Green Right Now Blog

John Defore
(Green Right Now) The consumer-electronics industry may not rank as high as oil companies and SUV-peddlers in terms of perceived eco-villainy, but it's hardly blameless when it comes to the environment. After all, it's an industry revolving around products that usually consume more electricity than they should, are often made using precious and/or toxic substances, and are designed to be obsolete in a period best measured in months, not years.

Enter Greener Gadgets, a conference held in February to address everything from product design and manufacture to what to do with goods once they've become e-waste.

Presented by the design bloggers at Inhabitat and the firm Marc Alt + Partners, it was the first in what — thanks to sellout crowds and enthusiastic feedback — will likely be a series of events.

The most eye-catching part of the conference for non-industry folk (aside from the fact that familiar paper/glass/cans recycling bins in the hall were joined by one for compost-friendly refuse) was a design competition co-sponsored with online design magazine Core77. Aspiring inventors worldwide were invited to imagine "greener gadgets" that offered "innovative solutions addressing the issues of energy, carbon footprint, health and toxicity, new materials, product lifecycle, and social development."

One of the judges was Ryan Block, whose Engadget is a daily must-read for techno-addicts around the web. Block, who typically sees the industry's new products long before consumers do (and isn't afraid to be critical of them), says he "was very impressed" with the entries. "There were definitely some inventive designs that showed real ingenuity."

While casual observers may have expected big-name companies to enter the contest — most seem pretty eager to bolster their Green credentials in other ways — Block wasn't at all surprised at their absence. "I don't think many big companies see value in entering pre-production designs in contests," he explained, "especially since they're usually trying to keep them secret."

Moreover, he seems to doubt they would have made a splash in the contest: "Consumer electronics companies are often lumbering, bureaucratic, and don't work well with others, so I think revolutionary innovation is most often — but not always — apt to take place in startups and by independent thinkers."

Judging from what made the event's "Notable Entries" list, this particular batch of innovators definitely leaned toward the "startup" category even if its thinking wasn't always "independent." Plenty of the designs fell into categories shared by already-existing products, some of them offering only superficial improvements.

There was, for instance, a wide array of gizmos following in the footsteps of gizmos like the already-available Kill A Watt, which gauges how much energy your assorted household electronics and appliances are using. Some, like the Eco-Tap and Eject Powerstrip, were straightforward attempts to control the "phantom power" waste that occurs when devices are left plugged in when not in use. (The well established company Belkin has already announced a Conserve surge protector with this in mind.) Others promised to collect data about users' lifestyles and measure a carbon footprint with easily understood biomorphic visuals. Some were quite pretty, like the Conscience, but seemed like a lot of trouble to go to, to make a simple point: "Turn the thermostat down!"

The most prominent in this tab-keeping category actually won first place in the competition. The EnerJar was less a commercial product than a do-it-yourself plan, and its triumph came as a surprise to many. Inhabitat's Jill Fehrenbacher explains that the judges "selected the top eight entries, and had the audience pick the winners using a very unscientific applause system." The EnerJar "was not originally in our top four, but we eliminated one or two of those based on comments from the audience" pertaining to feasibility. Once it was a finalist, the EnerJar drew a surprising amount of applause — afterward, Fehrenbacher realized that the designers "live in Brooklyn [the conference was held in New York City], and I thought maybe they had a posse of friends in the audience." (EnerJar's web site lists its inventors as students of Washington University in St. Louis.)

Fehrenbacher says that the design competition got a good enough reception that she hopes to bring it back again, though she would "make it more rigorous and set more rules up for what we're looking for." She emphasizes that the event was intended to encourage speculative designs, not to limit participants to things that could go into production in the immediate future — which may explain why the Second Place winner, an ingenious and stylish lamp called the Gravia, is an idea that wouldn't work without substantial improvements in LED technology.

Despite the caveat that few entries are likely to appear on store shelves any time soon, browsing through the list is both amusing and encouraging: Encouraging, for instance, with regard to possible new directions in the design of cell phones or in extremely clever applications for solar-cell tech. Amusing, for example, as manifested in a smart-aleck shower stall with a floor that gets uncomfortable if the user spends too much time using precious water. And even downright inspiring, with conceptual proposals for the techno-equivalent of nutritional data labeling or a plan suggesting that — gasp! — maybe no gadget is the greenest of all.

As Simone Pallotto of Belgium put it in her entry: "I think of a 'greener gadget' as a 'no gadget' at all. 'When the world faces massive environmental issues, why are we making plastic dogs,' Ross Lovegrove said. We are currently producing too many not useful things, being for practical or emotional purposes; too much trash we accumulate everyday! Let's try to make more important things, with more soul. Next generations will have a better world."

(Green Right Now)