How the companies line up: 1st edition

This Green Electronics Guide ranks leading mobile and PC manufacturers on their global policies and practice on eliminating harmful chemicals and on taking responsibility for their products once they are discarded by consumers. Companies are ranked solely on information that is publicly available.

This ranking has been superceded by subsequent editions:

Second Edition December 2006.
Third Edition April 2007.
Fourth Edition June 2007.
Fifth Edition September 2007.


	7	Nokia - Good but room for improvement on amounts recycled. More
	7	Dell - Points lost for not yet having models without the worst chemicals. Strong support for takeback. More
	5.3	Sony Ericsson - Some models without some of the worst chemicals, but bad on precautionary principle and take back. More
	5	Samsung - Points for toxic phase out but not good on take back and recycling. More
	4.7	Sony - Some models without the worst chemicals, but bad on precautionary principle and take back. More
	4.7	Hewlett Packard - Timelines only for toxics phase out plan. Good on amounts recycled. Deducted one penalty point (Sept 06). More
	4.3	LGE - Points for toxic phase out date but bad on take back. More
	3.3	Panasonic - Only good on chemicals management. More
	3	Toshiba - Some models without the worst chemicals, but no timelines for elimination and poor on takeback. More
	3	Fujitsu-Siemens - Points for some models free of worst chemicals, but poor on takeback. More
	2.7	Apple - Low scores on almost all criteria. More
	2.3	Acer - Should do better on all criteria. More
	1.7	Motorola - Points for chemicals management. Recently broke clean up promise. More
	1.3	Lenovo - The lowest score of all companies. More

Ranking criteria explained

The ranking criteria reflect the demands of the Toxic Tech campaign to the electronics companies. Our two demands are that companies should:

clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances;

takeback and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete.

The two issues are connected. The use of harmful chemicals in electronics prevents their safe recycling when the products are discarded. Companies scored marks out of 30 this has then been calculated to a mark out of 10 for simplicity.

Follow the more link beside each company for the full details of their score. The full criteria for scoring the companies is available. Download the full pdf of the scorecard.

Each score is based solely on public information on the companies website. Companies found not to be following their published policies will be deducted penalty point in future versions of the guide.

The guide is updated every 3 months. The current version was published on the 25 August 2006.

Disclaimer: Our 'Guide to Greener Electronics' aims to clean up the electronics sector and get manufacturers to take responsibility for the full life cycle of their products, including the electronic waste that their products generate. The guide does not rank companies on labour standards, energy use or any other issues, but recognises that these are important in the production and use of electronics products.