Discuss About The Green Technology For Green Circuit And Device Designs

Discuss about the Green Technology for Green Circuit and Device Designs.

Introduction to Green Technology

The word technology is the set of skills and knowledge utilised in achieving the goals of a specific investigation. It comprises of technical methods, tools and techniques which can be embedded in various machines or devices. Green technology is an advanced concept of technology which is used to save the natural eco-system through the application of equipment and products that are environment friendly. The concept of green technology is not so old and therefore it is not widely recognised by people. The basic aim of introducing the green technology to the people is to minimise the adverse impact of various IT operations on environment by creation and disposing the computer machines and other related devices or equipment in the eco-friendly manner. The era of 21^st century is recognised as “century of the environment” (Paz-Alberto & Sigua, 2013). The use of different researches, policies and incentives towards environmental protection can positively contribute to build a green future for the future generations. In the recent times, green technology is the rapidly growing employment sector.

Brining into scope the concept of green technology is a not-for-profit initiative that is designed to make efforts towards environment sustainability. Green technology is also recognised as clean technology. This technology has brought the promise of making the planet Earth, a healthier one. The term ‘green technology’ encompasses different techniques such as green chemistry, environmental monitoring and so on (Butt, 2016). The only purpose of developing the green technology is to bring back a healthy life into the severely damaged ecosystem. The concept of green technology is widely accepted by the business communities and non-business communities because people are highly aware of the detrimental effects of their practices on the environment. Because of issues like global warming, green-house effect etc. It is not that green technology is applied only on the business or commercial units rather such technology can be applied to the domestic units so as to safeguard the environment from the harmful household and commercial activities. In today’s world, extreme rise in the temperature, emission of toxic gasses such as carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons gases have become important issues to be addressed in order to control the environmental degradation (Gratão, et. al., 2005). These severe issues could be addressed through the implementation of green technologies and approaches such as green buildings, paperless work culture, fuel efficient transportation system, waste management, sewage treatment, sustainable manufacturing and so on. There are multiple benefits of use of green technologies in the today’s time which are discussed further.

Concept of Green Technology

Since 1990’s more and more focus is being paid to the green technology because of its potential benefits. Green processes use only those natural resources that will never deplete and hence they promote greatly to the environment sustainability. Sustainability is achieved when existing needs of the society are met in the way resources used to fulfil those needs are saved for the subsequent usage by the upcoming generations. Green technology initiatives such as green buildings, green manufacturing are qualified as the energy and natural resource savers as they avoid damaging or wasting the valuable and scarce natural resources present in the environment (Hall & Helmers, 2013). Use of efficient lighting and air conditioning not only saves cash for the consumers but also leads to significant savings of power and energy. Even manufacturing firms can also gain large benefits from the use of green manufacturing initiative. It encourages them to follow cradle to cradle design by terminating cradle to grave production systems so as to produce such products that are re-usable in nature. Green technologies can minimise the waste out of production and pollution by introducing the production systems that are eco-friendly (Ramdhani, et. al., 2017). It now only minimises the environmental footprint of the company’s product but also makes the overall environment more sustainable. The use of green technology benefits the country in various ways such as it does not allow any toxic substances to release in the atmosphere which ultimately reduces the impacts of global warming. It promotes the production and consumption of those resources that are biodegradable in nature and re-usable. Green processes do not damage the eco-system. The adoption of green technologies in the business can provide the firm the opportunity of gaining more market share because of higher level of trust and confidence put by the ultimate consumers in the products that are eco-friendly. Moreover, the green technology can contribute to development of production efficiency by way of reduction in the input costs, energy cost as well as operating costs. Further, the adoption of green initiatives by a business firm can lead to sound public image of such firm which can over it a competitive advantage over its rival firms. Also, the green initiatives of a firm could help it to comply with the heavy and strict environmental regulations in the smooth manner which would allow it to avoid any legal interventions from the environmental regulators (Krass, Nedorezov & Ovchinnikov, 2013). Besides that, it is generally observed in the recent times that government offers attractive financial grants and incentives to the firms that generate energy from the use of natural resources. One of the prime reasons of environmental pollution and its severe causes is the disposal of industry’s and household’s waste in the open environment. Green technology has a fine solution to this cause (Hein, et.al., 2013). This type of technology could definitely change the waste patterns in such a way that it no more deteriorate the environment and affect the health of all the constituents of the environment. The prime ways through which green technology proves its worth are recycling, conversing natural resources and energy etc. These technologies not only help in conserving the natural resources such as water, air, fossil fuels, soil etc. but also it enables to keep such resources purified (Ng, et. al., 2012). Going green or the use of technologies that are eco-sensitive is one of the major ways which could lead to the effective economic growth and development of the economy (Lema & Lema, 2012).

Benefits of Green Technologies

Though, it can be claimed that technology has helped in advancing different spices on Earth further than anybody could have imagined. Different sort of technologies has significantly improved the way of living of humans on Earth. It has saved innumerable lives on this planet. Despite of enormous benefits of technology, there are multiple problems that are being faced by the people as a result of progression of technology. The progress from the advancement of technology has come at a very huge cost. While eco-friendly living approaches are the positive ideals but there are various possible limitations of Green such as large cost of implementation, lack of availability of adequate amount of information, uncertainty of performance impacts, lack of adequate skills and resources for the adoption of green technologies (Mueller, 2017). The downsides of green technologies are discussed further in the next section.

The biggest problem with the adoption of green technologies is its economic aspect. The approach of going green requires huge initial cost. For instance, installation of new roof or insulation to allow the heat to escape from domestic units could be considered as an initiative towards greener environment but it would amount to investment of large sums of money for such installation (Iravani, Birjand & Zohoori, 2017). Similarly, purchasing a hybrid vehicle which could reduce the energy consumption would certainly be an initiative towards green technology adoption but it would cost thousands of dollars of the acquirer. This economic downside of green technology makes it unaffordable and impractical for most of the developing countries to adopt them (Cohen, Lobel & Perakis, 2015). The other problem that is associated with the use of green technology is the competitive pressures in the corporate world. It is true that going green could be seen as the attractive way to gain goodwill in the market, but until or unless, the green initiatives are economically feasible, it could put a business in a disadvantageous position. For example, one of two competitive firms in the market adopts the green initiatives and as a result of this it adheres to stringent pollution standards by implementing such technologies that are eco-friendly but quite costly; and the other firm follows loose standards which do not require investment in such heavy eco-friendly equipment and technologies, then the latter firm will be put at an advantageous position in economic terms than the former firm because of involvement of lower production costs in the business of latter firm. Even when national standards in regards to environmental protection are imposed to force the business units to go green, they would be put at an unfavourable position in respect to other countries. The next problem with going green is that while adopting the green technologies emphasise is put on reducing the harm to the eco-system as a whole, the impact that any individual could have on environment by undertaking green initiatives is almost negligible. The basic theory is that if all the individuals were encouraged to go green, a significant positive impact could be experienced on the environment but in reality it is not practically possible to influence every individual about the green initiatives. Moreover, each technology has to be reliable in order to get implemented effectively but few green technologies have large limitations. For example, the PV power plants functions finely on the sunny days whereas their functioning gets affected when the solar radiation drops on that particular surface. Due to these limitations people often rely on conventional technologies. The green technologies also have to face the social downsides (Dai, 2013). For example, when bio-gas plants are installed but they do not come into operations because of lack of lack of trained and skilled labour to operate them, resistance to change the existing systems because of comfort feature etc. Further, the use of excessive natural resources under green technologies could render them irrelevance. For example, bio-mass gasifiers are the equipment that uses wood for the production of gas (Park & Kazlauskas, 2003). These devices can definitely use woods to avoid harmful emissions but the excessive usage of wood will rapidly cause deforestation. All these negative sides of green technologies make them lose their relevance for the purpose of environmental protection.

Challenges in Adopting Green Technology

After analysing the potential pros and cons of green processes or technologies, it is necessary to identify the ways in which such technologies can be implemented by the domestic as well as commercial units in the cost effective manner.

Some of the approaches to go green could include use of LEDs and CFL bulbs for lighting purposes, investing in rechargeable, undertaking paperless workings, buying of electric cars, purchasing ISO certified products as they are considered eco-friendly, adoption of cloud computing systems, recycling or selling the old devices, keeping the power off of energy intensive devices during the sessions when they are not in functioning state and so on (Tarng, et. al., 2010).

From the above study, it can be stated that green technology has become a significant aspect of environmental protection.

Nowadays, almost every individual on Earth is acquainted with the importance of this concept. In order to have a clear understanding of potential future of the aspects of green technology, it is necessary to understand the past of the technology along with the green technology. One of the major aspects of clean or green technology is that it allows different living beings to live their lives in a healthier way which does not harm the environment. The use of green technologies reduces the human footprints on the ecosystem. Though these technologies offers enormous benefits to the environment and its constituents, yet the adoption of green technologies have its own downsides. Green technologies have undoubtedly become an essential approach to the smooth survival on Earth but at considerable cost by way of its social, economic, technical and ethical downside. In the long run, green technology has been recognized as helpful to the society but its true impact could be observed only in the upcoming years.

References:

Butt, A., 2016. What is Green Technology and Its Benefits? Available at: https://usgreentechnology.com/green-technology/ Accessed on 14.09.2018.

Cohen, M.C., Lobel, R. and Perakis, G., 2015. The impact of demand uncertainty on consumer subsidies for green technology adoption. Management Science, 62(5), pp.1235-1258.

Dai, Y., van Spronsen, J., Witkamp, G.J., Verpoorte, R. and Choi, Y.H., 2013. Natural deep eutectic solvents as new potential media for green technology. Analytica chimica acta, 766, pp.61-68.

Gratão, P.L., Prasad, M.N.V., Cardoso, P.F., Lea, P.J. and Azevedo, R.A., 2005. Phytoremediation: green technology for the clean-up of toxic metals in the environment. Brazilian Journal of Plant Physiology, 17(1), pp.53-64.

Hall, B.H. and Helmers, C., 2013. Innovation and diffusion of clean/green technology: Can patent commons help?. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 66(1), pp.33-51.

Hein, J.R., Mizell, K., Koschinsky, A. and Conrad, T.A., 2013. Deep-ocean mineral deposits as a source of critical metals for high-and green-technology applications: Comparison with land-based resources. Ore Geology Reviews, 51, pp.1-14.

Iravani, A., Birjand, I. and Zohoori, M., 2017. Advantages and disadvantages of green technology; goals, challenges and strengths. Int. J. Sci. Eng. Appl, 6(272), p.e284.

Krass, D., Nedorezov, T. and Ovchinnikov, A., 2013. Environmental taxes and the choice of green technology. Production and operations management, 22(5), pp.1035-1055.

Lema, R. and Lema, A., 2012. Technology transfer? The rise of China and India in green technology sectors. Innovation and Development, 2(1), pp.23-44.

Mueller, S., 2017. Green technology and its effect on the modern world. Available at: https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/125459/GreenTechnology.pdf?sequence=1 Accessed on 14.09.2018.

Ng, F.Y., Yew, F.K., Basiron, Y. and Sundram, K., 2012. A renewable future driven with Malaysian palm oil-based green technology. Journal of Oil Palm, Environment and Health), 2.

Park, S. and Kazlauskas, R.J., 2003. Biocatalysis in ionic liquids–advantages beyond green technology. Current opinion in Biotechnology, 14(4), pp.432-437.

Paz-Alberto, A.M. and Sigua, G.C., 2013. Phytoremediation: a green technology to remove environmental pollutants. American Journal of Climate Change, 2(01), p.71.

Ramdhani, M.A., Aulawi, H., Ikhwana, A. and Mauluddin, Y., 2017. Model of Green Technology Adaptation in Small and Medium-Sized Tannery Industry. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 12(4), pp.954-962.

Tarng, M.M., Lin, M.J., Tarng, E.Y.S., Tarng, A.Y.C., Tarng, A.Y.S., Nieh, J.I., Tarng, H.C. and Nieh, S.Y., 2012. Green technology: green circuit and device designs of green chip. U.S. Patent 8,089,323.