Ecotricity, as the biggest green energy supplier in UK, launched campaign “dump the big six” since Feb 2012. The company is specializing in wind energy and considers itself as the “greenest” energy supplier. The campaign is about making people switch their energy supplier from “big six” (British Gas Business, EDF, E.ON, Npower, Scottish Gas Business and Scottish & Southern) to Ecotricity because it’s more sustainable.
From the angle of responsible design, the campaign is a good way to publicize the importance of green energy. With the dropping down of chimneys and rising of wind generators, you can feel the mood of cheer up. It seems that finally these “monsters” have been killed and blue sky back to our life. However, is it really suitable for a company to do the campaign like this? The basic reason for Ecotricity to do the campaign is persuade people use their energy. It can be consider as a business activity with the cover of public service activity. The company use the word like sustainable, it makes people think the movement of switching to Ecotricity is the way to protect the earth. Finally, who take the profits of these activities? The company! With the slogan of “dump the big six”, the company put itself at the position of a “justice fighter” and makes the others like criminals. Arguably it is totally unfair. I wonder what will happen if “the big six” fight back of this campaign. I think maybe they will all raise the flags of “clean and green energy”, at that time, what should consumer choose? It will be a big confuse for people to justice truth and lie.
Above all, I want to say sometimes the words like green, clean, sustainable have already been the package of business activities. Do people really care about “organic” food? In my opinion, the only organic food I trust is the one I grow in my garden. It is the time for us to think about the real of responsible design. Sometimes, the starting point is good, but always ends in different ways.
