Every little bit helps?

[tw]

Wal-Mart stumbled on a fact that those Edison base fluorescent lamps are probably the most successful energy saving product on the market today. Wal-mart was so enthralled by resulting numbers as to want to start a campaign to have all incandescent bulbs replaced by years end.

Then Wal-Mart got resistance. First from their supplier GE who did not want to convert so many light bulb factories to fluorescent production. So Wal-mart did what they do to some many suppliers who feared innovation (ie Rubbermaid). They threatened to go to the competition.

Wal-mart was so impress by how much these bulbs save as to propose step two: have the competition - Home Depot and Target - join Wal-Mart in a national program to make traditional incandescent bulbs obsolete. Both Home Depot and Target declined.

A classic incandescent bulb uses something like seven times more energy to achieve same light. They are that grossly inefficient. And yet even consumers will not use these bulbs because somehow their emotions dislike the shape of replacement fluorescent bulbs. Aversion to change – even when the light bulb is seven times more efficient – is that MBA.