HGTV’s Green Shopping List

I don’t watch HGTV, and I’m sure I would not have heard about their recent list of “20 Ways Your Home Can Save the Planet” if I hadn’t come across it on Jetson Green, a green blog focusing on products and innovations. But I thought–heck! All these Americans are watching this channel, even if I’m not one of them, and isn’t it just fantastic that such a major media source is taking on this subject! And then I read the list.

Not one of the 20 entries on that list mention conservation of any kind of resource (except obliquely in the points referencing low-flow apparatus, CFL’s, and new windows). Not one of the 20 entries lists renewable energy technology. You’d think since number 1 on the list–number ONE–is buying all-new energy-efficient appliances, a renovation that could cost you anywhere from $500 to $10,000 (depending on if you include furnaces and AC systems under the heading of appliances), they would be okay including solar thermal systems. Solar thermal systems cost a mere $2-$4k, installed, and can supply most or all of a home’s hot water needs. All year round. For longer than you’ll be paying your mortgage.

Is the omission of conservation and clean energy an oversight? I doubt it. The list is constructed entirely around products. Chemical-free cleaners for your home, bamboo towels, “eco-friendly” countertops, organic beds: and they conveniently offer links to their own HGTV marketplace where you can buy products under each category. It’s not that this is intrinsically bad. I’m happy there are now lower-impact consumer choices for so many products, and HGTV has every right to push folks towards using its marketplace instead of shopping elsewhere. The problem is the labeling. Their list is not a list of 20 ways in which your home can save the planet–it’s a list of 20 ways in which you can shift your consumer choices. That second list is a totally valid, and possibly valuable, one; so why pretend you’re covering all the bases when you’re not? I assume HGTV considered their options and decided, “No one’s going to actually install solar thermal or use less water if we just ask them to. But they’ll probably buy different stuff, and we can profit from that when they do, so let’s stick with that.” The list was part of a series on “going green”, and none of the articles available address renewable energy. A 10-item list supplied by a LEED-certified architect was less product-oriented, and a few other articles offered by HGTV did address things like water-light gardens.

Mainstream media, and the mainstream consumer market, is still associating conservation and renewable energy with penury, hardship, and high costs. I’m linking the two, by the way, because renewable energy is such a major method of conservation of both energy and funds. I feel like we’re at a point in our culture that can be compared to the old routine of, “No, YOU go first!” Media’s not going to push renewables and conservation until the public starts demanding it, and the public’s not going to demand it until media gives them the information they need to make the choice. Moving towards renewable energy and becoming a society that values conservation are not free or easy paths to take, but neither’s continuing with our current model. People need to know that.