[This article was originally published on the blog of BSR, a sustainability consultancy, and is reprinted with permission.]
As science continues to accelerate around us, the visions of the future are being overtaken by the technologies of today. The personalized ads that popped out of screens for Tom Cruise in Minority Report are being turned into a reality by tech companies such as IBM and NEC.
In his new book Existence, David Brin shows us how a virtual world can overlay a physical world and enable people and information to interact at the same time. Google glasses are now launching us on this journey towards a seamless, real-time overlay of data and information on top of reality.
The “last mile” in the sustainability world is consumer awareness, engagement, and choice. Consumer behavior reinforces corporate sustainability practices through purchasing decisions, but in order for consumers to make informed decisions, they need information.
Today, apps such as Good Guide attempt to inform consumers through technology—for example, a photo of a barcode links to product safety, environment, and social indicators. In China, a new app that informs consumers about food safety issues was recently released. And, QR bar codes, which allow quick linkages from product to web, are springing up everywhere.
If we add these bits of today’s technology to the next generation of engineering, the opportunities for consumer awareness, engagement, and understanding are profound.
It isn’t hard to envision Google glasses continuously scanning and correlating bar codes and presenting the data to users in real time. Google alerts won’t appear in your inbox, but instead will pop up in the glasses when you encounter products and services you've identified as relevant.
Next page: How high-tech glasses might help consumers comparison shop
The type of information-rich
The type of information-rich future envisioned here is still going to be very subject to greenwashing. And information overload. A global, energy-based carbon tax would internalize much of the eco-footprint information into the price signal that the consumer receives at the time of purchase.
Pollution knows no political boundaries; the air and oceans and biosphere are global. Yet we continue to ignore the problems and deliver fragmented piecemeal approaches. QR code-laden products might start to help, but only if they lead to meaningful information. Such as, the GMO content of food in the supermarket. Right now, nobody selling such products in the US wants to disclose that, and Monsanto have convinced lawmakers not to require it.
This is your science fiction
This is your science fiction future? Completely consumerist and having nothing to do with how people will get the money to buy stuff with transparency or not on your iPhoneGoogleglasses, nothing to do with how the refrigerators and freezers in the supermarket stay on and keep that fish fresh, nothing to do with whether there is any edible fish left in a warming and increasingly acidic ocean.
Dream bigger please. We desperately need bigger dreams and clearer visions.
What would a zero emissions economic system look like? How would you live your daily life in a city that provided 100% of the food it eats year in and year out? What does it mean to have a world full of zero net energy and positive net energy buildings?