Apple Macs may be the hippest looking computers on the market, but they are the least environmentally friendly, according to Greenpeace.
The organisation’s guide to greener electronics was released this month and places Apple at the bottom of the pile with a score of 2,7 out of 10.
According to the report, Apple scores poorly against almost all the criteria, with very little progress. It has dropped from 11th place — out of a possible 14 — to last place in the past seven months.
Perhaps Steve Jobs needs to take a leaf out of the book of Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo, which managed to rise from the bottom of the pile to the top in the past seven months. The report praises Lenovo for being the most improved company, with significant progress across all the criteria contributing to the ranking.
The report says Lenovo takes back and recycles its products in every country in which they are sold; Apple performs poorly in this area.
International toxic campaigner Iza Kruszewska is quoted on the Greenpeace website, applauding the work by Lenovo.
“Given the mountains of e-waste in China, both imported and domestically generated, it is heartening to see a Chinese company taking the lead,” she says.
A number of companies, such as Toshiba, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, slipped in the rankings between August and December last year, but have clawed their way back in the April 2007 rankings by setting timelines for removing the use of harmful chemicals in their manufacturing processes.
Sony Ericsson is the first company to set a deadline of January 1 2008 for eliminating substances in addition to those banned by the European Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronic products.
The world’s two biggest computer manufactures, Dell and Hewlett Packard (HP), have slipped in the rankings. Dell moves from second to fourth and HP slips from third to eighth.
The report criticises Sony and LG Electronics for practising double standards when it comes to recycÂling their branded products. They have joined a coalition opposing producer-responsibility laws in the United States while supporting individual producer responsibility elsewhere in the world.
The full Greenpeace guide to greener electronics can be found at: www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/how-the-companies-line-up