Greenpeace releases quarterly Greener Electronics rankings

Greenpeace has just released its newest Guide to Green Electronics, evaluating the top 18 manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs, and games consoles based on their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. The new guide places Nokia in the top spot, followed by Sony Ericsson (maker of mobile phones) and Toshiba.

Nokia, which also held first place in the October 2009 guide, receives the top score for its reduction in the use of toxic substances, but lost a point this time for "failing to do proactive lobbying for the revised RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronics)."

Greenpeace calls Sony Ericsson strong on "toxics elimination, but weak on recycling." And Toshiba got top marks for toxics elimination, but risks losing points the next time around "if it fails to bring to market new models of all its consumer electronics products free of PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) by 1 April 2010, its own timeline for meeting this commitment."

Apple climbed up from ninth place to fifth thanks to its toxics chemicals criteria, although Greenpeace says the company website's redesigned environmental section actually provides less information on supply chains than before. Among companies who fell in the rankings were Samsung, Sharp, and Sony, about which the organization noted the "big drop due to penalty point for failing to meet commitment to phase out hazardous substances."

Greenpeace's top 10 electronics manufacturers, with score from 1-10:

Nokia (7.3)

Sony Ericsson (6.9)

Toshiba (5.3)

Philips (5.3)

Apple (5.1)

LG Electronics (5.1)

Sony (5.1)

Motorola (5.1)

Samsung (5.1)

Panasonic (4.9)
HP (4.7)


http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/how-the-companies-line-up