The complexities of understanding what truly are ‘green technologies‘ were illustrated beautifully by the award to Toyota’s Prius, or as I prefer, Pious, as Greenest Technology of the Year award at the inaugural British Technology Awards. By what conceivable metric could the Pious be called green? Toyota refuses to disclose the amount of embedded energy (CO2) in the sourcing, building and recycling of the vehicle. This is a car with two electric motors and one internal combustion engine and a resource-intense nickel-metal hydride battery. Toyota admits that building (not disposing of) the Prius expends more energy, but then says that’s compensated by its better fuel consumption. Come on Toyota, publish the figures and let’s decide the car’s green credentials.

Technology will provide some of the solutions but in the meantime let’s consume less and preserve more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 7:33 am and is filed under Business, Environment, Industrial Design, Technology. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.