WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the 11th edition of Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics HP, Lenovo and Dell get penalized for failing to remove toxics from their products in 2009, while Apple gets bonus points for being free of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs)
Apple stands out in a guide that focuses much of its criticisms on the e-waste problem: although the company is still hanging in the middle of the pack in 10th place out of the 17 companies ranked, it climbed up from 14th place in the previous edition of the report, largely on the strength of its toxics and e-waste programs.
"Apple’s score on the e-waste criteria has improved with take-back and recycling services now extended to the Asia-Pacific region, including India, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Korea and Australia," the report's authors write. "It reports a recycling rate in 2006 of 18% as a percentage of sales 7 years ago; however, it needs to provide details on how this is calculated. Apple has set a new goal of achieving a 50% recycling rate by 2010."
Nokia holds on to its first place spot with a 7.5 score out of 10 possible points in the 11th edition -- a position it's held since
September 2008. The company's wide-ranging take-back program, its move away from PVC, BFRs and antimony trioxide, and its climate goals of reducing CO2 emissions by 18 percent and using 50 percent renewable energy by 2010 all combined to keep Nokia in the top spot.
Three companies earned a penalty point for backing off from promises to remove toxics from their products: HP, Lenovo and Dell all had previously promised to eliminate PVC and BFRs from their products by the end of 2009, but all three companies told Greenpeace that they won't achieve that goal in 2009.
The big mover in the latest edition of the rankings is Philips: The Dutch electronics giant jumped to fourth place from 15th, based largely on its response to a campaign by Greenpeace to get the company to address its e-waste responsibility. Now that Philips has pulled back from its lobbying against Individual Producer Responsibility legislation, Greenpeace restored their score to 5.7, putting the company back in fourth place with medium- to high scores for toxics and climate impacts, and moving up in takeback issues.
Nintendo holds on to its last-place ranking, earning just .8 points out of 10 possible. Although the company has banned phthalates and is working on phase-outs for antimony, beryllium and PVC, it has not set targets or timelines for their phase-out, and scored zero points across all of Greenpeace's e-waste criteria.
The final rankings and scores for the 11th edition of the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics are below; you can download the 11th edition from GreenerComputing.com, and more details about the ranking are
on Greenpeace's website.
1. Nokia: 7.5
2. Samsung: 6.9
3. Sony Ericsson: 5.7
4. Philips: 5.7
5. Sony: 5.5
6. LG: 5.5
7. Toshiba: 5.3
8. Motorola: 5.3
9. Sharp: 4.9
10. Apple: 4.7
11. Acer: 4.5
12. Panasonic: 4.31
13. Dell: 3.7 (-1 point for toxics phaseout)
14. Lenovo: 3.1 (-1 point for toxics phaseout)
15. Microsoft: 2.7
16. HP: 2.7 (-1 point for toxics phaseout)
17. Nintendo: 0.8
