Greenpeace reveals tenth Guide to Greener Electronics

Motorola, Microsoft, Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Samsung, Nintendo and LG named and shamed

24 November 2008 11:13 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Greenpeace has released its tenth edition of the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics that shows, in the organisation's words, "that most consumer electronics companies have been slow to get serious about climate change."

Although Greenpeace acknowledges gradual improvements on toxic and e-waste issues, it says only a minority of companies are really leading on energy and climate change.

Greenpeace names Motorola, Microsoft, Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Samsung, Nintendo and LG Electronics as, "notably lagging behind."

"Sadly it appears that the consumer electronics industry is much better at rhetoric than facing the reality that absolute emission cuts are urgently needed," said Greenpeace international climate and energy campaigner Mel Francis.

Greenpeace wants the electronics companies to address energy, toxics elimination, and recycling issues.

Apparently only three CE firms - Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Philips and Sharp - support the level of cuts in greenhouse gases that, "science require," while only Philips and Hewlett Packard get top marks for committing to making absolute reductions in their own greenhouse gas emissions from the product manufacture and supply chain.

Overall, the biggest moves up the ranking are Motorola, (from 15th to joint 7th), Toshiba (from 7th to 3rd) and Sharp, (up from 16th to 10th).

The companies falling down the ranking are the PC brands Acer, Dell, HP and Apple. Although Apple drops a place, Greenpeace says it has improved its total score this time because of better reporting on the carbon footprint of its products, and although not scoring any extra points, its new iPods are now free of both PVC and brominated flame retardants.