Greenwashing in tech industry

[rrats]

Well one commenter mentioned greenwashing that supposedly occurred as a sponsor in a recent LTT video. Now there might be threads about this that I don't know about and in that case I apologise for making a double thread.

 

Anyway, what are some recent and most noticeable tech greenwashing things you all have seen? Also are there any particular examples. One that I know is removal of stuff one gets with a phone such as a charger

[OhYou_]

recently had a discussion on this, i guess its sort of tech related. 
Air conditioning units.

Specifically window units, single room wall units, and mini-split systems. 
It isnt necessarily a new development either. For the last decade at least, everyone has been pushing efficiency and power usage as the only comparison consumers should look at.
People will just go out and buy the one with the biggest efficiency value and smallest price tag without any consideration for their application or the designed application. They dont even look at the damn application that efficiency number is met at.

 

all it has become is dis-satisfied customers and misuse that ends up wasting more power than a proper setup. 

Worse, it's making it hard to even buy a proper aircon for most environments anymore because they are priced out of existence. 

[rrats]

23 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

Air conditioning units.

Really? My family's flat uses an air conditioning unit from like 17+ years ago, and I haven't paid much attention to it's development (if it at all even happened in Europe). What I did look at, apart from printers and microwaves, were vacuum cleaners.

 

Basically it seems that every year maximum watts of it get lowered so it could be more 'power efficient", and while my 2000W unit can be quite a drag to use sometimes, I can only imagine how much the new ones suck... Checked - 900W. That's more than a half!

 

 

[OhYou_]

Just now, rrats said:

Really? My family's flat uses an air conditioning unit from like 17+ years ago, and I haven't paid much attention to it's development (if it at all even happened in Europe). What I did look at, apart from printers and microwaves, were vacuum cleaners.

 

Basically it seems that every year maximum watts of it get lowered so it could be more 'power efficient", and while my 2000W unit can be quite a drag to use sometimes, I can only imagine how much the new ones suck... Checked - 900W. That's more than a half!

 

 

it is far worse than that because to achieve the high efficiency numbers, they usually use a variable compressor, and are engineered to cool only down to low 20s or so. 

[rrats]

44 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

it is far worse than that because to achieve the high efficiency numbers, they usually use a variable compressor, and are engineered to cool only down to low 20s or so. 

oh lord

[rrats]

2 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

Removing the charging brick isn’t actually greenwashing. It eliminates so much shipping volume it’s stupid. 

aha the shipping costs of it, the unnecessary packaging, like 30 pounds for a fast charger with apple phones... i believe it is a greenwashing. especially since like less than 0.1% of the factory pollution had been cut by this choice, only leaving more paper wasted for packaging and unsatisfied customers

[dcgreen2k]

13 minutes ago, rrats said:

aha the shipping costs of it, the unnecessary packaging, like 30 pounds for a fast charger with apple phones... i believe it is a greenwashing. especially since like less than 0.1% of the factory pollution had been cut by this choice, only leaving more paper wasted for packaging and unsatisfied customers

You got a source for that?

 

I'm perfectly fine with some devices not coming with chargers, as long as they don't use some special plug or charging scheme that you can only get from that manufacturer. My family has a box full of USB chargers that came with our devices over the years, and we don't need any more. At a certain point it becomes instant e-waste.

[rrats]

34 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

It’s not about factory pollution it’s about shipping pollution. 

i think quite the opposite but eh, I think that discussions about phone chargers always flood these kind of threads, so let's not talk about it

[art12354]

On 4/25/2023 at 12:41 PM, HomicidalPingu said:

I would say framework is a massive example of greenwashing though. 

How is framework an example of greenwashing?

[NF-A12x25]

54 minutes ago, art12354 said:

How is framework an example of greenwashing?

yeah i don’t understand either, @HomicidalPingu right to repair is genuinely such a massive thing for the environment. I think it’s a pretty dumb thing to say, that framework is greenwashing, when they genuinely make great gear that’s highly repairable and reusable.

[NF-A12x25]

2 hours ago, HomicidalPingu said:

 

Overall their repairability claims are embellished and they act like other laptops aren’t repairable

they aren’t lol, repairability isn’t just what’s possible to repair it’s how easy it is for even a novice user. While Frameworks are a tiny bit overpriced, I think it’s fair to compare them to an ultrabook. And the new one that’s coming out will be really solid, with a removable dGPU that can go in a dock and everything.

[Uttamattamakin]

2 hours ago, HomicidalPingu said:

Overall their repairability claims are embellished and they act like other laptops aren’t repairable. Basically they’ve gotten a $600 laptop, thrown some buzzwords at it and priced it at $1100 then compared it to ultrabooks because that’s the price point it’s at which obviously don’t have the same design language and are focused on being as small as possible which you simply cannot do with SODIMM slots on the board. 

Let me put it this way Framework laptops are made to be easy to repair by people who are not used to working on laptops.  Most 14 inch or larger laptops that are not meant to be ULTRA portable are somewhat repairable.  I know.   I've done this for my own laptops in the past.  

The issue with framework is a lot of people think they might not last once the venture capital dries up.   That they'll at best get bought by one of the big boys.  That big boy will then use some of their design ideas for maybe a generation before economies of scale act.   I wish them luck. 

The Biggest Tech Green Washing is electric cars. 

 

If you upgrade your car when your gasoline car was done for then it's not so bad.  However, it takes fossil fuel derived energy to mine the raw materials for the electric cars. 

 

Then there is the mining itself and the damage it causes.  The supply chain for those things is often filled with inhumane working conditions for the poorest people on Earth. The materials needed are rare Earth minerals that gasoline cars don't need as much of. 

They are greener than gasoline cars, but they are not free of impact. 

[Needfuldoer]

18 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The Biggest Tech Green Washing is electric cars. 

 

If you upgrade your car when your gasoline car was done for then it's not so bad.  However, it takes fossil fuel derived energy to mine the raw materials for the electric cars. 

 

Then there is the mining itself and the damage it causes.  The supply chain for those things is often filled with inhumane working conditions for the poorest people on Earth. The materials needed are rare Earth minerals that gasoline cars don't need as much of. 

They are greener than gasoline cars, but they are not free of impact. 

It's a big environmental impact at the beginning of the vehicle's life, vs more ongoing environmental impact over its lifetime. (After all, it's not like the petroleum industry is squeaky-clean.)

 

This is why I'm still an advocate for plug-in hybrids with LiFePO batteries. Less initial impact than a full EV, less ongoing impact than full ICE, no cobalt required. 

[NF-A12x25]

1 hour ago, HomicidalPingu said:

Ultrabooks are a different form factor so no it’s not fair to compare them.

frameworks are pretty damn thin, as a repairable laptop goes.

[Blademaster91]

On 4/25/2023 at 2:50 PM, HomicidalPingu said:

It’s not about factory pollution it’s about shipping pollution. 
 

The idea is people already have a charger so there’s no point shipping one with the phone. It’s better environmentally to replace a charger when it breaks vs getting one with every device. At one point I had like 7 power bricks from devices and I only used one of those and a 3rd party dual one. 

If people have so many chargers laying around, and especially a fast charger suitable for a new phone, then the issue is the phone, not the charger.

Phones need to be more repairable, not sealed throw away devices so people replace them when the battery starts to fail.

2 hours ago, HomicidalPingu said:

It’s a laptop. They’re not hard to strip down and put back together. Framework isn’t significantly easier or more difficult to tear down than any other laptop. 

 

You been ignoring the massive push for recycling of those materials? 

You're missing the point, the point of the Framework is ease of replacing parts and upgrading, a lot of consumer laptops now have the SSD and RAM soldered in, also parts like the screen and battery sometimes glued in.

[NF-A12x25]

29 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

They’re really not. It’s thicker than a 14” MacBook pro never mind the thin and lights 

almost no part of a 14” macbook pro is repairable, it’s ALL soldered

[NF-A12x25]

“aside from the mainboard” is leaving out a pretty damn important part

[tkitch]

2 hours ago, HomicidalPingu said:

It’s a laptop. They’re not hard to strip down and put back together. Framework isn’t significantly easier or more difficult to tear down than any other laptop. 

 

You been ignoring the massive push for recycling of those materials? 

replace a busted network port on your laptop.

 

Now replace that busted network port on the framework, and tell me which is easier.  

[tkitch]

9 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

The mainboard of the framework isn’t repairable, that’s a straight swap. But you should be clamouring it to something like the Inspiron 14 rather than ultrabooks

this is impossible to change, because laptop CPUs don't have sockets, they're soldered on now, and have been for...  10 years? 

Also, if something on the mobo dies on your full tower?  You also replace the board.  It's not *that* different.  

[Blademaster91]

18 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

Aside from the mainboard everything is modular. Kinda like framework but you can actually replace the ports on a MacBook. But even so that’s not the point. It’s not an ultrabook, it’s nowhere near the size of one so it is disingenuous to compare it to one. You should be comparing it to basic laptop

The mainboard is an important part to ignore, given that most things to fail are on the mainboard.

Replacing parts on a macbook requires a whole soldering station, not exactly a reasonable task for most people. Meanwhile you can replace a broken port module on a Framework without any tools.

11 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

The mainboard of the framework isn’t repairable, that’s a straight swap. 

The components on the mainboard are, if RAM or SSD fails it can be replaced without needing to send it out for repair, Framework even provides mainboard schematics.

And good luck repairing a macbook, you'll need another macbook for parts because Apple refuses to sell spare parts and restricts manufacturers from offering spare parts.

[tkitch]

10 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

Exactly the same. It’s just swapping out a dongle either way as the framework doesn’t have a network port. 

And on normal laptops they're soldered onto the board.  So, you can't swap without extensive soldering. (Which is absolutely beyond the skillset of normal users.)

 

[Blademaster91]

19 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

No it doesn’t? You need a screwdriver and maybe a guitar pick to swap out parts on a mac. Same as you so with pretty much every laptop. 

Most people aren't going to be willing to take apart the whole laptop to replace the USB-C port.

You wanted to compare it to a Framework, which is much easier with replaceable modules.

19 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

You mean the components that are rated for years and outlast the other components on the board? Also not criticising an ultra book for having soldered storage and ram 

That isn't always the case, I've had RAM and SSD's fail or cause system instabillity, I would rather be able to replace those components myself.

19 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

You can buy pretty much everything from ifixit and/or eBay. Not really an issue because they sell that much. 

The only USB-C boards ifixit sells are used, so ifixit had to take those from parts laptops, if you want new parts you often can't get them because Apple doesn't provide those to anyone.

[NF-A12x25]

52 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

The mainboard of the framework isn’t repairable, that’s a straight swap. But you should be clamouring it to something like the Inspiron 14 rather than ultrabooks

yeah, but unlike on the mbp you can turn it into a miniPC

[NF-A12x25]

41 minutes ago, HomicidalPingu said:

You mean the components that are rated for years and outlast the other components on the board? Also not criticising an ultra book for having soldered storage and ram 

in your dreams- SSDs are usually the first part to die, other than constant use ports.

 

also I’ll criticize an ultrabook any day of the week. They suck even worse than macbooks.

[rrats]

6 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The Biggest Tech Green Washing is electric cars.

Oh yes. Basically the production of lithium pollutes nature (soil + rivers, mostly). That alone is bad but what is even more bad is the amount of lithium used to produce an electric vehicle. 100s of mobile phone batteries (if not more) could be made for the cost of one electric car's battery. They mostly mine the lithium in mid to poor countries, pretty much keeping the money for themselves.

 

If that wasn't capitalistic enough, wait till some people find out they still use fossil fuels and coal for electricity. Basically it does more bad than good