Why don’t we pick the low-hanging fruit?

As a reporter who writes about business and the environment, I've heard the expression "low hanging fruit" used to describe energy efficiency many times. Google the words "low-hanging fruit energy efficiency" and you’ll get 57,100 hits. Maybe 57, 101 by now.

I've spent parts of the last month or so helping Environmental Defense Fund write a report on business innovations and the environment, and it has helped answer a question that bugged me for years: Why don't people pick the low-hanging fruit?

The answer is that business does not operate according to classic free-market principles. Business is messier than that. Human emotions come into play.

The result is that companies that could (and should) easily save energy and money by becoming more efficient don’t.

Let me offer a couple of examples.

One comes from hotels. Hotels could save thousands of dollars a year by installing key-card systems that would automatically shut off the power whenever a guest leaves the room. A 616-room Westin hotel in Pittsburgh invested $120,000 in a key-card system and got all that money back in energy savings in a year. After that, the hotel could use the savings to lower its room rates, increase its profits or both–and in a world of truly competitive markets, others would follow. That hasn’t happened. Not in Pittsburgh or elsewhere.

And why not? Hotel owners apparently worry that some guests may not like the loss of control or the inconvenience of arriving at a slightly colder room in winter or slightly warmer room in summer–even though the owners could keep room temperatures just a few degrees from 70 or 72. That's human emotion. By the way, travelers in Europe and Asia have come to view the key card system as routine.

A second example involves corporate computer networks. They waste a lot of energy because most computers run at night or on weekends. If you work in an office, you know that networks are controlled by IT departments who want access to fix bugs or deal with security issues. They want power, and they don't, as a rule, care about wasting power because they aren't responsible for paying the electricity bills. They think they've got enough to worry about. That's human emotion, too.

As it happens, there are a number of software products out there that will allow the IT guys to control the network and save energy at the same time. So far, though, these products haven't been selling widely. The people who pay the energy bills don't buy software. The technical word for this in corporate America is "silos." Most companies have silos, and they are another reason why the low-hanging fruit keeps on hanging.

EDF's report, out next week, will highlight best practices in all these areas and others. We will also point to government policy that can help–some states, for instance, give rebates to hotel owners who install the key–card systems because in the end efficiency benefits all of us. It means that collectively we will emit fewer greenhouse gases and that we won't need as many new power plants.

So take a look at the report next week. And do me a favor–even if we can't pick all the low hanging fruit right away, let's retire the metaphor.

Marc Gunther blogs about business and the environment at www.marcgunther.com.

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