Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics: July 2009

Greenpeace International today released the 12th edition of its quarterly Guide to Greener Electronics scorecard, ranking the 17 manufacturers on their achievement of environmental goals.

Nokia once again remained in the top position, with a score of 7.45 points out of a possible 10, while Samsung held on to second place with its score of 7.1. Sony Ericsson moved further up in the rankings, retaining its third-place score but improving that number to 6.5, up from 5.7 in the March 2009 rankings.

The scorecard rates manufacturers on three criteria: reducing the climate impacts of products and operations, responsible recycling and takeback of unwanted electronics, and the elimination of toxic materials from the products themselves.

It's the issue of toxics that has had the biggest impact on scores this time around, as three companies -- Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo -- all lost a point due to their failure to address toxics issues.

Each of those three companies placed toward the bottom of the most recent rankings: Dell with 3.9 points, HP with 3.5, and Lenovo in third-from-last place with 2.5 points.