Greenwashing

it is interesting to learn new words.

Greenwashing is not a new word, but recently when i came across a reference to a chair that had a low carbon footprint, i could not feel anything but amused!

this was one of those hi-tech chairs that comes with buttons for umpteen adjustments. sitting in those chairs makes one feel in control – of what, i do not know! but the novelty wears off soon.

once adjusted, most of us are going to sit / work in the same position.

i like car seats that can be adjusted. particularly when you need to make some minor adjustments in a car driven by someone else before you. most of those are mechanical adjustments.

by adding extra motors and increasing the costs and the carbon footprint when a company says that the latest model is their lowest carbon footprint, i am not sure if that is also not  form of greenwashing.

in my school going years, i remember reading a monthly newsletter from a Canadian company that would have articles on new technologies and products. i used to wait for every issue eagerly. That company used to have a bye-line ‘if technology cannot solve problems, what else can?’. i remember writing to them asking how many of these problems solved by technology were created by technology! i never got an answer..

those were days before email and internet technology

don’t get me wrong – i love technology. like when earlier today, i was on a phone call with my daughter – who needed some  directions to reach a place in Boston.

Here i was, in Bangalore, checking an online map and pretty much giving block by block directions over the phone to locate a place half way across the world!

i know, you my ask if a local GPS or a smartphone would have given the same or better results.. but the human touch would have been lost and sharing the feeling of being lost in real time is something that technology alone cannot completely capture or share..