I ran across this little Opinion from the L.A. Times - Here is an excerpt:
Conservation leads to innovation
By Gary Gardner, May 9, 2008
"A green industrial revolution?
...Does it matter if some staples..."(as in bread, milk, etc. not staples that hold pages together) "...run out...will the same ingenuity that produced oil refining in the late 19th century and the "green revolution" in the late 20th century save us again in the future?...
...Consider the idea of businesses offering services instead of goods in today's economy. Xerox has shifted from selling copiers (goods) to leasing them (a service), which gives the company, as perpetual owner of the leased machines, a strong incentive to manufacture them to be refurbishable. This greatly extends the life of materials and reduces waste..."
Well, if you read the above statement, what do you think?
When did Xerox stop manufacturing copiers?
When did leasing equipment (ANY equipment) become an act of “conservation”?
And didn’t Xerox sell off its leasing interest years ago? Xerox is not a “…perpetual owner of the leased machines…”. The leasing company owns the machines. This is the most basic, simplistic concept of leasing.
Also, these plastic, over-heated machines, which are designed with built-in serviceability, have an expected life of around 36 months with new machines hitting the market almost every 3-6 months.
The author's belief that copier companies have a "strong incentive to manufacture them to be refurbishable..." is naive and misguided. And unfortunately, naivety is a characteristic of the Greenie ilk.
Xerox/Ricoh/Canon/Toshiba/Konica/Sharp or NOT interested in being a "...perpetual owner of the leased machines..." they are interested in creating perpetual customers of new machines not used or referbed machines. And why would anyone be interested in “perpetual customers” ? The answer, of course, is to make more money and to increase profits – not save the world.
- Reducing costs can increase profit – again, a simple and basic micro-economic concept.
1. Managed Print Service programs reduce costs.
2. Lower energy consumption or machines that consume more intelligently reduce costs.
3. Printing on both sides of the paper reduces costs.
4. Reducing the redundancy of equipment (i.e. fax machine next to a laser printer, next to a connected copier) reduces costs.
These four issues reduce costs and impact the environment in a positive way. These four issues are customer driven and implemented to increase revenues, reduce costs and increase profits - CAPITALISM.
The Green movement is losing it's issue to it's arch nemesis - Capitalism.
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