Dell and Nokia the Most Green (Tech) Companies

da_matta writes "Greenpeace has ranked top electronics companies on their attitudes towards ecology. In addition to what toxic materials are used in manufacturing, the report on "greeness", for example, considers how the recycling of old products is handled and how ecological issues are considered in company processes and decisions. Idea is that the ranking is updated quarterly, and companies would like achieve to the top position. Dell and Nokia take the top position with a rating of 7/10, with Apple, Acer, Motorola and Lenovo falling behind with ratings worse than 3/10."

Comments

Server is getting slow...

[rollonet]

Karma whoring... Heres the contents of the article before it gets /.'ed

This Green Electronics Guide ranks leading mobile and PC manufacturers on their global policies and practice on eliminating harmful chemicals and on taking responsibility for their products once they are discarded by consumers. Companies are ranked solely on information that is publicly available.

7 Nokia - Good but room for improvement on amounts recycled. More

7 Dell - Points lost for not yet having models without the worst chemicals. Strong support for takeback. More

5.7 Hewlett Packard - Timelines only to provide plan for toxics phase out. Good on amounts recycled. More

5.3 Sony Ericsson - Some models without some of the worst chemicals, but bad on precautionary principle and take back. More

5 Samsung - Points for toxic phase out but not good on take back and recycling. More

4.7 Sony - Some models without the worst chemicals, but bad on precautionary principle and take back. More

4.3 LGE - Points for toxic phase out date but bad on take back. More

3.3 Panasonic - Only good on chemicals management. More

3 Toshiba - Some models without the worst chemicals, but no timelines for elimination and poor on takeback. More

3 Fujitsu-Siemens - Points for some models free of worst chemicals, but poor on takeback. More

2.7 Apple - Low scores on almost all criteria. More

2.3

  Acer - Should do better on all criteria. More

1.7 Motorola - Points for chemicals management. Recently broke clean up promise. More

1.3 Lenovo - The lowest score of all companies. More

Ranking criteria explained

The ranking criteria reflect the demands of the Toxic Tech campaign to the electronics companies. Our two demands are that companies should:

  * clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances;

  * takeback and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete.

The two issues are connected. The use of harmful chemicals in electronics prevents their safe recycling when the products are discarded. Companies scored marks out of 30 this has then been calculated to a mark out of 10 for simplicity.

Follow the more link beside each company for the full details of their score. The full criteria for scoring the companies is available. Download the full pdf of the scorecard.

Each score is based solely on public information on the companies website. Companies found not to be following their published policies will be deducted penalty point in future versions of the guide.

The guide is updated every 3 months. The current version was published on the 25 August 2006.

Disclaimer: Our 'Guide to Greener Electronics' aims to clean up the electronics sector and get manufacturers to take responsibility for the full life cycle of their products, including the electronic waste that their products generate. The guide does not rank companies on labour standards, energy use or any other issues, but recognises that these are important in the production and use of electronics products.

Re:What would greenpeace rate?

[TapeCutter]

"only effect they have is to prevent actions. They are the last word in paracitical, pointless organisations"

Yes, they prevented the french from testing nukes in my "back yard", they prevented the franklin dam, and they stopped the senseless slaughter of whales (to name but a few of their achivements). Yes they are practical, but I wouldn't say they are the "last word". Pointless? I don't understand, I thought you wanted to "support environmental progress".

"Take the money and energy wasted by greenpeace and put it into something with purpose that actually supports environmental progress rather than political positioning."

It has a purpose but you don't agree with it or can't see it, millions of others support greenpeace because they are politically effective.

Disclaimer: I lived and worked on a sawmill, (old growth mountain ash), it was eventually shut down when it's 5yr lease ran out and the area is now preserved as a national park. From my personal experience neither side of the "green argument" has a monopoly on ignorant arseholes.

RTA

[jdbartlett]

Download and read the Apple PDF. Apple is low on the list because the website you point to is what Greenpeace reviewers were reading (along with other Apple-released material). Throughout the PDF, Greenpeace "researchers" admit to giving Apple low scores because Apple hadn't publicly released any information. Without that information, they assumed it was bad. This would be fine if Greenpeace were reporting on the quality of company press releases. As it stands, their report is very misleading.

This is not a case of Apple refusing to "walk the walk", this is a case of Greenpeace compiling a misleading report (again); this time blaming Apple for walking with the lights out.

Apple is an especially secretive company. Its busy legal team and history of company secret related firings and court cases should be enough to tell us this alone, if not its more recent attitude toward distributions of Leopard (the upcoming OS X) found online or even the secrecy under which even its flagship retail store was constructed. For some, this evokes paranoia. For others, frustration. As an environmentally concerned consumer, Greenpeace's ranking of Apple does affect my desire to purchase hardware from the company in spite of obvious flaws in their review system.

Not purely self-serving

[gjh]

I have worked for Nokia since 1999.

Every desk in large offices - i.e. the ones that don't need to use local contract cleaning agencies - has had a 3-compartment trash bin under the desk the whole time, for recycling. The large Finnish offices are perfect examples of energy conservation in a cold country by the correct design to naturally distribute sunlight.

I play a game in Finnish offices where if I want to carry on working after 9pm, I have to jump up and run around the office every five minutes, otherwise the lights go out to save energy.

Conservation and environmental awareness to a culture in and of itself. You don't get a genuinely high ranking like we do unless you really mean it. It certainly can and does have short term economic benefits too, maybe that is even the strategy. Who knows what motive really went in to the policy, but I guarantee you that on the ground and amongst individual Nokia people, it is a culture and one that people are happy and proud of.

Things work on a different scale in small Nokia offices. I worked out of the now defunct Peterborough, UK office a couple of years ago. They used to recycle Friday's roast dinner into Monday's curry.

Obviously I am not an official voice of Nokia. Just a happy employee currently working on http://www.nokiaforbusiness.com/americas/firewall. html

Look at ipod batteries

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Apple's mindset is surely reflected in in their newest, and most popular, products, the ipods. Having a non-removeable, non-replacable battery surely reduces the greenness of an ipod since it encourages a throw-away culture. Battery stuffed? Buy a new ipod.