The environmentalists I know are fairly appalled at the idea. It's a gross perversion of the concept of sustainability. The intention may have been good, but the message it sends gets an F for effort. Surely someone along the way had to question what they were making?

This is a way to take something that is intrinsically low impact and add a lot of unnecessary technology with definite environmental impacts where none existed before. It is sustainability as a personal brand at the expense of actual sustainability.