Business | Technology
Nokia, Samsung make big strides towards greener electronics
Greenpeace releases list of companies taking the eco-friendly route.
- By Naushad K. Cherrayil, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:41 November 15, 2008
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Dubai: Green IT has been a buzzword in the electronics industry for the past many years, but still some vendors have not been very serious about tackling climate change, according to Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics.
According to the guide, which ranks 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change, Nokia and Samsung made significant progress in greening their products with improved environmental policies responding not only to the new energy criteria, but also to the more stringent chemical and e-waste criteria.
Scoring seven points out of ten, Nokia regained the lead, due largely to its improved take-back practice in India.
Samsung, a top scorer on the energy-efficiency of its products, took second place with 5.9 points. Fujitsu Siemens Computers jumped to third place with 5.5 points, having finally set late 2010 as its deadline for eliminating toxic poly vinyl chloride or vinyl plastic-free (PVC) and all brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from across its product range.
Although Sony Ericsson and Sony - who enjoyed the top two positions in the previous edition - ranked fourth and fifth respectively this time around, they remained in the top half of the ranking with scores of 5.3 each. Languishing at the bottom of the ranking was Sharp with 3.1, Microsoft with 2.2 points and Nintendo, with only 0.8.
The guide is updated every three months.
It was first launched in August 2006 and, now in its ninth edition, has been a key driving force in getting many companies to make improvements to their environmental policies.
Responsibility
Greenpeace aims to clean up the electronics sector and get manufacturers to take responsibility for the full life cycle of their products, including the electronic waste that their products generate and the energy used by their products and operators.
"With more companies now scoring higher than five out of 10 - the halfway mark in the ranking, we want manufacturers to eliminate harmful chemicals in their product design. While no company has, so far, released a computer completely free of BFRs and PVC, several have recently launched products with restricted amounts of toxic BFRs and PVC," the report said.
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