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Who could have believed that wooden computer accessories could be a sign of what would otherwise seem to be a very plastic future?

Set to launch in October, the UK’s PC World announces the first truly carbon-neutral mass-market PC, which is said to use between 13 and 17 % of the energy consumed by a standard desktop PC. And its manufacturers hope that its release could signal the reverse of our growing trend to embrace and devour power-hungry appliances, with little thought to their environmental effects.

Bringing back last century’s ‘push button’ technology, this PC negates the need for LED power lights. The hard drive doesn’t contain an internal fan, as the power pack sits externally like a laptop, reducing the need for cooling. External casing is made from recycled materials like aluminium drink cans and used plastics. And the piece de resistance is the wooden screen, mouse and keyboard casings, made from plantation beech, ash or sapele grown in Africa, Germany and the US.

Your regular tower PC uses up to 300 watts of electricity. The green PC uses just 40 watts. But will these dramatic savings alone be enough to lure people from their more aesthetically pleasing and perhaps versatile flatscreen Macs and PCs? Philip Selwood, chief executive of the UK’s Energy Saving Trust, says that today we are using products that, up until a few years ago, were unheard of. While we can listen to the radio through our TVs and PCs, we hardly realise we are in fact using more energy than the conventional appliances would.

Can we continue to live and update and renew technologies, or are we eventually going to have to let go of the constant improvement cycle, or even go back a few models if it means being more environmentally conscious? Perhaps the green PC is the start of this revolution.