Fighting Reputation of Waste, Electronics Show Goes Green

By Kim Hart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 5, 2008

The International Consumer Electronics Show will open in Las Vegas tomorrow night with the usual fanfare, talking up new gadgets and technologies and setting this year's stage for the $148 billion industry.

More than 140,000 people are expected to flock to the nation's largest trade show, all hoping to catch a glimpse of newfangled contraptions promoting new ways to watch television, listen to music and talk on cellphones -- or perhaps all three at once. CES is the premier venue for tech companies launching products and striking deals amid the incessant glow of extravagant displays and casinos.

But this year, the show's organizers say they're trying to take steps so that the glow may leave less of a dent on the environment. It's part of a broader public relations campaign to mitigate the industry's reputation as an energy-guzzling business that produces gizmos that aren't easily recycled. Offsetting the environmental impact of the show means eliminating the creation of more than 20,000 tons of carbon.

The show uses as much energy as it takes to power 2,600 homes for a year and the equivalent of 2.3 million gallons of gasoline.

"It's pretty ambitious, considering we're larger than the Super Bowl and all the political conventions," said Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association, the Arlington-based group hosting the show.

Recycled carpet, biodegradable plastic utensils, pamphlets printed with soy ink and energy-efficient light bulbs will be used, he said.

Carbonfund.org, an organization in Silver Spring that helps companies reduce their carbon use, calculated the amount of energy consumed at the show. Through Carbonfund.org, CEA has invested in wind farms, solar energy and reforestation projects to try to compensate for the power used by dozens of shuttle buses, the 600,000 hotel rooms and for cooling a show floor the size of 35 football fields.

Efforts to be more eco-friendly will likely extend to many of the 2,700 exhibitors trying to sell their products to consumers willing to pay a premium for sustainable devices, said Albert Lin, an analyst with American Technology Research and a veteran of CES.

"The consumer electronics world is characterized as one of the most ungreen," he said. "The industry is trying to work hard to turn around that perception."

This year, companies will be pushing low-energy devices that replace the lights with long-lasting, light-emitting diodes, TVs that contain more eco-friendly chemicals and a host of recycled cellphones. One company, TrendNet, is selling upgrades to extend the life of wireless routers. And the Environmental Protection Agency has reserved display space to urge people to recycle their electronics.

But the offset does not compensate for the thousands of flights needed to get people to the Nevada desert.

Shapiro said people use the show to network and hold meetings. He estimated that each flight to Las Vegas cuts 156,000 miles of additional air travel attendees would otherwise have had to log in order to meet.

The deal-making aspect of CES underscores how important partnerships have become in the technology world. The show increasingly caters not only to device manufacturers but also content creators and distributors who want to ensure digital photos, streaming music and high-definition movies are delivered to consumers.

Netflix was one of the first companies to drum up publicity by partnering with LG Electronics to market a device that will stream online movies to digital TVs. Similar announcements are expected to come next week as firms try to find an audience for Internet video.

Media companies that have traditionally targeted television are searching for ways to get their shows on laptops and mobile devices. Sony Pictures, for example, has for the first time reserved space on the show floor and plans to have comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Drew Carey perform. NBC Universal will produce a live broadcast for its nightly news show. Broadcasting executives hope to meet with handset manufacturers to get local broadcasts on cellphones.

"It's no good to buy a great flat-panel TV if you don't spend the extra fifteen bucks a month to get high-definition cable service," said Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group who has made the trip from Washington every year for more than a decade.

G. Richard Wagoner Jr., chairman and chief executive of General Motors, will deliver one of the keynote speeches -- a first for a car manufacturer. The auto industry has always had a presence at the show, but forging relationships with tech companies is even more important now that navigation and wireless devices and satellite radios are common features in new cars.

CES has been the launching pad for best-sellers, total flops and technologies that aren't quite ready for mass adoption. In 2004, Bill Gates talked up a Spot Watch, wristwatch that would let wearers access weather updates, their calendar and sports scores. It has not taken off. Last year, the iPhone stole the show's thunder, even though it was unveiled at Apple's Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco.

Some products can take years to get to market. High-definition movies made their CES debut several years ago but became widely available only this past holiday season.

The growth of mobile devices and the demand for super-fast speeds to connect them has helped wireless technologies take center stage at CES the past few years. This year, Intel, Clearwire, Motorola and Sprint Nextel will tout WiMax as the new wireless technology that could link digital cameras, car navigation systems, laptops and cellphones.

TV makers like Sony and Toshiba are introducing wireless high-definition TVs that can connect to cameras, cable boxes and DVD players.

How to make money, not just on sales but through new advertising tactics, is also a hot topic in the industry, especially as more companies try to figure out their Web-based strategies.

Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang will give his second CES keynote speech. Google, which made a splash two years ago by attending the show for the first time, will be largely absent this year.

Other companies, however, may make announcements, including partnerships with Google, said Google spokeswoman Erin Fors.

Google not only dominates online advertising, its reach now extends to the media, cellphones and business software, making it a threat to many of the other companies attending CES.

"I think Google has to lay low because they're in this massive battle ground over how the Internet is used," American Technology Research's Lin said. "Even though they're taking a pro-consumer approach, the consumer electronics industry may not be so pro-Google because their way of doing business may threaten the status quo."