One of the reasons there’s a new buzz about the ‘creative industries’ is that officialdom is starting to recognise that screen-based e-enterprise is a whole heap cleaner than the cogs-and-widgets-send-it-by-lorry variety. Why blight lovely scenery with industrial estates and smoke stacks when properly-nurtured screenery can add just as much to GDP?

But, as Climate Friendly Fortnight begins in the South West, is it worth looking at the greenness of screeness?

Earlier this year Greenpeace won a Webby Award for the online face of its campaign ’to expose the contamination which is hidden behind the sleek design of electronics and electronics advertising”.

For the campaign, Greenpeace took a calculated decision to make Apple its main target. The choice not only recognised that Apple – unlike some big competitors – was continuing to use polluting chemicals and to dump nasty long-life waste in China and India but also the opinion-shaping clout of the Corps’ core fan base: innovating techies, 30-somethings with money to spend and the young fashionista who – tragically for gorillas living near unregulated coltan deposits – can’t go more than a year without a new mobile phone .

There was no head-on attack, though. Instead, Greenpeace hi-jacked the fondness many users express for Apple products. Campaign supporters were stirred to tick off their beloved more in sorrow than in anger. “I love my Apple, I just wish it was green”.

The approach succeeded – in part. In May, after thousands upon thousands of emails, blog posts and video letters, the company promised to phase out of the worst chemicals in its product range – including Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) – by 2008, and to catch up with rival manufacturers, by introducing a take-back and recycling programme.

But, for now, take-back is only guaranteed in the US. So, the pressure stays on to get it extended worldwide. See the Steve at Macworld 2007

spoof written and voiced by Greenpeace’s Brian Fitzgerald.

Meanwhile, the race to bring a truly green product to market is still wide open. For Dell this translates into a mission to become the world’s greenest technology company. It has already committed to reducing the company’s carbon intensity by 15% by 2012, with penalties for suppliers who fail to monitor, report and combat carbon emissions. Dell is also asking worldwide users to help it to build the greenest PC on the planet, via its IdeasStorm website.



Info on what other tech/elec companies are doing are available from another Greenpeace initiative, the Green Electronics Guide.

Of course, some folks still feel that all this carbon emissions stuff is just so much hot air.

If that’s you, check out the contribution made by the Bristol-based "ARKive ":http://www.arkive.org project to the IUCN’s latest Red List of endangered species, or take a look at how rapidly the environmental numbers change at Worldometers.

T’aint all gloom, though. We’re an adaptable species. If the climate can change, so can we. For info on local climate change-related initiatives and activities in the next two weeks, see Climate Friendly Fortnight, or get along to CREATE, near the Nova Scotia pub, the hub of the OFFLOAD festival.

Go on bike or on foot, mind – every one less carbon molecule helps!

PAM BEDDARD

(with thanks to The Campaign Strategy Newsletter © Chris Rose)