The New Technology Elite: How Great Companies Optimize Both Technology Consumption and Production

Chapter 17

Sustainable: Mining the Green Gold

Many new cars in the United States, especially in the state of California, sport a sticker with their Global Warming Score. It's a score that ranks each vehicle's CO₂-equivalent value on a scale of 1–10 (10 being the cleanest) relative to all other vehicles.¹ The score is based on a calculation of various greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and hydrofluorocarbons from the air conditioning system, the car is likely to emit. The thinking is that over time consumers will increasingly factor this score in their buying decisions.

Sites like GoodGuide² score a variety of cell phones on a number of factors such as:

• Energy management, as measured by a phone's standby power consumption.
• Materials management, specifically the use of eco-materials in a phone or its packaging.
• Toxic waste, specifically inclusion of polyvinyl chloride or brominated flame retardants in a phone.
• Product management, as measured by third-party certification standards.
• Environmental disclosure, as measured by the availability of an environmental fact sheet for a product.

A company called TerraPass, which facilitates trading in carbon offsets, has long allowed consumers to calculate on its website the carbon footprint of their car model. It goes further and allows you to calculate the carbon equivalent of air trips you take and your home's carbon footprint.

These scores and ratings highlight that consumers are sensitive to the fact that our modern technologies ...