Sony heralds 'Greenest Company of 2009' award

Sony today claimed its eco credentials have been given a boost after an environmental blog named the electronics giant “the greenest company of 2009”.

Sony has “proven over the last year that being environmentally friendly and profitable can go hand in hand”, said Chris Ingham-Brooke, Editor of website Environmental Graffiti.

The blog applauded Sony’s Forest Guard Program, which sees Sony pair with kids to design “innovative technological solutions” for tracking and preventing wildfires.

Environmental Graffiti - which says its goal is to "search the vast realms of the internet on behalf of all environmentalists... and compile it into a daily blog" - also liked Sony’s decision to host, in partnership with the European Business School, a series of lectures debating the role of technology in helping to solve climate issues.

All good stuff, but is it really a sound basis for praising Sony so highly?

No less an organisation than Greenpeace awarded Sony only a mediocre score in its latest Guide to Greener Electronics – a best-to-worst ranking of leading electronics firms based on the organisation's own energy, e-waste and toxic chemical criteria.

Version 14, compiled in December last year, saw Sony score 5.1 points out of a possible ten.

The company moved from eighth to seventh place, gaining one point for reporting “absolute cuts in greenhouse gases emissions”. However, Greenpeace slammed the company over the efficacy of Sony's voluntary take-back scheme and the relatively small amount of renewable energy the manufacturer uses. ®