While going green has a lot of momentum in various industries, what ultimately really matters for long-term change toward increased sustainability is where the money goes. If buying power demands green technology and green gadgets, that’s what we will see and at a much reduced price.

Sadly, a recent survey from Retrevo showed that consumers are still not very influenced by environmental factors when iu comes to their tech and gadget purchases.

When participants were asked whether they felt guilty when they bought an environmentally unfriendly gadget – 42% said ‘No.’ While 10% said ‘yes’ but that they usually strove to buy the greenest gadgets and another 16% never felt guilty because they always bought based on environmental factors.

The rest of the survey broke down into in between responses like 16% who said they carded but still only bought the gadget they liked the most and another 16% who said they felt no guilt because it all came down to price.

The Greener Gadgets Design Competition, hosted by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), handed out its winners for most innovative designs last Thursday.

Ten finalists were selected out of the hundreds of designers that applied with first place going to AUG/Living Goods Program. This concept is a smart phone app that scans bar codes of produce and gives the user relevant sustainability data on the item like how far away the food has traveled to get to you, if it’s in season locally as well as other data.

Judges lauded the app design for being both practical and mobile, a rarity in most other entries this year.