Doug and I went to the Greener Gadgets Conference last week.  I was hosted by Inhabitat and CEA and it was a great time with lots of info to digest.  We’ll be covering many of the people and ideas from the conference in greater detail in the weeks to come but here are the highlights…

On the way down Doug and I discussed the name “Greener Gadgets” and the irony that regardless of what you make a gadget out of, the whole culture of gadgets is to always have the latest and greatest which means frequent upgrades and constant consumption.  When we arrived I was please to find that one of the major themes of the day was moving from a “Throw-away Culture” to an “Heirloom Culture.”  What that means is culture where things are made to last and we value the quality and longevity of the things in our lives. 

Inventor Dr. Saul Griffith delivered the keynote address in which he shared in painstaking detail his own energy footprint, and addressed the broader implications of continuing down our current consumption path. 

Here’s a clip…

Next there was a panel discussion about how we measure a products “Hue of Green”  moderated by Adam Aston of BusinessWeek.  The panel included Aaron Dallek, Co-founder and CTO of Planet Metrics, Stephen Harper, Director of Environment and Energy Policy at Intel Corp, Michael Murphy, Senior Manager of Environmental Affairs at Dell, and Ken Rother, President and COO of Treehugger.

The panel discussed the importance companies increasing the energy efficiency of their operations and products and communicating those values to consumers.  One idea that was bandied about was the idea of a carbon tax to put a price on the carbon footprints of a product.  The idea is that it will force consumers to make more meaningful and efficient purchases and companies will then compete to be more efficient.

Stay tuned for the after lunch recap…

Image Sources: Doug Gunzelmann & Inhabitat