October 1, 2008—Five leading brands are making significant progress in greening their electronics products, according to Greenpeace’s latest Guide to Greener Electronics. The guide ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TV’s, and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling, and climate change.
Nokia regained the lead, ranking seven points out of ten due to improved take-back practice in India.
“Most of the brands are responding to the more stringent chemical and e-waste criteria in the Greenpeace Guide and the recently added energy criteria. Top scorers on energy efficiency of individual products are Apple, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung. Toshiba is an example of one company that has improved its climate policy,” said Iza Kruszewska, Toxics Campaigner for Greenpeace International.
Fujitsu Siemens Computers jumped to third place—up from 15 in June—with a score of 5.5 points. The company has finally set late 2010 as its deadline for eliminating PVC plastic and all brominated flame retardants (BFRs) across its product range, notes Greenpeace. Sony Ericsson ranked fourth followed by Sony, both scoring 5.3.
So far, no company has released a computer completely free of BFRs and PVC, though several have recently launched new products with restricted amounts of toxic BFRs and PVC, says Greenpeace. Apple CEO Steve Jobs just announced that the new iPod line will be free of BFRs, PVC and mercury, following the lead of companies like Nokia and Sony Ericsson.
Greenpeace says the Guide continues to drive significant change in the industry, noting Intel’s recent announcement that its new Xeon 5400 processors use transistors made from Hafnium so avoiding the use of fire retardants such as BFRs.
