Impact of Green Technology

This article discusses the concept of green technology, its benefits and limitations. It highlights the potential of green technology in achieving environmental sustainability and the ways in which it can be implemented by domestic and commercial units. The article also discusses the downsides of green technology such as its economic, social, technical and ethical limitations.

Running Head: Impact of Green Technology
Green Technology

Impact of Green Technology 1
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 21st 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

Impact of Green Technology 2
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.
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

Impact of Green Technology 3
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).
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

Impact of Green Technology 4
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-

Impact of Green Technology 5
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.

Impact of Green Technology 6
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.

Impact of Green Technology 7
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