Community/SoapBox

I wholeheartedly support green-products, with one caveat - I don’t believe they should cost more.  Why should they?  Aren’t the manufacturers making enough profit on all the non-green products that need to be replaced more often.  My pockets aren’t deep and I believe products should have longer a service life than I’ve seen lately.  In 1982,  I purchased a remote controlled TV (a novelty then).  It lasted 20 years with only 2 trips to the repair shop for minor repairs.  I believe manufacturers have forced us into a throw-away lifestyle.  Of course, busy lifestyles make it easy to follow that easy street.  I still think we could all benefit from products that were easy to upgrade, refurbish, recycle, renew or even a new & different purpose.  If more people were less likely to jump on the “newest & greatest” bandwagon maybe the newest & greatest would be more durable, greener, less “buggy,” and have a longer service life.  If these products cost less or even the same I’d be ecstatically astounded as well as grateful.  I am the ultimate pack-rat who abhors tossing just about anything that holds a glimmer of a second life.

The alarming trend is that it’s fashionable to be green and people are willing to pay extra for it. Case in point the “green” lexus 600 hybrid has sold more than three times what it was supposed to. From Autoblog.com: Lexus exceeds LS600h sales target by three hundred percent. It just adds to the trend of conspicuous consumption of green.

Great points below! When writing this article, I wondered if these studies would cause even more “greenwashing” by companies that feel they can charge a premium for green or even pseudo-green features.

I think we will see some green electronics costing more, simply because it’s often cheaper to make them not green. Though I expect that will change rather rapidly. Pressure is on electronics manufacturers to be more green, and these studies show market pressures to produce energy efficient and environmentally responsible products that do not cost significantly more than their counterparts. I also think greenwashers will ultimately be punished in the marketplace.

That may be a glass-half-full outlook, but as more people become educated about the environment and the role electronics can play in it, both positively and negatively, manufacturers will have even more incentive to be green without charging exorbitant prices.

The premise that green electronics cost more is inaccurate and perpetuates the myth. On top of that when you add energy efficiency, longer product life and trade-in value, they actually cost less.

http://www.greenelectronics.com is a good site for finding all the latest green electronics and green computers.