Company spokesperson Murray Hogarth concedes that the "flatulence cards" fall on the "gimmicky" side of the company's otherwise serious product line, which is designed to help consumers and small businesses address greenhouse gas emissions.
Consumers can offset the carbon emissions of their cars (estimated at 8.3 tons each per year, cost: U.S. $118), airline flights (1.7 tons for a three- to five-hour flight, cost: $24), or home energy use and trash (about 12 tons a year, cost: $170).
"We are absolute believers in market solutions" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Hogarth said.
Governments focus on suppliers, he added, but they rarely target individual consumers in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.
"Five percent of the population are really green, and they will do this stuff as almost a moral obligation, and they'll pay more money for it," Hogarth said.
"And 95 percent of the population often just get missed altogether."
Easy Being Green aims to reach that 95 percent by showing consumers how they can save money at home and by using age-old marketing ploys like prize giveaways.
"We're not saying that changing light globes is going to fix the climate-change problems of the world," Hogarth said.
"But it's something that people can do immediately, and it actually has its really good social ecology to it. Because people say, Well, hang on, I can do something, and they start to take some action."
Free Email News Updates
Best Online Newsletter, 2006 Codie Awards
Sign up for our Inside National Geographic newsletter. Every two weeks we'll send you our top stories and pictures (see sample).
|
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES
|
