Let’s kill the business card, the paper one that is.

Why do we need it anyways? It does that hideous bent corner thing when you take out of your wallet (excuse us “Mr. That’s-why-I-get-my-cards-lamented”, you are an exception), the VP of Financial Genius gets tossed next to the Hatha yoga instructor and besides, that font you chose, with painstaking care, is ugly anyways.

Like Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief of NextWeb.org, I feel impelled to stop the “ruthless hitmen” and their budding online appetites to belittle and ultimately, kill the paper business card and switch to rmbrME’s bzCard or some other gadget.

Little surprise, most visitors, many with entrepreneurial backgrounds, on the original TechCrunch post by Jason Kincaid weren’t too fond of the whole “death warrant” idea.

“You guys need to get out of the [Silicon] [V]alley more. The business card, and your other page view bloating proclamation about voicemail, is not going away any time soon. You do realize that most business people only use their phone for voice calls and e-mail? Most business people don’t even belong to a “social network.”"

- Alex Valentine

“Most successful people I know simply don’t own a computer, sure as hell not a cell phone. There is no substitute for a business card in the real world.”

- Anderson

“They’re clumsy? What is that supposed to mean? They’re pieces of paper.They’re easy to lose? When did pants stop sporting pockets? Useless? Do the words fall off if the card is shaken or something? And seriously? Trying to throw in the “it’s the green thing to do” line? Come on. That line is wearing thin.”

- David H.

Now, from a sustainability in business perspective, the bzCard (or other eCard, vCard, etc.) can save paper, save trees and contribute to cuts in greenhouse emissions, right?

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Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Want to know how to green your internet porn (or emailing or iTunes) habit? Check out these tips and a post-mortem of where your computers go to die.

Recently, the world computer population surpassed 1 billion. It’s a legion of artificial intelligence that will never die, at least not while humans are around to see it.

The computer species appears to have a high mortality rate (whether due to the rapid progress of technology or an industry conspiracy to ensure that products must be replaced regularly). They “crash” and “die” in droves, their human counterparts literally kicking them to the curb. But there is no heaven, no place in the clouds, for the cold, hard shell once warmed by electrical currents. Once it has left your desk, your computer doesn’t disappear. In a sense, it lives on.

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We need to find a more sensible appoach to economics — call it ECOmonics — that doesn’t require infinite growth on a finite planet. For Earth’s sake and our sake, we need to get to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Quickly. Many of us, either as conserving customers or ecopreneurs, are already well on our way to helping make it so.

We’re reaching a point where the “More, Bigger, Faster” mode of economic activity — often at complete odds with social justice and ecological realities of a finite Earth system — must change. It is changing, by ecopreneurs who are determined NOT to destroy the planet or exploit people in the process. Like us, many green business owners are small sizing our operations to provide optimal control over our impacts. An egg is still an egg, one of the most complete forms of protein you can fry up in a pan, regardless of its size.

Our present growth-obsessed, global, capitalistic economic “story” seems broken when 5-percent of the world’s people uses 25-percent of its resources, produces 40-percent of the waste and, interestingly on the social side, houses 25-percent of the prison population.

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What if you could guarantee exactly how much you’d get, based on how long you’ve owned it, at the time of purchase? This is now a reality, via the company Tech Forward. You can buy a product at any store you like, then purchase their Guaranteed Buyback service, which covers a wide range of electronics, from MP3 players to desktop computers.

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The patent filing discusses placing the solar technology behind the LCD screen of the devices so that the panels would absorb ambient light without adding additional width and bulk to the device. While the technology could be difficult to implement (Motorola filed a similar patent for their mobile devices in 2001 but is yet to be able to successfully integrate solar technology into their devices), having a company as large and influential as Apple roll it out could mean cross product integration with iPods and MacBooks in addition to the iPhone.

The company takes a lot of knocks for not being environmentally conscientious, but downloading tracks and movies instead of buying copies and using maps on mobile instead of printing directions does help limit impact. Making their products more energy efficient is a winning venture for the mega-brand.

The article in question concerned a report that Greenpeace made about the latest gadget that everyone has to have: the iPhone. Apparently, in short, it was a danger to the environment as a result of its materials, and its lack of recyclability.

Their Rebuttal

The Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF) has swung back at Greenpeace, condemning their report as nothing more than a scandalous and hyped attack.

The international organization of the bromine chemical industry pointed out that none of the substances Greenpeace attacked Apple for using were banned under existing environmental laws. In fact, according to the BSEF, all the substances that were criticized by Greenpeace "…are approved for use, and provide critical performance and safety functions in a wide range of electronic products."

They went on to say that the brominated flame retardants that are used in the construction of the iPhone are all common ingredients in a wide variety of currently stocked products. The retardants provide a high level of fire safety, the Forum said, "essential in an age in which computer batteries randomly catch fire."

"The Greenpeace report does not say which brominated flame retardants are present in the iPhone because it does not know. Therefore, the report speculates about what substances might be present, and raises an alarm without any basis for doing so."

Apple also had something to say about the allegations brought against them.

"Like all Apple products worldwide, iPhone complies with RoHS [Restriction of Hazardous Substances], the world’s toughest restrictions on toxic substances in electronics," an Apple spokesperson, told Macworld. "As we have said, Apple will voluntarily eliminate the use of PVC and BFRs by the end of 2008."

My Rebuttal

So yes, in reality, the iPhone manages to stay within the rules. But the facts remain, that the tests commissioned by Greenpeace found problems.

Chemicals that, among others, include phthalates, were found in the vinyl plastic earphone wiring that were above levels deemed safe for children San Francisco and the European Union (EU). These levels were prohibited for children’s toys in both locations.

The Center for Environmental Health, basing their decisions on the report conducted, gave Apple 60-days legal notice (lawyer speak for "we’re about to sue you!").

What really gets me is the way in which the BSEF responded. Two things primarily:

• They said that the chemicals found in the iPhone are available in a wide variety of products. Doesn’t that just mean that there are a whole heap of products out there that shouldn’t be using this stuff?
• And apparently, according to the BSEF, every other computer battery is catching fire. Sadly for them, this is far from the truth. How many stories have we seen over the past year or so about exploding batteries in laptops and iPods? Well, yeah, there have been a dozen or so!

But compare that to how many were sold, and it is a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the total sold. We are not entering an "age" where everything goes kablooie at the drop of a hat. To throw that in as if their intervention is the only thing saving us from a veritable palooza of pants on fire is ridiculous, and sensationalism at its best!

The End

The news is fair and balanced. Apple will be moving to change their manufacturing standards by the end of next year! Their products aren’t above the law, but nor do they need to be, as they fit within the law. And no, they’re not going to be sending our world further in to a cataclysmic spiral any time soon.

But is that the justification you want to use? That they won’t kill us anytime soon?

Network World - Bromine group slams Greenpeace iPhone report

Network World - Apple says iPhone complies with eco standards

More from GO

Apple iPhone Takes a Greenpeace Beating

September of 2006 saw Greenpeace launch the Green My Apple website. Rather than asking for green iPods, they were asking for "green" iPods. The question they asked was this: why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have agreed to abandon?

May of this year saw Steve Jobs — the Apple god, if you will — announce to the world that "Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors" on environmental issues. But with the release of the iPhone in June in America, Greenpeace was left alone in the cold. Apple seemingly had just talked the talk, and sat at home on their couch.

So Greenpeace set out to see just what the iPhone was made of, literally. Purchasing an iPhone, and sending it to their UK labs, they found that the iPhone contained "toxic brominated compounds (indicating the prescence of brominated flame retardants (BFRs)) and hazardous PVC."

"Steve Jobs has missed the call on making the iPhone his first step towards greening Apple’s products," said Zeina Alhajj, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner. "It seems that Apple is far from leading the way for a green electronics industry as competitors, like Nokia, already sell mobile phones free of PVC."

Now, this may seem like just an attack at Apple, but the reality is far from it. Greenpeace has previously run similar campaigns that have led to companies such as Dell and Lenovo phasing out the worst toxic substances from their product ranges. In fact, Dell has turned a literal 180, and has become a leading force in the big-business charge towards a greener future.

Closer to the iPhone home, companies such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have all bent to the pressure placed on them by environmental groups such as Greenpeace. Nokia is totally PVC free, and the other two already have released products with BFR-free components.

In addition, Nokia and Sony Ericsson have a global take-back policy for phones that have been manufactured by them. They accept responsibility for the reuse and recycling of their own phones. This is one of those really awesome measures taken by some companies. Unlike the once-off manufacturing changes that, in reality, will save the companies money, a take-back policy forces the company to fork out cash to keep the world clean. Instead of landfills piling up with millions of cell-phones each year, they are recycled at the behest of the manufacturing company.

I doubt I need to say that Apple are yet to implement any such plan, leaving the fate of some 10 million iPhones hoped to be sold this year well up in the air.

The Apple Iphone may very well be the second coming of the technological revolution, but it ain’t doing much for the good of the planet.

Disclaimer: I own Apple products, including a fifth generation iPod. I am a big fan of Apple, and have written about them at Daily Galaxy favorably. This bites!

Greenpeace - Missed call: the iPhone’s hazardous chemicals

Greenpeace - Green my Apple bears fruit

Green My Apple