Categories
Archives
Electronics
August 14, 2008Regressive TV brand lobbying coalition killed off by Greenpeace ranking guide
It's common practice for big companies to use trade associations and coalitions (with innocent or even nice sounding names) to do lobbying for their vested interests over the public good. That way they can appear to keep their hands clean of any dodgy tactics.
We come across these lobby groups all the time. We've exposed the role of the car industry lobby in Europe recently but it's not often that we see them disappear due to our work. That's what happened last week with the demise of the US based "Electronic Manufacturers Coalition for Responsible Recycling".
Companies "for Responsible Recycling", now that sounds good doesn't it? In fact it really lobbied for the pubic to bear the cost of recycling so that could avoid responsibility for recycling their own old products. TV companies in particular often don't want to have to recycle their old TV's that are filled with toxic chemicals.
We first encountered it after the first version of our Guide to Greener Electronics was released in August 06. The US Computer Take Back Campaign tipped us off that many TV companies featured in the Guide were in the coalition that was actively lobbying in many US states against progressive e-waste recycling bills.
The eternal promiser
Michael Dell has no doubt about the aspirations he sets for his company. Make Dell #1 - not only in sales, but also environment. Roughly a year ago, he announced that Dell wants to become the greenest technology company.
The company is committed to phasing out hazardous chemicals like BFRs and PVC in all their products by 2009. But it had not yet done so. Not a single Dell computer is PVC or BFR-free. Dell also claim to provide an almost global take back service for all their products.
An examination of dumpsites in Ghana reveals lots of Dell branded e-waste. It is time for the company to make more effort to get their products back so they do not end up being dumped.
We can't wait to find out who will be #1 in v.9 of Guide to Greener Electronics in September.
The Persister
No one expected that Steve Balmer is going to have an easy job. Well, everybody talks about how hard it will be for him with Vista not beeing as good and Explorer just catching up on Firefox, Apple getting more popular. The challenges are numerous. And environment is one of them.
Because (suprise suprise to some non-gamers) Microsoft does not only produce software but also hardware. Mouses, keyboards, Zune, XBox and the list is growing. This hardware still contains hazardous chemicals like brominated flame retardants and PVC. And can be seen on the dumpsites, like the one in Accra, Ghana.
So Steve has to rise up to this challenge and clean up Microsoft's act. Ensure that it's products are free of hazardous chemicals and take responsibility for the end of life. This means collection and responsible recycling so they do not end up beeing exported as waste to countries like Ghana. So Steve, do we want to see more action!
The Guru
Hi there, my name is Will Morris-Julien and I'm a comic artist based in the far west of Wales over here in the UK. Over the last two weeks I have been working with the Greenpeace International Toxic's team on a series of comic strips to highlight the e-waste dumps in Ghana. In our research for the project we listened to the main men in the business talking about how wonderfully green their companies are. They obviously thought of themselves as higher beings. Men, with a message they all thought we should hear. We were so impressed with what they had to say that we thought we'd give them a hand and do a comic called ' The New Heroes of Green?'
I hope that you enjoy the comics. I'll be posting all three over the next three days.
Here's number one Steve 'The Guru' Jobs talking about how wonderful Apple is...
Apple posts iPhone 3G 'Environmental Status Report'
Last week we called out Apple on the lack of any environmental info on the new iPhone 3G. Pre-launch publicity and specs for the new MacBook Air and iMac included info on how Apple was making progress on eliminating the worst toxic chemicals by the end of 2008. There was none of this for the iPhone, but last night we noticed a late addition to the iPhone tech specs:
iPhone 3G embodies Apple's continuing environmental progress. It is designed with the following features to reduce environmental impact:
- PVC-free handset
- PVC-free headphones
- PVC-free USB cable
- Bromine-free printed circuit boards
- Mercury-free LCD display
- Majority of packaging made from post-consumer recycled fiberboard and biobased materials
- Power adapter outperforms strictest global energy efficiency standards
So how does this compare to what we found when we tested the first iPhone, how does it measure up against other phones from competitors and what does Apple have to do to meet it's commitment to stop using toxic PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants?
Philips takes baby steps on recycling
We've been pressuring the consumer electronics company Philips to improve its regressive position on recycling recently. Yesterday they got back to us with a few tiny improvements.
Philips stands out as the only major company that says that recycling is the responsibility of the public and governments. Philips gets zero on all e-waste criteria in our Guide to Greener Electronics and gets a penalty point on top of that for double standards. Philips current position is what has helped create the huge volumes of toxic e-waste dumped in developing countries.
Clearly the electronics companies need to change. Some like Dell are taking action by launching free global takeback schemes to encourage recycling. Until now Philips has not only been sticking to its regressive policy while competitors change but also been lobbying in the US and Europe to ensure it does not have to take any individual responsibility for the products they sell at the end of life.
After our last action at the Philips HQ in Amsterdam they promised us to improve their policy. Now they have responded.
A new green iPhone by the end of 2008?
With the familiar hype, the latest "revolutionary" iPhone 3G is released by Apple this Friday. In all the promises of faster, better, cheaper, there's not a peep about it being any greener than the first iPhone.
Well there is a rumour that the iPhone will be partly packaged in potato starch trays instead of plastic. Aside from that rather dull, and un-revolutionary (Motorola already uses them) potato titbit there's no info yet on how green the actual phone will be. The first generation iPhone contained toxic chemicals that competitors like Nokia and Sony Ericsson have already removed from their new phones.
Update 15 July: Apple posts iPhone 3G 'Environmental Status Report'
Philips - Simply take-back & recycle
This was the sight that greeted Philips shareholders at the company's AGM in Amsterdam. Philips is one of the few big electronics makers who don't want to take responsibility for their own e-waste. That's the main reason Philips is almost bottom of our Guide to Greener Electronics.
Philips is definitely the most vocal company in lobbying that customers should pay a fee to recycle e-waste. More progressive companies like Dell will recycle your old e-waste for free, ensuring more old electronics are recycled and saving resources at the same time. We want Philips to match other companies' global recycling schemes that are vital to stem the rising tide of toxic e-waste being dumped in Asia.
A Philips spokesperson responded in the Dutch press that Philips is talking with governments and consumer groups about who's responsible for recycling. As Martin, our campaigner, paraphrased - yes, Philips is talking to governments asking them to make the consumer pay for recycling!
However at the AGM the Philips chairman did claim he wanted to lift the company off the bottom of the Guide, so lets see what happens....
''Striking fear into the IT industry''
This quote from The Register caused much amusement in our little corner of the Greenpeace office yesterday, with an amusing description of our colleagues at CeBIT IT show:
Greenpeace weighed in to the debate. From the inside. In recent years the environmental organisation has pitched up at the gates of the show, pitching piles of IT scrap onto the floor to shame attendees into rethinking their attitude to the environment. This time they were on the inside, staging a press conference to highlight their report into how green a sample of PCs, phone, and PDAs were. The panel would have struck fear into the hearts of the IT industry jockeys who sneaked in. Young, committed, multi-ethnic. The sort of people who would have once been haranguing one another in the student union, while the geeks were playing /Dungeons and Dragons/ in their bedrooms.
As well as some gentle ribbing of our 'young, committed and multi-ethic' colleagues we also had to explain to Zeina what Dungeons and Dragons was.
As usual from The Register the rest of the article is a good read, on how the IT industry is seemingly lacking a cohesive plan to tackle it's carbon emissions. Our upcoming energy criteria for the Guide to Greener Electronics should help them there!
Nintendo stuck on start
Back in November we added Nintendo to our Green Guide to Electronics. Despite several requests for information Nintendo provided none and was the first brand to score 0. The next edition of the guide is released today and Nintendo only gets 0.3 due to an indication that it does have a chemicals management policy.
We covered the reasons why Nintendo got zero last time around. Since then we have not received any response from Nintendo aside from one person from its UK PR department. Nintendo has been sending out a pretty lame response to emails on the subject, which tells you mainly about office recycling.
Nintendo has added to its one meager FAQ on the environment some information on product recycling. There is now one phone number for US customers where eventually an operator refers you to the EPA for recycling options. That doesn't compare very well to other electronics makers. Sony for example offers much better recycling services.
Nintendo remains the odd one out of the 18 companies in the Guide, without any public time lines to eliminate the worst toxic chemicals or a global recycling policy for the millions of products it sells every year. If Nintendo has better policies why not make them public like the other 17 companies in the Guide?
You can keep up the pressure on Nintendo to improve by writing to them.
New energy criteria for Greener Electronics Guide
Today we've published our latest quarterly ranking of the leading electronics companies environmental policies and practice. Often this generates a lot of online discussion so this time around we've added an in depth question and answer section to cover questions like why we only rank on public information, how we ensure companies are doing what they claim, why we don't suggest alternatives and many more.
Many of the companies are rising to the challenge on the existing chemicals and e-waste criteria - in the next edition these will become more stringent, and new criteria will be added on other chemicals and the use of recycled plastic. The biggest change will be the addition of criteria on climate and energy. Electronics products are very energy intensive to produce and the rapidly increasing amounts of home electronics are driving up electricity usage in many countries. Data centres that run Internet services use huge amounts of electricity. Many electronics companies are now making many claims about their energy saving products. But how do the companies claims, policies and practice on energy and response to global warming compare?
In the next edition of the guide we will be scoring the companies against the new criteria. All companies now have these new criteria and have several months to respond. We have published them in advance to be transparent about how the companies will be assessed.
Cebit: What do people think about “Green IT”?
It’s Sunday, day six and last day of Cebit, world’s biggest IT fair. And we still didn’t find really green electronics.
As we also wanted to know what the Cebit visitors think of “Green IT” and what they expect from the industry, we asked some and have it on video. Our campaigner Zeina also summarizes the Greenpeace position on green electronics.
Personally, at the end of Cebit 2008, I have to say that Cebit didn’t keep its much-advertised “Green IT” promise, but at least “green” aspects seem to raise on the agenda of the IT industry. We at Greenpeace will keep the pressure on the industry to make those promises into action. The industry has to take responsibility and develop solutions.
Cebit: How green is the Green PC?
German IT magazine Chip has been honouring some products and services with its Chip award at Cebit. One of their awards is a “green” one. It went to a Fujitsu Siemens Desktop PC called “Green PC”. Fujitsu Siemens states that it consumes 27 percent less power than its conventional counterpart and includes a “green mainboard” without halogens, cadmium or mercury. But: It’s still not 100 percent free of toxic chemicals.
In contrast to many desktop computer models in our survey “searching on greener electronics” at least it’s a computer which is greener than others and yet doesn’t cost much more than not-so-green models.
We sent our video activists Omer and Giona to Fujitsu Siemens’ exhibition at Cebit to get some more information. Watch the video to see their interview with a Fujitsu Siemens spokesperson.
<
Cebit: Ice cream for the Greenpeace women
It’s Saturday – weekend – and we see much more people coming to Cebit and our booth today and expect even more tomorrow, as many end consumers attend Cebit at weekends. The train to the fairground this morning was overcrowded – actually mainly with young male population, although today is International Women’s Day and women may attend Cebit for free – our volunteer and gentleman Rembert from Hamburg local group even treated the women in our team to an ice-cream …
So, women! Please come to our booth in hall 19 and inform yourself about Greener Electronics. And men as well, please.
Cebit: “IT greens” versus “Green IT”
Our toxics campaigner Yannick Vicaire wrote up his view on the “Green IT” at Cebit. Read what he says about the tactics of IT managers not to take on responsibility.
It’s understood, “Green IT” in Cebit is all about energy efficiency, an easy first step to take for this industry that kept ignoring the issue for decades. Yet, looking at those brilliant “bla” quotes below shows that even this effort is not taken so willingly by the IT industry.
“ICT covers two percent of the global energy consumption. We can work to halve it to 1%, but the priority is to work to decrease the remaining 98 percent,” said Francesco Serafini, vice-president of Hewlett Packard in the EMEA region.“The real challenge is to address heavy energy consumers. ICT can help. It is indeed a typical anti-inflationary industry that with time gives you more for less. But the real problem is to cut heavy consumption,” argued Intel chairman Craig Barrett.
Let me translate: “don’t pick on us cos’ we can save the world”, they claim. I’d like to challenge this here.
Green Cooking @ CeBIT
Day 4 here at CeBIT in Hannover, and despite the excellent work and camaraderie of our international crew here in Germany, I am definitely missing my home of Oakland in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides the great weather (hey, it’s going to be 64F/18C today!), I also have to admit I miss the fine vegetarian food of California. Let’s just say that CeBIT is a bit lacking in the available vegan goodies, unless I want to start crunching on the new bamboo covered laptop from Acer.
Not THAT hungry. Yet.
My rumbling stomach has made me start thinking about all things through a culinary lens, and I figured that this would be a good theme for today’s post. As you’ll see in the video below, my colleague Omer visited various exhibits in search of the newest eco-friendly laptops.
There’s still no clear winner, which is consistent with the report we released earlier this week, ranking company’s greenest products to date.
No one product excelled in all areas. It appears that when certain electronics focused on improved energy efficiency, they lagged behind in the elimination of toxic chemicals such as PVC and Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs). Similarly, products that excelled in designing out these toxic chemicals didn’t possess good policies on product lifecycle – a product’s warranty, upgradeability and recyclability. Ho hum.....
Gold-rush at Cebit
My colleagues Omer and Giona strolled a little bit around at Cebit. They visited the famous Green IT Village, had a look at the brand-new and much-hyped Lenovo X300 laptop and the Asus “Ecobook” with parts out of Bamboo – but not yet a true eco-laptop according to a holistic approach. And then they found a very special Apple Macbook Air – gold-coated with 12,000 crystals on the top. Omer got really enthusiastic about that shiny golden computer – although the Macbook Air is still not entirely free from PVC and BFRs. But watch yourself.
Cebit not so green
Over at the official Cebit blog Sascha is wondering about an exhibitors’s huge Humvee car (blog post in german) and whether some companies take “Green IT” really that seriously.
We wondered too. That’s why we – that’s me and our german-language blogger Frida – went to the so-called Green IT village at Cebit in hall 9.
And we have to admit that we are a little bit disappointed. Why?
The whole Cebit should be a Green Village
… claims our Greener Electronics campaigner Zeina Al-Hajj in an interview she gave to the Cebit Channel on Youtube. Please watch it, blog it, spread it.
Vlog from CeBIT: xBox
Hi, this is Casey, reporting Greenpeace's first video blog from CeBIT. Here, I am showcasing the Greenpeace e-waste exhibit and am on the hunt for a comment from Microsoft, whose CEO Steve Ballmer announced on Monday that the company was "going green". Hmmm. Stay tuned for more updates this week from Hannover.
Buy it, Use it, Break it, Junk it, it's Toxic
The work of long nights, just published on Youtube and screened at our booth at Cebit: Our new video on (not yet) Greener Electronics.
“CeBIT talks green, but the industry has some way to go”
That’s the title of our today’s press release. We did a press conference at Cebit this morning, releasing our “Searching for Greener Electronics” survey. Some pictures of the very well-attended conference you’ll find at our photo pool at Flickr. As we started this morning at 6 o’clock and winter (even snow) came back to Hanover we have now first to clear our coffee and personal energy situation and then will head to the “Green IT village” in hall 9 to have a closer look on how seriously companies mean “green IT” and to see what’s rather greenwashing. More on that later.
CeBIT: Booth up, running and online
After a long Monday of setting up our booth at CeBIT – world’s largest computer trade fair –, a lot of press and visitors attended already and discussed with us about Greener Electronics, from news agencies Reuters and AFP, german national TV ZDF and Bavarian Radio to bloggers like Charbax from Techvideoblog.com, who showed us his XO, the “$100 laptop” by the OLPC initiative. We had a very nice discussion on the Pro's and Con’s of OLPC.
Who's the greenest of them all at CeBIT 2008?
Next week is the latest big event in the IT industry calendar – the CeBIT trade fair in Hanover, Germany. Green seems to be the fashionable IT buzzword right now and certainly the Consumer Electronics Show made a big deal about being greener.
But how much of this is just talk and PR puff. Are electronics products really becoming greener? Should claiming to be "green" mean more than just cutting power use? Are companies really addressing short life spans and miniscule recycling rates for their products? Which products contain the least harmful chemicals? Will CeBIT's Green IT village be showcasing real environmental innovations with wide applications?
To discover the answers to some of these and other relevant questions we'll be at CeBIT to cut through the corporate green speak and see which companies and products are on the cutting edge of environmental innovation. Our experts will be investigating the facts behind the hype and highlighting the leaders and showing up any superficial green claims.
Nintendo ranking creates a stir
Last week we published our latest Guide to Greener electronics with new companies added - Microsoft, Sharp, Philips and Nintendo. Nintendo being new and coming our bottom with 0/10 certainly made the biggest splash with many big news sites, tech blogs and gaming websites picking up the story. This made for some amusing headlines on several gaming sites. However there was also criticism from some technology sites (Arstechnica, BoingBoing, Guardian) and several angry emails from the public, mainly focussing on Nintendo getting 0/10.
Here I'll address some of the common points raised in detail, this from BoingBoing and lots of other blogs and several emails:
Answering the call about the iPhone protest that never was
Now anyone who follows technology news knows the Apple rumour phenomenon well. Sometimes they are true, occasionally they have some basis in fact but more often they are completely made up. This week there was a "Greenpeace to protest at iPhone launch" rumour that despite being repeated widely belongs firmly in the 'completely made up' category.
Watching it develop this week was a bit like an amusing version of Chinese whispers online. Last Sunday Zeina gave an interview to the UK newspaper The Sunday Times with this quote about the UK launch:
"The iPhone is a unique product and for us it is a missed opportunity for Apple to combine the innovation of the product with a green performance."
The EETimes then took the same story and headlined it "Greenpeace tries to gatecrash Apple's Euro iPhone party" (nice and attention grabbing headline but in the article nothing about gatecrashing). Next up was MacNN who made it into "Greenpeace to show up at Euro iPhone debut" stating "Greenpeace is planning a rally during Apple's launch of the iPhone in Europe to protest the use of alleged toxic chemicals in the device.." Even Macworld UK reported it.
State of Independence
Greenpeace doesn't take any government or corporate money. Period. It's something we don't always explain clearly enough, and some of our supporters quite reasonably ask us why we don't just take the money - after all, once it's in our hands it's going to a good cause.
Well, here's one reason why. One of the things you can do on our website, right now, is challenge the IT industry to develop a green computer. We have to challenge them, because right now a green computer just doesn't exist.
One of the other things you can do on our website is download a ranking guide which shows Sony Ericsson to be one of the greener manufacturers of hi tech electronics. Now, suppose we took money from Sony Ericsson. All the other companies on the list would cry foul and say we were only being nice to Sony Ericsson because of the money - and a lot of people would believe them.
Or suppose we took money from one of the lower scoring manufacturers, like Panasonic. Suddenly we'd find ourselves in a very difficult position, having to trade off spending the money on (say) saving the Amazon versus campaigning against Panasonic.
So by restricting ourselves to donations from individuals we make sure the only questions we have to ask ourselves when spending money are 'would our supporters approve of this?' and 'will this make a difference to the environment?' It keeps things simple and it lets our supporters have confidence in us.
So, if you feel like joining the 3 million or so individuals around the world who support our work just click here. You'll be in good company.
Bromine industry lets out the attack poodles
A full week after the release of our report on toxic chemicals in the iPhone, a chemical industry group has released a press release attacking our report. The story is doing the rounds on a few big blogs so here’s our response.
iPhone's hazardous chemicals
When we released our iPhone testing results that revealed toxic chemicals in the iPhone, chemicals that other phone makers have removed, we expected the news to travel. Two days after the release there's been loads of coverage, especially online, varying of course from the factually accurate in wired to the predictable ranting, like this on gizmodo.
Dell to go "carbon neutral"
Dell has stepped up the ante in the computer industries competition to show how they are becoming greener by announcing this week plans to become carbon neutral by 2008. It's certainly had the intended effect to generate a good amount of positive media.
Leaving aside the dubious nature of 'carbon neutral' marketing speak and the definitely less than perfect option of carbon offsetting (especially by planting trees) it is good that they are looking to increase the use of renewable energy in their operations and making their products more efficient.
Much ado about nothing: Apple's new iMac
I feel a little bit ashamed but, as I have already said, I can't resist to have a look at the Apple rumours sites when there is a Steve Job's Keynote.
For those who are not Mac fans, it may be useful to know that Apple doesn't stream live the conferences when they launch new products, so all of us good folk meet in chats and in rumours web pages where we crave to read some reports of Steve's speech.
Last Thursday I decided to stay a couple of hours longer in the office and from 7 pm (central Europe time) I was ready to read some news from the Steve's keynote that was taking place in the Apple headquarters.
After 10 minutes MacObserver reported:
"Steve says that recycling has been kept in mind from the ground up. Says iMac is great in this area."
As I understood later he was speaking about the new iMac case and screen: the display is now made with glass, and they replaced the plastic at front side with aluminium (the back side is still in plastic). Ok, it's nice to hear Steve saying something about the environment, but to be honest these updates are not revolutionary at all. So I was quite surprised when the morning after I found out on my RSS reader that so many Mac Blogs were reporting it as a great announcement for the environment.
Room for a Green View?
I'm always very excited when the Apple store goes offline and Apple is presenting its new products but on Tuesday I was even more since I was really curious to see what Apple would have offered after the Greener Apple statement. They disappointed me last May 15th when they updated the MacBook without adding anything relevant for the environment, but I was sure that this time Apple would not have failed to show that they really care to change their environmental policy.
At nearly 14.30 Apple Store went on line, I ran to the Apple site and at the front page I saw the new wonderful MacBook Pro. WOW. Have they launched the first toxic free laptop on the market? Are this new MacBook PVC free or BFRs free? Are they using the mercury free LED display?
Dell vs Apple: Eco-Rumble in the Electronic Jungle
Get the popcorn folks, it's the computer industry's heavyweight championship fight of the century.
Michael Dell led with an uppercut to the chin when he announced Dell's free worldwide recycling policy and challenged the industry to match it. Steve jobs staggered back to the ropes, dazed, then came back with a surprise left when he declared a phase-out of the worst toxic chemicals in the Apple product line (and a deadline to do so sooner than Dell's), along with a new commitment to eco-transparency. Yesterday, Dell shook it off and sucker-punched Jobs when he laid down his plans to become the greenest computer company in the world.
This is the kind of prize fight we love.
Search
Burn our feed!
Get Making Waves via email
Bookmark Us!
Latest Comments
Helen on Regressive TV brand lobbying coalition killed off by Greenpeace ranking guide
javier on Juliette
maritzachang on Killing whales to reduce climate change? I don't think so...
Sharada Ganesh on The Persister
Adriana on Forest Love video gets featured on... the O'Reilly factor?
Dave Walsh on Take action: Contact the Prosecutor about the real whaling scandal
Dave Walsh on "Whaling as a business hardly justifies the environmental costs" - former Japanese whaling official
Dave Walsh on Killing whales to reduce climate change? I don't think so...
hevdevil on Beijing Olympics hang under a clound of smog
Blogroll
Technorati & Stuff
 |  |
