Mini Me Mini Green Vaio

The Greenwash Brigade

Sony recently released its spiffy new W mini series Vaio notebook which has a green keypad frame. I know. You would be reasonable to assume a green product — literally green — cannot be sustainably green. Well, in this case you would be pleasantly surprised to be wrong. (Photo via Sony)

The 2010 Consumer Electronic Show showcased hundreds of new products, all part of the worldwide crisis in e-waste that is hitting children and adults in developing countries hard with toxic trash’s health and pollution legacy. Many constituent parts of computers, when incinerated or otherwise handled at the end of their life, can turn into substances clearly linked with immune and reproductive disorders, birth defects, neurological damage and cancer.

Against this backdrop described by the Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxic Coalition in Exporting Harm, there are some positive developments in the design and manufacture of emerging electronics. Sony was an early leader in sustainable practices and recently elected to remove chlorine and bromine from computers as outlined in a recent report (PDF) by ChemSec (the International Chemical Secretariat) and Clean Production Action.

The W series Mini Vaio has some playful packaging features, such as a plastic enclosure made from 23% recycled CDs (must have been very bad music to not have even made the resale market!) and a carrying case from plastic bottles. It is lit with energy-sipping LEDs, and apparently reduces CO2 emissions by 10% (based on the innovative use of existing plastic products in its packaging and casing).

What was much more telling to me is the fact that it’s registered with EPEAT in addition to Energy Star 5.0 and RoHS (the European bad boy list of Restricted Hazardous Substances which includes lead, cadmium, and mercury among others). EPEAT is an acronym for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, and it makes Energy Star ® look like a coloring exercise. The standards contain 51 robust criteria and are light-years beyond merely energy considerations. Witnesseth: materials (heavy metals, plastics), design for end of life (to facilitate disassembly for future gadgets or other products), product longevity, energy, end of life management (the 800 lb gorilla), corporate performance (remember the product vs. whole company analysis?) and packaging are all considered in the registration process.

The US Electronics Industry has made great strides in product development but many companies are persistently stonewalling attempts to develop a US policy to develop a cogent end-of-life system called product stewardship. There are some companies that have take-back programs but the US infrastructure is still woefully inadequate to address what will only continue to be an international travesty and embarrassment. The world disposes (read that as “throws out”) 50 million tons of e-waste each year. Here is an incredible, missed opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of jobs across the US to develop a safe, responsible infrastructure to handle e-waste.

The EPA has a great site with information on e-waste management issues. In the meantime, support Sony’s and other efforts to refine and upgrade sustainable product design and help create positive pressure to address e-waste, one click, snap at a time.

February 1, 2010 by Heidi Siegelbaum
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tags: computers Energy Star EPEAT Sony

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Meet the Greenwash Brigade

Our hand-picked environmental professionals, each part of the Public Insight Network, are on the hunt for "greenwash" as they examine eco-friendly claims by companies, governments and other groups. They ask tough questions about the mainstreaming of green, from the perspectives of people in the trenches who are focused on these issues 24/7.

Jim Nicolow is a nationally recognized expert on sustainable design and leads the sustainability initiative for Lord, Aeck & Sargent, overseeing the incorporation of sustainable design strategies and features into the firm’s design projects. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional with extensive knowledge of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system.

Janne K. Flisrand has worked as an affordable housing and urban planning research consultant for five years, primarily supporting local non-profits. Her focus is on transit, transit-oriented design, affordable housing, and sustainability. Currently, she’s the program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities, a program promoting affordable, healthy, sustainably built housing throughout Minnesota.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal with Calyx Sustainable Tourism and works primarily on advancing sustainable tourism practices. She also specializes in science translation, cross-border indicators with Canada, cross-disciplinary planning and environmental technical assistance to businesses. Previously, she was in-house legal counsel for EPA for industrial chemicals and biotechnology and the senior performance measure analyst with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She is on the technical advisory committee of the Seattle Culinary Academy and a long standing member of the Chefs Collaborative.

NOTE: The opinions expressed by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of American Public Media or its employees. American Public Media is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers.

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