Sustainable IT | Ted Samson | InfoWorld | Sony hits bottom of Greenpeace eco rankings | July 9, 2007 12:37 PM

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Sony hits bottom of Greenpeace eco rankings

July 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Sony hits bottom of Greenpeace eco rankings

Despite Sony's consistently poor showings, Greenpeace remains fixated on Apple

Given Greenpeace's seeming obsession with Apple, I'm having an even more difficult time taking the environmental group's ongoing eco-policing of electronic companies seriously.

Greenpeace last week released the latest edition of its "Guide to Greener Electronics," in which it ranks fourteen companies based on particular environmental practices, such as their toxic-chemical policies and recycling programs.

This time around, Sony tumbled to the bottom of the list, down from 11th place. The reason for the drop: Greenpeace says Sony was "penalized for double standards on their waste policies" in terms of individual producer responsibility (IPR), referring to vendors taking responsibility for the environmental impact of their wares instead of expecting customers to do so.

"Sony is a founding member of the European Recycling Platform which supports IPR; however, in the U.S., Sony is part of a coalition that has been opposing producer responsibility and lobbying for U.S. consumers to pay an advanced recycling fee (ARF)," Greenpeace states in the current guide.

Lenovo, which was at the top of the heap last April, is now in third place. "Closer examination of Lenovo's takeback and recycling services has revealed some weaknesses e.g. time-limited takeback in Thailand, therefore Lenovo loses points on that criteria. Lenovo also still fails to score any points for providing models on the market that are free of PVC and BFRs," says the report.

Meanwhile Nokia crept to the No. 1 slot. "Nokia gets top marks for its support for [IPR], (each company should take care of the electronic waste from its own-branded discarded products). But, it loses points for poor reporting on the amounts of discarded mobiles that it recycles as a percentage of past sales."

Yet despite Sony's free-fall to last place, as well as the other changes in the rankings since April, Greenpeace appears utterly fixated on the fact that Apple managed to increase its standing from last place to tenth.

"Clearly, companies are racing to produce greener products" says Iza Kruszewska, Greenpeace's toxics campaigner on the Greenpeace Web site. "Steve Job's latest commitment to eliminate toxics materials moved Apple up the chart and they now face a challenge, with the iPhone, to meet customer expectations to be the environmental leader Apple-lovers want."

Notably, Greenpeace has been criticizing Apple for its allegedly poor green practices for quite some time, even going to far as to launch a "Green my Apple" campaign.

So Greenpeace: If you are going to police the environmental practices of companies, I suggest that you be consistent -- if you want your rankings to be taken seriously. Yes, it's good to see that Apple is doing more for Mother Nature, but meanwhile, Sony, by your standards, has continued to slip over the past several months. Should we expect a flashy, targeted marketing campaign drawing attention to Sony?

Or are you determined to continue getting as much mileage as you can breathing down Apple's neck, even though the company ships far fewer products -- and thus has a relatively smaller environmental impact -- than Sony?

Posted by Ted Samson on July 9, 2007 12:37 PM

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COMMENTS

the fact of the matter is, greenpeace's pressure on apple has yielded results, and just the kind they were looking for. if you take pressure off someone once they make the slightest of effort and place it on another party, what sort of message does it send? greenpeace holds apple to such high standards because they ARE a revolutionary and incredibly influential company. there is no hate in their campaign, it's just another one of their signature "love bombs". to take pressure off apple and put it on sony would be to give up the "green my apple" campaign, and allow apple to perhaps slip further. instead, they are using it (and their little scorecard, which surprisingly is being taken seriously) to show up other companies like sony and instill the desire to change for them as well ........ at least how i see it !

Posted by: jr. at July 9, 2007 09:12 PM

It is inconceivable that an enormous company like Lenovo could jump from last to first place in five weeks. Good quality and lasting environmental programs take several months to set up in large corporations. Greenpeace's scorecard is not based on actual programs that deliver improvements, it is based on words and promises made by companies. The scorecard is valueless from an environmental standpoint.....but I'm sure Greenpeace is enjoying the spin that it creates.

Posted by: Chloe Landale at July 10, 2007 09:18 AM

Hi Ted,

Tom from Greenpeace here. To address consistency. We have been talking with the leading many of the leading electronics brands since 2003-4 about removing the worst toxic chemicals and take back. All ranked companies where aware in advance of our ranking and criteria (based on the same two demands) before the launch of our ranking guide in August 2006. The criteria we use have remained the same for each of the 4 ranking versions to date. I'd say that was pretty consistent.

We've always been clear why we focussed on Apple. They might not lead the market by amount of shipments but they do lead much of the market in design and innovation. Where Apple leads on product design many other companies follow. Apple also has a unique number of users who are passionate about Apple. Hence our greenmyapple website where thousands of Mac users did ask Steve Jobs to make Apple greener.

All the companies in the ranking have varying markets, different customers, sell different products and make decisions in unique ways. We pressure each one in different ways with the ranking as the basis. Look back to 2005 and HP was our main target as the market share leader.

Now Apple has made some improvements and promised greener products of course we are going to be keeping an eye on their new product launches to see if they really are "ahead of their competitors" on environmental issues as Steve Jobs claimed. Right now we are asking people to write to all the major PC makers to see which one will be the first to come through on their commitments to remove toxic chemicals.

Posted by: Tom at July 13, 2007 06:31 AM

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