Piles of cables and computer waste awaiting scrapping. Wenling, zhejiang Province, China.
Our scorecard highlights which of the major electronics
companies is doing the most to remove the worst toxic chemicals
from their products and which companies have good recycling
programs for their products
Full ranking
Click here for the ranking
The ranking is important because the amounts of toxic e-waste is
growing everyday and it often ends up dumped in the developing
world. Reducing the toxic chemicals in products reduces pollution
from old products and makes recycling safer, easier and cheaper.
Companies with good recycling schemes help ensure that their
products don't end up in the e-waste yards of Asia.
"The scorecard will provide a dynamic tool to green the
electronics sector by setting off a race to the top. By taking back
their discarded products, companies will have incentives to
eliminate harmful substances used in their products, since this is
the only way they can ensure safe reuse and recycling of electronic
waste," said Iza Kruszewska, Greenpeace International toxics
campaigner.
Nokia and
Dell share the top spot in the ranking. They believe that as
producers they should bear individual responsibility for taking
back and reusing or recycling their own-brand discarded products.
Nokia leads the way on eliminating toxic chemicals, since the end
of 2005 all new models of mobiles are free of polyvinyl chloride
(PVC) and all new components to be free of brominated flame
retardants (BFRs) from the start of 2007. Dell has also set
ambitious targets for eliminating these harmful substances from
their products.
Third place goes to
HP, followed by
Sony Ericsson (4th),
Samsung (5th),
Sony (6th),
LG Electronics (7th),
Panasonic (8th),
Toshiba (9th),
Fujitsu Siemens Computers (10th),
Apple (11th),
Acer (12th) and
Motorola (13th).
Lenovo is in bottom position. It earns points for chemicals
management and providing some voluntary product take back
programmes, but it needs to do better on all criteria.
"It is disappointing to see
Apple ranking so low in the overall guide. They are meant to be
world leaders in design and marketing, they should also be world
leaders in environmental innovation." said Kruszewska.
Companies have the opportunity to move towards a greener ranking
as the guide will be updated every quarter. However penalty points
will be deducted from overall scores if we find a company lying,
practising double standards or other corporate misconduct. For now,
companies are scored solely on information publicly available on
their global websites.
With a average score of only 4/10 it is clear that the
electronics industry has a long way to go before it can make any
claims to being a green industry.
Download the
full scorecard as a pdf document.
Download the
ranking criteria as a pdf document.
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