Green guilt

26 May 2008

Guilt is a powerful emotion, particularly when it’s built up over many years and suddenly comes gushing out in a torrent. This certainly seems to be the case in many parts of the US, as so-called “green guilt” rises to new levels.

North Americans have a huge deficit to make up when it comes to carbon emissions – a recent National Geographic Society survey of 14 environment-friendly countries placed US consumers in last place. And while the current administration has dragged its heels on climate controls, all three presidential candidates have recognised that there’s a groundswell of opinion in favour of taking action. In California, which has long led the way in driving through fundamental social change, popular perceptions about green issues are reflected in efforts to drive through tough new legislation governing emissions.

Scarcely a day now passes when some kind of green story isn’t gripping the US media, encompassing everything from environmentally-sound porches to cooking-fat fuel. Attending a conference in Silicon Valley last month, I found that all the materials, including the agenda, were presented on a USB storage device – which was great for the environment, but made it a bit hard to know where I was supposed to be when I didn’t have my laptop on. But for a London that’s drowning in cast-off free papers – won’t those The London Paper people ever understand that I read London Lite? – it provides a useful contrast.

The message is certainly getting through. According to an annual survey by the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation, 20 per cent of Americans now feel bad about not being green, a slight increase on the previous year. Curiously, less men felt guilty– from 18% to 17% year-on-year - while more than a quarter of women (26%) carry the burden.

Of course, this is not just about an altruistic concern to save the planet: one of the big issues for both legislators and the great American public is rising fuel prices. In the UK, Chancellor Alistair Darling took the precautionary step of ditching a previously mooted rise in fuel tax in the recent budget in the knowledge that any additional government levies on petrol would be unpopular with motorists. But in the US, with fuel prices rising 22% for gasoline over the past year and a whopping 46% for diesel, many people have given up hope of avoiding the fuel price hike and are looking for alternative ways to save money. Logistics companies are adjusting their routes to ensure they spend the minimum possible time on the roads – and even advising truck drivers not to take left turns, since waiting to cross congested traffic lanes can use up more gas than taking a different route. Elsewhere, companies have put speed limiters on their trucks, so they cruise along at a more fuel-economical speed. It’s not popular with the truck drivers, but it’s been proven to lower fuel bills by as much as 8%. Truck and car drivers are also taking much more care to check their tyre pressures and share rides to ensure fuel efficiency.

This is all having a profound effect on the US consumer – or at least the guilt-ridden 26% of females who seem to care about this stuff. With airlines suffering massive rises in fuel bills, travel costs are on the increase, and frequent travellers who previously wouldn’t think twice about boarding a domestic flight are starting to ask themselves whether they really need to travel to conferences and meetings.

The opportunities all this presents for green technology companies in both the US and UK are enormous, of course. But the UK as a whole could also learn a thing or two about what adopting a green agenda really means. While some countries in Europe have been pioneers for the way we think about environmental issues – particularly Germany, Switzerland and the Nordics – progress has been a little slower in the UK.

Strangely, the US experience reflects the fact that it’s often the small things that really count when you’re trying to tackle big issues. Why print out dozens of copies of a document that might not even be read, when you can supply an electronic version and let people print it out if they choose? And equally, why sit fuming in traffic when you can save fuel and time using smart route-mapping software to direct you to your destination? It’s all about making the best use of the resources available, which applies equally whether you’re running a company or helping save the planet. And if it assuages your conscience at the same time, so much the better.

By David Longworth, Webster Buchanan Research