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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/governance/0,3800011701,39159932,00.htm

Shoppers 'will pay more for green PCs'
Because we want to...

By Jo Best

Published: Tuesday 27 June 2006

Shoppers are willing to spend more to guarantee their hardware is environmentally friendly, research has found.

A survey conducted for Greenpeace by Ipsos-Mori found more than half of PC buyers in nine countries would be happy to spend more on their kit to make sure they're buying green machines.

Of those countries surveyed, Mexican shoppers declared they'd spend the most to be eco-friendly - an extra $229 on the price of a PC - while German buyers were tending towards a more conservative 'green tax', saying they'd spend $59 extra to get their environmental credentials.

UK buyers would open their wallets to the tune of $118 (£65 to you) each in order to avoid planet-harming hardware.

The survey also found that consumers believe tech manufacturers should be held to account for the impact their products make on the environment.

Greenpeace has praised companies including Dell, HP and Nokia for their greener-than-most policies but believes that a number of industry players such as Apple, IBM and Toshiba could be doing much more to keep the planet happy.

Motorola in particular has attracted the ire of the environmental action group after it backtracked on an agreement to cut out the use of toxic flame-retardant chemicals in its products by 2007, saying it will be unable to meet that deadline.