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Ricoh European
Ricoh unveiled a billboard Tuesday that is 100 percent powered by solar and wind energy.
Marketers will try just about anything to put their brands in front of us and, they hope, in our hands. This can come at large expense of natural resources. For example, think airplanes guzzling fuel as they tow banners for burger joints and insurance companies over your favorite beach this holiday weekend.
Office equipment company Ricoh hopes its new billboard powered by 100 percent solar and wind energy will make us all think about living more sustainably as the company puts its name in front of everyone who's driving a stretch of the M4 motorway between London's Heathrow airport and the city.
The billboard, which was unveiled Tuesday, has 96 solar panels and five individual wind turbines that will produce an average of 12,612 watts per hour per day. However, if there is not enough sun or wind, the sign may not light up, Ricoh notes.
The company also has a solar-powered billboard in New York's Times Square.
Efforts such as this can be seen as a bit gimmicky, but, as Heather Clancy writes on ZD Net, Ricoh "is an imaging company, so one might imagine that maybe Ricoh could help other companies interested in similar messaging approaches."
More on green advertising:
- Times Square getting its first 'green' billboard
- Here comes the sun: White House to go solar
- Eco-fatigue: Going green no longer red hot
- Truth in green ads? Not as much as you think
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
Leave a Comment:
it is leaps of faith like this Ricoh sign that will lead to the innovation cycle of consumer demand fuels increased manufacturing which fuels research which fuels lower prices which fuels consumer demand. This is good for research, manufacturing, consumers, and most importantly - the environment.
And that statement is: (Explicative deleted) does it take a lot of energy to light up one billboard!
I'd be comfortable making it law that every billboard must be powered this way. At least then their wasted energy to create light pollution would have less of an environmental impact.
I Agree with you Goat Rancher, now all they need is to make all signs PV and Wind Powered!
Yes...a completely sustainable sign. Complete with steel, copper wiring, sodium light bulbs, all mined out of the Earth by a gas-powered behemouth. And where do they put it? Next to a roadway built primarily for oil-buring vehicles. LOL!!!!!
Tim So true but 100% better then the alternative... right?