Green Electronics Guide

July 2nd, 2007 Alex

Greenpeace has a Green Electronics Guide that ranks mobile and PC manufacturers on their global policies and practices on being Green and sustainable. The ranking is based on public information that is available on how well the companies eliminate harmful chemicals and the responsibility of recycling the products discarded by consumers. Nokia ranks first while Dell and Lenovo are tied for second. Apple jumped from being last in the previous edition to 10th place with its recent announcements of its environmental goals.

The guide gets updated and released every quarter so that companies can move up towards a greener ranking. Companies can also move down and receive penalty points from the overall score if Greenpeace finds a company lying, practicing double standards, or any other corporate misconducts. For example, Sony and LGE dropped to the bottom of the list for corporate double standards on Producer Responsibility(IPR) for products discarded by consumers. Sony is a founding member of the European Recycling Platform which supports IPR but in the US, Sony has been opposing IPR and has been lobbying for US consumers to pay an Advanced Recycling Fee. LGE’s global website states that the company believes that the producer should be responsible for financing the waste management of its own brand products when they are discarded, but in the US, LGE is part of a Coalition that oppposes IPR and lobbys for US consumers to pay an Advanced Recycling Fee as well.

The guide is mainly aimed for companies to clean up the life cycles of their products and the waste that their products generate but does not rank anything on labour standards or energy use. By releasing the guide every quarter, it will make companies very aware of their own standards and practices and will make them strive to improve their efforts.

Official Guide to Greener Electronics June 2007

via GreenerComputing

Entry Filed under: Environment,Green Tech,Publications,Tech Industry