Green Practices Take Hold in IT Displays, Survey Finds

Published March 16, 2009

As we saw in our State of Green Business report, the growth of certified green hardware is one of the bright spots on the electronics industry's environmental record. EPEAT, Energy Star and Eco-Flower certifications, to name just three, are showing rapid and steady growth, and seem to be inspiring a "race to the top" for making the greenest products possible.

Now, a recent study from iSuppli confirms that this shift is taking hold in the display industry. In a survey of 520 display professionals from 200 companies, 80 percent said that their companies are at least exploring or have begun to incorporate "environmentally benign" materials into the design of their products.

On top of greener manufacturing, 73 percent of the respondents also said energy efficiency is on their radar for how they design new products, both as purely green initiatives as well as for bottom-line improvements for company performance.

"Implementing a sustainable corporate strategy can be a major revenue and cost-savings generator for any company that is thinking strategically about how it can improve its own global carbon footprint," said Kimberly Allen, a senior consultant to iSuppli and the author of the report. "These companies will gain a competitive advantage over those focused solely on the bottom line."

One interesting finding from the survey includes that green practices go beyond the products themselves; 83 percent of the respondents also said that their companies have undertaken a range of green office practices, for example managing energy use in facilities and decreasing waste from operations.

The findings suggest that environmental considerations are making inroads into corporations as well as into personal behavior: workers are greening their companies, and those companies' green practices are driving personal change.

“About 75 percent of the respondents said they thought it was expected in their job that they were supposed to take into account environmental concerns as part of their job," Allen said in an earlier interview on iSuppli.com. "An additional 22 percent took it into consideration as part of their own personal beliefs. Sustainability is very important to people’s jobs these days.”

The full report, "Environmental Technologies and Practices in the Display Industry," is available online at iSuppli.com.

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Green Practices Take Hold in IT Displays, Survey Finds