Carbon credits card

Environment Secretary David Milliband recently put forward the idea of credit cards for carbon emissions as a fairer alternative to a tax on greenhouse emissions.

Smart card technology will soon allow people to see their carbon credits fall each time they buy something on the card itself.

With this in mind, London based product innovation consultancy Design Stream and Identity specialist Sven Vogel teamed up to create the Emissary credit card concept, an engaging way for consumers to take on board how much they can make a difference to climate change.

The Emissary card concept is said to pair advances in flexible screen technology with next generation card chip design. The vision being a credit card that can display messages about consumption of goods and services.

‘The key is that this message is delivered as moving images on cards at the point of purchase’ said Chaz Nandra, innovation director at Design Stream. ‘This makes us immediately aware of what impact our purchase will have on the environment’.

Card capacity and processing speed are continually improving with major players in the electronics industry leading breakthroughs in the field. This combined with massive investment into development of a variety of flexible screen technologies, from Epaper to FOLED’s (Flexible Organic LED’s) and TFT's (Thin Film Transistor’s) will mean that with time it will be commercially viable for this idea to become a reality.