Greenpeace: Apple ain't so brown anymore
Microsoft, Dell, Nintendo get toxic grade
Nature lovers at Greenpeace have made their - ahem - peace with the folks at Apple after some three odd years of lambasting the firm for using toxic chemicals in its products and not stitching Steve Jobs turtlenecks out of pure organic hemp1.
Greenpeace has released its latest hit-list of environmentally friendly and fiend-some electronics companies and — unusually to those following along with the org's past antics — Apple isn't being fingered as a toxic crusader. Greenpeace even shares praise for the Cupertino cult.
For its updated "Greener Electronics Guide," which grades corporate dedication to Gaia on a scale of 10, Nokia (7.3), Sony Ericsson (6.9), Toshiba (5.3), and Philips (5.3) rank highest for selling a range of products free of hazardous chemicals like PVC (vinyl) plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFR).
Apple ranked further down at a relatively respectable score of 5.1 along with LG Electronics, Sony, Motorola, and Samsung. The score had Cupertino jump from ninth place to fifth, and Greenpeace is more than eager to point out Apple's good side.
"Last year Apple cleared the final hurdle in eliminating toxic PVC (vinyl) plastic, making it the first company to completely eliminate hazardous BFRs and PVC in its computer systems," Greenpeace said in its announcement. "Pressure from thousands of Apple lovers and advocates turned the company green in the time it took to go from iMac G5 (2006) to iMac Aluminum (2009)."
Perhaps a bit odd that Greenpeace would focus on Apple when it's sandwiched in the middle of the rankings — unless you remember the org has admitted in the past that it's focused on Apple because it gets more attention. And if you can't hate 'em, love 'em, we suppose.
Back in 2006, Greenpeace launched a mock website in the style of Apple's homepage accusing the firm of not trying hard enough on environmental issues. At Apple's launch of the iPhone, the org famously held a demonstration near the site of Apple's expo and projected giant images of Asian scrapyards where they claim Apple electrics go to die.
Jobs shot back during during a slideshow at the iPhone launch, saying Greenpeace should "get out of the computer business" and "go save some whales."
Notable eco-laggards on the Greenpeace scale are Nintendo, Microsoft, Lenovo, Fujitsu, and Dell. Nintendo remains in last place for not setting a timeline to phase out PVC wiring and increasing CO2 emissions.
Samsung, Dell, Lenovo, and LG Electronics received "penalty points" for not following through with promised phase-outs of toxic chemicals. Microsoft has a low score mostly due to failing to show support for the revised EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronics directive.
Which, of course, is why Greenpeace's rankings should be taken with a shovel of salt. A good deal of the score is based on a company's promises, publicity — and barring that the group doesn't actually measure the amount of toxic chemicals in their manufacturing facilities — guesses based on information the firm itself puts out.
But it does tell you where Greenpeace will strike next. Because Samsung dropped from second place to seventh for failing to eliminate all BRFs from its products by this month, Greenpeace said it will be busy "calling them out" on its allegedly lackadaisical attitude and launched a petition on Twitter. You can follow that petition here. ®
1 Steve Jobs' turtleneck is made out of orca foreskin, right?
COMMENTS
Just to follow all the sheeple and bash Greenpeace again!
If it wasn't for the extreme actions of groups like Greenpeace, we all still be doing things like people would still be dumping crap in landfills, drinking tap water with shit in it, kids would be breathing in that healthy asbestos dust from roofing.
You need extreme groups likes Greenpeace and PETA to get people to sit up and discuss. If everyone went around saying, "Oh like, ahem, could you like stop that, it's not helping.", people would simply ignore them. When someone starts shouting and ranting about something nasty, you at least pay some attention, if only to wait and tell them to f**k-off! The key point is, you listened and paid a attention, so you must have been interested at some level, to begin to start arguing.
I don't agree with a lot of stupid things these groups do, but I do support their right to shout and scream to anyone listening, 'cos that makes us at least talk about their points!
If you really hate them so much, then please don't comment on them, simply ignore them and without attention, they will disappear.
Oh and to the poster using the word "luddite" in a negative sense, please go and look up the real truth about the original luddite movement, you will actually find out they were far more advanced and progressive than any other movement of their time.
Misanthropic?
YOUR part of the planet might be fine, but then I guess It's not YOUR ground source water being polluted by YOUR computer waste.
Then again the people affected are generally poor, black and live somewhere else - so who gives a sh1t right?
It sounds to me that misanthropic better defines your behavour and attitude rather than Greenpeace's.
Greenpeace can kiss my arse
As you would except from a group so dedicated to the advancement of science - indeed, the advancement of anything other than their own eco-egos - this "scale" has absolutely no value whatsoever in judging the environmental aspirations of any of the few companies on it.
You wanna know about Greenpeace's scale? Check this out:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/E83D58B3-10E0-4A9C-8847-BCE665EE235C.html
Quite frankly, they're nothing but luddites, scaremongers, and vandals. Fuck Greenpeace. Fuck them in the ear.
Something to note
For years now, Greenpeace has been comparing Apple's real-world actions with the rest of the industry's "plan to do" press releases, they just finally got around to figuring out that most of the computer makers never got around to doing all of those things...
Greenpeace don't give a flying fuck about the environment.
It's purely an ego exercise, on one occaision they forgot to finish a pamphlet and handed it out with the phrase "Insert alarmist armagedonist factoid here" in the middle of it.
They've helped reduce the progress of nuclear research in the west to a crawl by aranging rentamob to turn up whenever anyone mutters the N word.
Remember the "Ghost Fleet"? Full of PCBs it could have been dismantled safely on the tyne, but greenpeace got in on the act and shouted a lot about how these ships posed a massive environmental hazard and should just NOT EXIST and that it was too dangerous to even think about and and... Eventually said fleet was broken up in the far east with no personel safety measures, no environmental guards and a decades long backlog in the local court houses.
Then there was Brent Spar, another storm in a teacup where GPs involvement actually led to a poorer environmental solution. But Hey GP can sit around in their little group hug smugly proclaiming that they're saving the world and it must be true because all of their friends in greenpeace think the same thing.
