The growing trend of promoting green products and services to the larger market, especially in the construction and building industry, may not be as lucrative as it should be. Perhaps being green is still seen as a 'trend' setting strategy to market old products with a new twist. It is a bit like slapping a layer of green panacea onto an existing item, giving it a new trendy green look.
Why do we need to be green, or eco-anything, in the first place?
So many promotions of products and services are laden with 'green' connotation, which are meant to appeal to conscious viewers that we are saving the world from pollution and other form of malpractices when buying to their ideals. The list of items can go on forever, and each would be supported by authorised labels to accredit their green credentials. By having such credit, they are meant to be superior than the other non green acclaimed counterparts.
How do we ascertain that being green is not being fictitious and devoid of reality, especially when majority of consumers in Malaysia are not as aware - of green and sustainability. Even if they are, perhaps the priority is not about being green, but simply about cost. When they decide to buy it is always the cost rather than their inner conscious of 'saving the world'.
In the IGEM 2013 yesterday, Matthias Gelber (The Green Man), touched upon a very important reminder - that being green does not sell. One must also be more cost efficient, i.e. cheaper than existing non-green, and be of superior performance or quality. Only then being green would make viable sense and thus able to capture the market, thus 'unlocking the green purchasing power of consumers'.
This is not meant to discourage efforts towards sustainability at all, there are many genuine innovators and producers who dedicate their efforts towards saving the earth, making lives better for others and doing it for noble goals. On the contrary, most green products are truly beneficial and ready to replace existing technology that had caused problem in the industry.
Take IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality) treatment of cooling coil for refrigeration as an example. Existing practice that uses acid and alkali (chemicals) are so prevalent that building owners have forgotten that fact that these chemicals would easily corrode the metal coils when deep cleaning is carried out. As such deep cleaning would never be carried out effectively, causing much fouling of the system. The bio enzyme treatment however, was designed to work well with metal coil, pH 7 (neutral) thus does not have any effect on the integrity of the metal. This would certainly allow for deep cleaning and sustain the designed performance of the cooling system.
We must support such efforts by firstly understanding what is it meant by green products or services. However, an appropriate business model must be established to unleash its potential, and in the process removing the non green counterparts from the market. For the bio enzyme treatment of air conditioning system as per example above, such business case had empowered many existing building maintenance contractors to improve their performance and capture greater market share in the facility management industry, especially in the IEQ treatment and decontamination of indoor spaces.
Only then the understanding of cost effectiveness and superiority performance, beyond being green, can green products and services have greater hope.
Why do we need to be green, or eco-anything, in the first place?
So many promotions of products and services are laden with 'green' connotation, which are meant to appeal to conscious viewers that we are saving the world from pollution and other form of malpractices when buying to their ideals. The list of items can go on forever, and each would be supported by authorised labels to accredit their green credentials. By having such credit, they are meant to be superior than the other non green acclaimed counterparts.
How do we ascertain that being green is not being fictitious and devoid of reality, especially when majority of consumers in Malaysia are not as aware - of green and sustainability. Even if they are, perhaps the priority is not about being green, but simply about cost. When they decide to buy it is always the cost rather than their inner conscious of 'saving the world'.
In the IGEM 2013 yesterday, Matthias Gelber (The Green Man), touched upon a very important reminder - that being green does not sell. One must also be more cost efficient, i.e. cheaper than existing non-green, and be of superior performance or quality. Only then being green would make viable sense and thus able to capture the market, thus 'unlocking the green purchasing power of consumers'.
This is not meant to discourage efforts towards sustainability at all, there are many genuine innovators and producers who dedicate their efforts towards saving the earth, making lives better for others and doing it for noble goals. On the contrary, most green products are truly beneficial and ready to replace existing technology that had caused problem in the industry.
Take IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality) treatment of cooling coil for refrigeration as an example. Existing practice that uses acid and alkali (chemicals) are so prevalent that building owners have forgotten that fact that these chemicals would easily corrode the metal coils when deep cleaning is carried out. As such deep cleaning would never be carried out effectively, causing much fouling of the system. The bio enzyme treatment however, was designed to work well with metal coil, pH 7 (neutral) thus does not have any effect on the integrity of the metal. This would certainly allow for deep cleaning and sustain the designed performance of the cooling system.
We must support such efforts by firstly understanding what is it meant by green products or services. However, an appropriate business model must be established to unleash its potential, and in the process removing the non green counterparts from the market. For the bio enzyme treatment of air conditioning system as per example above, such business case had empowered many existing building maintenance contractors to improve their performance and capture greater market share in the facility management industry, especially in the IEQ treatment and decontamination of indoor spaces.
Only then the understanding of cost effectiveness and superiority performance, beyond being green, can green products and services have greater hope.
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