Greenpeace updates green electronics gauge (Mario loses again)

Greenpeace has published a study of the green credentials of various consumer electronics companies. While Apple has had a controversial public relationship with the eco-warriors, only recently being praised for some environmentally-friendly moves, today it can rejoice. Arch-rival Microsoft has found itself near the bottom of the pile.

Greenpeace's Iza Kurszewska put this down to a lack of recycling and disposal information from Microsoft to US consumers, the Xbox games console and the Zune media player. Neither does it publish its own recycling figures. But who topped the list and who shuffled shamefully at the bottom?

Good guys of the list were Samsung and Toshiba, who jointly topped the table on the basis of sound corporate environmental principles and recycling policies for their products. They are also both notable for taking steps to curb the use of PVC and brominated flame retardants, improving recyclability.

Nokia, once a leader, has slipped to third place thanks to poor take-back recycling efforts in Russia and India.

And below Microsoft?

That last spot on the list was shamefully occupied by Nintendo. Whilst this was due in part to lack of information about the company's environmental policies, it's still a worrying notion about the current world leader in games console sales.

Just above it was, surprisingly, a member of the Electronic Manufacturers Coalition for Responsible Recycling; despite brownie points for this, Philips' continued use of cathode ray tube technologies in televisions placed it in penultimate position.

It's also worrying to see Panasonic lingering near the bottom given public assurances at CES 2008 that it was all about greener practices; hopefully 2008 will bear this out and next year's list will look a lot more positive all round.

[via SmartPlanet]

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