - with enough volunteer effort to gther the info - how we can make sense of the complexity.

   What about buying IT more ethically? Well there’s a good step taken by EthicalConsumer.org. The group has put a LaptopBuyers’ Guide online, which rates major manufacturers according to a whole range of criteria - about 23 factors in all.

   This is more developed than the Free2Work app. In the published list, the top spots are  taken by Archos, MESH, Advent and ASUS, while the bottom slots go to Toshiba, Sony, Samsung and HP. No-one gets more than 10 points out of a possible 20, and Toshiba scores only 4.5.

   That begs obvious questions - how are those figures calculated, and what is the mix of factors?  All this information is visible, and there are even sliders so you can create your own mix of criteria for buying laptops.

   For instance, in the Environment section, companies are marked down if they also have involvement with nuclear energy. I happen to believe that nuclear energy is (on balance) good for the environment, so I can move that slider to zero. You might also decide to prioritise human rights over animal rights - or the reverse!

   Alternatively, you can look at an area like the environment, and see which vendor is doing best.

   Once again, the value will be limited by how much input Ethical Consumer has managed to get into the system, but this is a very good example of what we could be doing to be better informed-->-->

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