Environmental issue yet affect sales

Rudijanto, Contributor, Jakarta

Established electronic home appliance producers continue to invest heavily in media advertisements to tap a bigger part of the country's growing home appliance market.

Newspapers, magazines and televisions have become the battleground for different electronic home appliance companies to win the heart of Indonesian consumers.

Look at what Polytron is doing with its aggressive media promotion campaign. It has hired comedian Basuki as a spokesman and is touting its technology and designs, for instance a combination cool refrigerator and a compartment to keep food warm.

Or see LG's media promotion for its new air conditioner Art Cool, which shows various choices of esthetically designed products. The company is also boosting the promotion for its Icebeam Door Cooling refrigerator, which offers a cooling solution for fully packed refrigerators.

Another electronics producer that focuses sharply on health issues in its promotions is Sharp. The company is promoting its plasma cluster technology in its air conditioners and refrigerators. The plasma cluster promises cleaner and odorless air with the use of the Plasmacluster Ion Generator.

For those consumers concerned with the environment, there seems to be one aspect that is missing from all of these media advertisements, namely the environmental aspect. None of the major electronic producers have a message that tells customers that their products are environmentally friendly.

LG Electronic Indonesia (LGEIN) national sales and marketing manager Sung Khiun said the company was focusing on benefits for consumers in its media advertisements, rather than on environmentally friendly aspects.

"For instance, we know that many houses have refrigerators that are full. Thus, we offer them our Icebeam Door Cooling technology that enables the refrigerators to remain cool although they are full," said Sung Khiun.

For him, environmentally friendly is not much of a selling point, at least at the time being, among Indonesian consumers. He has found that most consumers generally aren't concerned whether a product is environmentally friendly.

"It is for this reason that we do not advertise the fact that we received the ISO 14000 in 2000 because consumers will not pay any attention to this achievement," said Sun Khiun.

The sales and marketing director of PT Sharp Yasonta Antarnusa (Sharp), Jino Sugiarto, confirms this observation, saying that most Indonesian consumers are not yet environmentally aware as compared to those in Japan.

"In Japan, the use of recycled paper for business cards boosts the company's image because, aside from being environmentally friendly, its price is more expensive. But here I think the environmentally friendly aspect has no selling point due to low awareness of the people," Jino said.

He recalls that Sharp had a difficult time convincing consumers to shift from CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) refrigerators the more environmentally friendly non-CFC fridges.

Polytron factory head AL Purwanto says people are most concerned with price. With the low awareness of the environment, he also believes that environmentally friendly aspects are not a selling point yet in the Indonesian market.

Indeed, electronic producers in the country should be grateful for the low awareness of Indonesian consumers on the need to protect the environment.

Some countries have a serious problem with electronic scraps, which have become a serious problem to both health and the environment. Some components in electronic products contain hazardous materials, such as lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium.

Certainly there is no immediate danger for consumers to use electronic products since these toxic materials do not pose direct risks to them. But they can create environmental problems if they are thrown away with other household garbage.

The U.S. National Safety Council's Environmental Health Center released a report that revealed that consumer electronics constituted 40 percent of lead found in landfills. The main concern in regard to the presence of lead in landfills is the potential for the lead to leach and contaminate drinking water supplies.

Medical studies have found that lead can cause damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, blood systems and kidneys in humans. Effects on the endocrine system have also been observed and its negative effects on children's brain development have been well documented.

Another hazardous substance found in electronic products is mercury. It is estimated that 22 percent of the yearly world consumption of mercury is used in electrical and electronic equipment. Mercury is basically used in thermostats, relays and switches and discharge lamps.

Those two examples of hazardous substances in electronic products should alarm not only environmental activists but also consumers in general since any careless handling of electronic scraps could affect their health.

Again, electronic producers in this country are lucky with the almost complete absence of pressure groups and environmentally aware consumers. But since many of them also operate in overseas markets, they cannot avoid this pressure completely.

Sharp, which exports 30 percent of its total production, has made special efforts to comply with environmental requirements.

Sharp assistant manager for quality and reliability control Baruno Aji said the company was implementing "Green Purchases" to all of its suppliers.

"We have started Green Purchases here since early this year. Under this program, we survey every component that we purchase from suppliers in order to know and eliminate or reduce some hazardous substances, including pb (lead), cd (cadmium) biphenyls) and hg (mercury)," said Baruno.

Like Sharp, LGEIN has also stopped the use of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) that are not only dangerous for the environment but also to humans. Sung Khiun said that LGEIN had shifted to safer Phenol PCBs in its televisions as well as refrigerators.

Polytron's AL Purwanto acknowledges that recycling electronic waste is a difficult task due to the existence of metal, gas and polymer elements. But as an electronic producer, he said that Polytron was certainly thinking of how to recycle the waste.

Certainly, manufacturing and selling electronic products is easier than taking the responsibility for recycling or, at least, neutralizing hazardous substances from electronic scraps.

However, only if the producers take the environmentally friendly aspect seriously will they have credibility in telling consumers that their products benefit their customers' health not only in the short run but also in the long run.

A simple trade-in program that promises discounts for consumers who want to purchase new products may help producers to control the recycling and neutralizing of hazardous substances from electronic scraps.

In the meantime, we must give a thumbs-up to most of the producers, particularly Sharp and LG, that have already acquired ISO 14000 and other documents certifying the proven quality and safety of their products.