Apple Drops a Spot in the Guide to Greener Electronics

Greenpeace again reacted positively to Apple's ongoing efforts of removing PVC and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from some products, but noted that the Mac maker would have to completely phase-out such elements to score higher on the Guide to Greener Electronics. Apple is also facing some deadlines in its initiative to remove toxic chemicals from its products.

The news couldn't have come at a worse time for Apple, which just recently moved to set up a new web page detailing the greenness of its MacBook family. The new page, accompanied by an advertisement, touts the new notebooks as “the world's greenest.”

However, it wasn't just Apple that failed to get recognition from the environmental group.  “The latest edition of our Guide to Greener Electronics has revealed that very few firms are showing true climate leadership,” Greenpeace stated.

“Despite many green claims, major companies like Dell, Microsoft, Lenovo, LG, Samsung and Apple are failing to support the necessary levels of global cuts in emissions and make the absolute cuts in their own emissions that are required to tackle climate change.”

Nokia is still the electronics maker to top Greenpeace's list, taking into account all the efforts the company makes in the process of staying green. The Guide also reveals that Toshiba has made a big improvement jumping to 3rd place, with Sharp and Motorola also following in its footsteps, based on the latest statistics.

However, Apple was helpless as it dropped in the Guide along with other big companies such as Dell, HP and Acer. Despite slightly improving its overall score to 4.3, Apple dropped one place, all this while Greenpeace still noted “much better reporting on the carbon footprint of its products” as well as the ability to “show leadership on removing the worst toxics substances with new iPods free of toxics brominated flame retardants and PVC.” Nevertheless, Greenpeace ruled that “all Apple products should be free of these substances by the end of 2008, which will challenge other PC makers to follow their lead.”

Greenpeace is known to have focused particularly on Apple with a "Green my Apple" campaign that continuously presses the Cupertino-based Mac maker to find more environmentally friendly solutions for constructing its products. Only on occasion has Greenpeace lauded Apple for its strivings.