Philips have launched a global campaign website, asimpleswitch.com, aimed at encouraging the world to reduce the amount of energy we use at home by pledging to change to energy-saving light bulbs. Now, obviously Philips would like everyone to pledge to buy their energy-saving light bulbs directly from their website. It’s certainly a well put together green marketing ploy, but it’s a great site and should make a difference. The only problem is we're being thrashed by the US.
[via TechDigest]
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Philips has partnered up with The Alliance for Climate Protection and the Live Earth concerts to get the message across. Visitors to last Saturday’s eco-gigs, as well as to the Live Earth and MSN websites, were invited to record a personal 'simple switch' pledge either online or via SMS. Philips have tracked these collective promises on their funky map – currently the UK is 2nd, switching 7,814 light bulbs, but the world is mega-watts behind the USA who have switched 76, 876. Not like us to be beaten by the Yanks. Come on Brits!
So the countries who have more people who switched long ago are going to look like they're not as eco-friendly as a bunch of Yanks who haven't switched yet but have had made the HUUUUUUGE effort of clicking a button on a website to say they'll try to? Hmmmm.
The U.S. may have the largest number (79,604 at the moment), and it may be about 10 times that of the U.K. (currently at 7,984), but if you factor in population (301,139,947 vs. 60,776,238), the U.S. is only winning by a factor of 2. Plus, as previous commenter Kate said, the U.S. is probably just catching up with others who've already been doing their part for a while.
BTW, here in Taiwan, I buy Philips fluorescent tubes whenever I can find ones that aren't made in China. For the screw-in type, I go with a brand that's made in Taiwan.