Autodesk Manufacturing Media SummitParis Day 2

CEO Carl Bass came by Paris following three days in Germany (he says he liked the sunny fall weather, considering California doesn't have seasons) to speak on sustainability. "Paper or plastic?" is the question asked at grocery stores that is hard to answer. Probably the best answer in, "Neither." Cloth bags are common in Europe (and, says me, makes the grocery stores more profits not having to hand out dozens of free plastic bags to each customer leaving the store.)

He's talking about a company that got an award for placing solar cells all over the employee parkade. But, he wonders, why does this company have a parkade, because that means employees having to commute to this workplace. Why is the company needing the extra electricity from the solar cells? (My guess it that the installation of solar cells was a marketing gimmick, something to keep the greenpeacers off the corporate back.)

The better solution is to start frm the very beginning and take all aspects into account, suggests Mr Bass. (Except, I would argue, construction companies are so conservative and not keen to change that this is just not going to occur in this generation -- witness the lack of CAD on the construciton site.)

The pitch, naturally, is that Autodesk software is excellent for designing products sustainably and keeping track of toxins and end of life disposal. Digital prototyping is the only way to do this, adds Robert Kross. “We are looking at being a green company ourselves. You can't have a bottle of water at our office in Portland. Employees are given a glass to make the point.”

“We would like to be able to calculate the carbon footprint in Inventor. Truth is, nobody is able to calculate that now.”

Who Knows When the Wind May Blow

Autodesk showed a film on windmill energy that they sponsored on PBS (public television in the USA) on how a small farming town in Minnesota benefited from (1) installing wind farms on the fields; and (2) getting a propeller manufacturing plant that employes 300.

The pro-windmill film left out problems with the technology. Leaving aside the numbers of birds killed by the rotating blades, the province of Alberta in Canada has questioned the utility of windmill power. Once a strong booster, they have since realized that electricity from windmills is unreliable.

Paris Moment

A restaurant open late at night in central Paris.

Comments

[Sylvain]

Saving 2-3 physical mockups is great, but where are the CO2 savings when you have to fly 300-400 (more ?) people across the oceans for some corporate PR ??
Be "greener" will never make you rich. But a few years from now, being "greener" will be the only option to stay alive.

[Martyn Day]

Try 60 people. All the flights/ trains we used were going to leave anyway.

[Sean Dotson]

I made the same observation Sylvain. How much carbon did those flights "cost". Did Autodesk buy "carbon offsets" for these flights?

[bill fane]

"Paper or plastic?" is not as easy a question as it sounds. A couple of years ago, the environment lobby coerced MacDonalds in the Vancouver area into switching from plastic to paper for all their packaging. Good thing, right?

Maybe.

They had previously set up multiple trash bins for the different types of plastic. Customers were very conscientious about sorting their trash, so they were able to recycle about 90% of their plastic.

On the other hand, paper absorbs food oils and cannot be recycled.

Ah, but paper is a "renewable" resource.

Maybe.

It still involves using gas-powered chain saws to cut down trees that eat CO2, and trucks to take the logs to the pulp mill, and electricity & chemicals to turn the wood into paper...

No, I am not extolling the virtues of plastic over paper. I'm just saying that most questions do not have simple answers, and that we shouldn't automatically jump on & stick to the first "politically-correct" solution that comes along. For example, I agree with Ralph that "Neither" is probably the correct answer to "Paper or plastic?". We should bring our own re-useable cloth bags to the store.