GigaOM » e-Waste

What’s next for Apple and EPEAT?

Erica Ogg — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:39:47 +0000

Apple’s decision to remove its products from the EPA-funded EPEAT standards was likely intended to be a quiet move. It wasn’t. When you’re the most influential tech company out there, anything you do is going to come under scrutiny. So in no time at all, Apple found the City of San Francisco saying it intended to stop buying Macs if they weren’t ranked by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool.

Apple’s position since the story broke has been that it follows plenty of other green standards, which it does lay out clearly on its website. But the reaction from the City of SF provoked a longer statement from Apple on Tuesday, essentially repeating the same idea, but in more detail. For Apple’s thoughts, see The Loop.

It’s very true that Apple has made an effort to keep dangerous chemicals out of its products. And that is likely satisfactory to a lot of individual consumers. But that doesn’t address the recycling question. The move signals that future MacBooks that won’t be EPEAT certified — therefore will not be as recyclable by individuals — and will theoretically still end up in a landfill some day. And e-waste is e-waste — it still needs to be dealt with. More crucially for businesses, Apple’s statement doesn’t address the standards issue, which government purchasing departments and corporate IT buyers still have to adhere to — many are required to buy EPEAT-certified computers.

So what is Apple up to? Well, the company might actually be cooking up a solution by contributing to a future recycling standard that is more up to date. The Green Electronics Council that administers EPEAT certification said that it’s been trying to update its standards to fit how today’s electronics are manufactured. The group’s spokeswoman told Fortune that a group including Apple has “just delivered reports on a number of preliminary questions which will inform the IEEE 1680.1 standard refresh process, expected to launch shortly.”

Does this mean Apple will buy back into EPEAT if a new standard fits its design priorities and environmental goals? I guess we’ll have to see.

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How to Market Green Gadgets Better

Pedro Hernandez — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:30:13 +0000

Consumers are peeling back the green labels and examining what makes green gadgets eco-friendly. Few electronics makers revel in this kind of scrutiny, but the smart ones will view it as an opportunity.
For electronics makers, green is a potential differentiator in an industry where products in the same device class typically perform comparably. Some even share chipsets and many must adhere to standards set by trade groups and regulatory bodies like the FCC. A “green” marketing campaign can help otherwise unremarkable products stand out from the crowd — but only if done right. I’ve compiled a few pointers on how to win over green-savvy tech buyers.

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Dell vs. Apple: Battle for Green Computer Crown Gets Ugly

Josie Garthwaite — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:12:44 +0000

When it comes to defending its green cred, Dell is not exactly a wallflower. The Texas-based computer manufacturer, which has been making one of the most substantial efforts in the industry to produce more environmentally sound products and shrink its carbon footprint, has taken to task competitor Apple’s latest claims about having “the world’s greenest family of notebooks” — first in a smackdown post on its company blog, and now with a complaint filed with the advertising industry’s self-regulator, a forum for reviewing the truthfulness of claims in ads and marketing .

The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, or NAD, delivered a bittersweet decision on Dell’s complaint yesterday. As the New York Times Green Inc. blog reports this morning, NAD concluded that Apple can legitimately market its latest generation of MacBooks as being greener than some product lines from a given competitor (the new MacBooks earn high Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT ratings), but that “world’s greenest” has “potential for overstatement.”

According to a release from NAD about the ruling, the agency noted in its decision that:

[T]he advertiser has specifically undertaken to design all of its MacBooks to reduce their negative environmental impact, as reflected in EPEAT ratings, and that it should be free to communicate that information to consumers…While other manufacturers may have subcategories of lines with similar ratings, none has comparable high ratings for all of the notebooks it produces

In order to prevent confusion among consumers, NAD recommends that Apple adjust its tagline “to make clearer that the basis of comparison is between all MacBooks to all notebooks made by a given competitor,” and “avoid the reference to ‘world’s greenest.’”

Apple interpreted this as a hands-down win, thanking NAD in a statement “for confirming that its MacBooks, as compared to all of the notebooks made by any given manufacturer, are the world’s greenest notebook computers,” and telling Green Inc. that the “ruling is a clear victory for Apple.” We’ll be curious to see if and how the company takes NAD’s recommendations to heart and tweaks the tagline.

This challenge from Dell comes at a time when legislators are taking a closer look at how to regulate green marketing claims. We wrote earlier this month about a House subcommittee hearing dubbed “It’s Too Easy Being Green,” in which the associate director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s enforcement division at the Federal Trade Commission testified that “In the past few years, there has been a virtual tsunami of environmental marketing,” — some of it reflecting genuine innovations in efficiency, recycling and materials use, and some of it representing plain greenwash.

Dell has been part of that tsunami, promoting its top ranking on Technology Business Research’s inaugural Corporate Sustainability Index Benchmark Report for 2009, and touting its systems as “Green by Design.” Back in December, when Dell posted that first smackdown about Apple’s “world’s greenest” ad campaign, Dell VP of Communities & Conversations Bob Pearson wrote that the company wanted to have a discussion about “the real meaning of being green.” With new regulations in the pipeline, there’s now more at stake than consumer perception and the conclusions of the industry’s self-policing body — pretty soon Dell and Apple could be looking at stricter standards for regulatory compliance. So now that the discussion has begun, it’s about to get a lot more interesting.

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LevelOne Mobile Router Shares 3G Data Connection

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:38:59 +0000

Sharing a 3G data connection with other people or devices is becoming all the rage these days. LevelOne is the newest entrant in this market, touting their MobilSpot Portable Wireless Hotspot as “mobility for on-the-go users.” All in all, the $149 router looks like it fits the bill: You plug in a USB or CardBus 3G modem, and the MobilSpot can share that connection over Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet. According to the PDF datasheet, it provides WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK, and TKIP/AES wireless encryption and also supports VPN connections.

Sounds great, but there’s one key element that limits the mobile aspect to a degree. The device requires power through its AC adapter, so you’ll need to be near an outlet while being “on-the-go.” Hopefully, LevelOne considers this in future product designs and offers a battery-powered router that works for a few hours on a charge. If you’re looking for that kind of mobility, the upcoming Novatel MiFi might be a better bet. In fairness to the LevelOne product, it appears to be targeted as a backup or redundant data connection in case your network loses connectivity.

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Boingo comes to the iPhone

James Kendrick — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:35:12 +0000

We just got word that the Boingo Hotspot application is now available for the iPhone. Boingo is the provider that has deals representing many hotspots world-wide, including Starbucks and McDonalds. The Boingo mobile plan is $7.95 per month and is required to take advantage of hotspots using your iPhone. The Boingo iPhone app makes it easy to determine if a hotspot is part of the extensive Boingo network and makes it a breeze to sign into the hotspot. The app is free.

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Second Rotation Raises $6M in Second-Round Funds

Craig Rubens — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:30:40 +0000

Second Rotation, a startup whose service Gazelle offers an online gadget buyback program, said today that it has raised $6 million in second-round funds. Gazelle buys old gizmos from consumers and then sells them on eBay. The round was led by RockPort Capital Partners and also included return investors Venrock and angel investors Austin Ligon, Ashton Peery and Henry Vogel formerly of eBay. The company says it will use the money to continue its branding and marketing campaign.

The Gazelle service accepts old phones, laptops, satellite radios, MP3 players, external hard drives, cameras and even old movie and video game discs.

Customers search for their product on the site, answer a few questions about the condition of the gadget — original cables? scratched screen? — and Gazelle spits back an estimate. If you accept, a pre-paid, self-addressed box arrives at your home for you to pop your old e-gear into and then send back to Gazelle. Once Gazelle checks it out, you get your cash. The company claims it pays the average customer more than $100 for old gadgets.

This round of funding pushes the Boston-based startup’s financing to more than $10 million, as the company raised $4.4 million earlier this year. A number of startups have popped up to capitalize on this new “recommerce” business model, including BuyMyTronics, Flipswap, EZTradein, Kashless and GreenSight. Second Rotation leads the pack of consumer-oriented e-cyclers in funding, but the market opportunity for e-waste recyclers is huge and growing. A three-day electronics recycling drive at the Mall of America last year had to be cut short because of the overwhelming response, which generated over 1 million pounds of e-waste by the second day.

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The Daily Sprout

Craig Rubens — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:00:28 +0000

Guardian Lists Europe’s Cleantech 100: While we’ve mapped the top 101 cleantech startups in the U.S., to see who’s who in European cleantech check out the Guardian’s interactive list – Guardian.

E-Waste Laws Too Lax, Feds Tell Congress: The Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that the EPA’s e-waste laws are limited and not well enforced. Big surprise since EPA head Stephen Johnson has said e-waste is a “low priority” – CNet.

ZAP Electric Car Sales On the Up and Up: ZAP, maker of one of the only readily available electric cars, says that sales of its vehicles were up to $737,000 in August, an 88 percent increase over last year. This compares to a 15.5 drop in sales for the conventional auto industry over the same period – ZAP.

12-Year-Old Wins $25K for 3-D Solar Cell Design: William Yuan, a 12-year-old from Portland, Ore., has designed a photovoltaic cell that absorbs visible and UV light which could allow it to soak up 500 times more light than conventional cells – Wired.

Video: Google’s Schmidt Interviews GE’s Immelt: In case you missed our coverage of Google and GE’s partnership to tackle energy policy and technology, the entire chat between Google CEO Eric Schmidt and GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt is now available. Check out the video embedded below for hot CEO-on-CEO action – Google.org Blog.

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Attero Picks Up $6.3M for Indian e-Cycling

Craig Rubens — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:13:25 +0000

Millions of computers and electronics get shipped overseas from the U.S. to the developing world, where they are cheaply, and often haphazardly, broken down for recycling. Now, millions of dollars of U.S. (and Indian) venture capital are following that disassembly chain. Attero, an e-waste recycler based in Noida, India, has raised $6.3 million (approximately Rs. 25 crore) from NEA-IndoUS Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Attero offers end-to-end recycling, pledging to pickup products to be recycled from consumers and keeping them updated throughout the disassembly process. The company plans to use its new funds to build a huge high-tech recycling center in Roorkee to process techno-trash, including old computers, cell phones, network gear, and TVs — known in the business as WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment). The plant will use mechanical separation techniques as well as a metallurgical process being developed in-house to extract precious metals, the company claims.

The Indian Supreme Court has been fighting the importation of e-waste for years, which is considered a hazardous waste. But despite a ban on the import of such waste back in 1997, e-waste is the country’s fastest growing waste stream. Industry lobbyists estimate that over 2,000 trucks dump around 12,000 metric tonnes of e-waste in Delhi every day.

According to a USA Today article citing Karnataka, India’s state pollution control board, 80 percent of U.S.-generated e-waste is exported to India, China and Pakistan to be recycled. But as developing countries raise the levels of disposable income, they’ll be generating more and more of their own e-waste, too. Either way, both are opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors to deliver more efficient, and more eco-friendly ways to recycle those junked gadgets.

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Outcome versus activity

Om Malik — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:43:02 +0000

A few weeks ago I had lunch with Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems. Since it was an off the record conversation, it didn’t show up on the blog. However, he did say something that has stuck in my mind and has become a daily mantra for me.

“Don’t confuse activity for progress,” he said, offering that as a piece of advice to a first time entrepreneur. It is such a simple sermon, yet so hard to adhere to. Chris Michel, Founder & CEO of Affinity Labs in this essay about outcomes and activity (similar theme) confesses that it took him ten years to figure out who to focus on outcomes, and why all activity is a means to an outcome.

“Outcomes, in this context, means a certain, generally measurable, end result — and one that matters a great deal,” he writes. “Activities, however, are a set of tactics that are used to achieve that outcome.”

This is one article every entrepreneur should read.

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SightSpeed Shifting Places

Om Malik — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 09:30:55 +0000

A few days ago I read something about ABC trying to out-hustle the DVR technology. I found it amusing because these studio guys are sooooo late to the game always. DVR as a technology is at a point where most devices will carry some form of time-shifting in the near future. What he should really be worrying about is place shifting, a technology that has been gaining in popularity, thanks to Sling Media.

Place shifting as a concept, however is about to get more interesting. We have learnt exclusively that SightSpeed, Berkeley, CA-based VoIP software and services provider is going to soon add place shifting features to its new video/voip softclient. (Screenshot after the turn.)

You should expect more such entrants in the place shifting market. Last week, Engadget reported about Novac, a Japanese hardware maker that will use Skype to place shift television.

This is how SightSpeed TV works: say you have a Media Center, and you download and install SightSpeed on it, you can basically set up an account, and have the television beamed to your Sight Speed client software on another computer. You can also place shift your television channels from a Media Center to a Mac as well.

The software will come with a virtual remote to change channels. The timing of this new software release is a little fuzzy, but we have seen a demo. Hopefully, we will be able to test it out, and report the results.

(A more indepth post on this whole trend of place shifting everywhere will follow, perhaps tomorrow in tandem with a big report on Cisco’s consumer strategy and role of Linux inside the home. Any data points, send them across!)

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