ASSIGNMENT - CONSULTANCY AND DECISION MAKING COURSE

Decision about Buying an Ethical Product: Green or Conventional Laptop Adapter?

Jimy Kalther (S1628658)
Introduction
Consumers usually undertake a certain decision making process before they bought products. This process
can be generally defined as a cognitive process in selecting the best options before taken any action. This article
shows a decision making process in buying certain products based on ethical criteria. In this case, the product is
a laptop adapter. Two different types of laptop adapter, a green laptop adapter and a conventional one, were
analyzed. Both of the products are sold by Mediamarkt. (Picture of the product enclosed)
Criteria
Normally, consumers always make price as the main factor or driver before decided to buy something.
However, as the impact of broad campaign related to nature conservation, social and environment, and other
sustainability issues, people started to add more ethical criteria in their decision making process. The life cycle
costing and factor analysis approach was used to decide the best product to be bought. Only the main issues of
the product that relevant to the decision making process that were compared in this simple case study.
The criteria that were used in this analysis are price, product functionality, product safety, energy usage,
and material. Price was chosen as one of the criteria because it obviously is the main factor that was considered
by consumers while buying a product. However, consumers might willing to spend more cost if the product can
meet their standards in terms of sustainability indicator, such as product safety, energy usage, or material. The
product functionality is also a strong factor which was taken into consideration by consumers. Even if the
product was categorized as a highly ethical product, the chance of that product of being bought by consumers is
only 20% if the degree of product functionality is low (Auger et al., 2008).
Comparison of two products
The price of a green laptop adapter is higher than the price of a conventional one. The conventional laptop
adapter only cost 35, while the green laptop adapter was cost almost double of that price (65). However, the
green laptop adapter manufacturer claimed that their product can save up to 85% of electricity compared to
electricity that used by a conventional laptop adapter. In that case, it would be beneficial to buy the green one
than the conventional one because even though the consumers must spend more money on purchasing, they can
save more money on operation (less electricity cost). If it assumed that the electricity usage of a laptop per
month is 3.3 (6 hours usage, 90 Watts, and 0.2/KWh) for a conventional laptop adapter, then the electricity
usage of a green laptop adapter is only 2.7. Based on that calculation, buying a green laptop adapter would be
advantageous even though the payback time is quite long.
There is no big differences of the two product in terms of product functionality and product safety. Based
on the explanation of the two products on its manufacturer website and other users review, both product are
perfectly functional and has been proven to be safe for users.
Other criteria that was considered is the material of the products. The green laptop adapter used a more
environmentally friendly material compared to the conventional one. The manufacturer of the green laptop
adapter claimed to not use any hazardous material in their product whereas the manufacturer of the conventional
laptop adapter did not provide that information.
Conlusion
In conclusion, it would be better to choose a green laptop adapter instead of a conventional one. Although
it would cost more money to purchase the product, but it would cost less money to operate the product.
Moreover, the green product also consume less energy. It means that by using this product, consumers also
contribute in energy saving actions. Lastly, other good thing about the green product is that it does not
contained any material that can be harmful to environment.

The Green Laptop Adapter

The Conventional Laptop Adapter