last highlighted date: 2024-02-13
Highlights
- While he is specifically talking about the consumer lifecycle of digital devices, these questions could apply to almost any consumer experience, says Macleod. He’s identified a cycle that deteriorates from the life-affirming experience of opening the box of your new smartphone to that “feeling of abandonment after your contract is up, drifting around unsupported with obsolete technology”. While the onboarding experience “is fantastic, and the set-up wizards will get you going in minutes”, by the end that warm fuzzy feeling has transformed into the cold, hard language of metropolitan recycling schemes.
- Part of the issue is product perception. When consumers buy a smartphone “they know loads about the product. They will know its value, what it can do, who makes it. The physical identity in the purchase transaction has a clear asset structure. We then use the product and become engaged with it. When we offboard, it goes into the recycling process, and it loses all of its identity assets and is reduced to componentry at the end.” Not only that, says Macleod, but all the responsibility for what happens at the end of the product lifecycle has now shifted entirely to the consumer.
- Carbon offsets don’t just compensate for carbon dioxide. They also cover methane, nitrous oxide, per-fluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride. They also have common features that help provide legitimacy. The source of the offset refers to the project that is making the offset possible. This might, for example, be a re-forestation project in Ethiopia.