lenovo > apple

Greenpeace's newly released Guide to Greener Electronics names the Chinese company Lenovo as the greenest electronics company, with Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Dell coming up behind. Apple ranks at dead last on the scale.

Is the scale accurate? Call me skeptical, but as Slob's resident Sinologist, I'm going to go out on a limb and bet that Lenovo's environmental practices probably aren't as good as they claim. Inhabitat agrees with me, and goes further in its criticism of the Guide:

"There is something suspect in Greenpeace’s latest installment of the Green Electronics Guide, as the guide rates electronics brands on their web-based chemical policy reports, rather than on [their] environmental impact...Lenovo, the China-based PC maker that bought IBM’s PC business, jumped from last place in August to first place in the most recent report...The company’s actual environmental impact record could not have made such stratospheric change in that time frame. Lenovo is being rewarded for directly responding to Greenpeace’s campaign. Meanwhile, Apple is singled out for not responding to Greenpeace’s demands, ranking last on the list....The problem with Greenpeace’s campaign is the focus on toxicity and recycling while excluding one of the major contributors to climate change – energy expended during manufacturing and use."

Indeed, Greenpeace's Green My Apple campaign has been running for some time, and it points out that Apple's products are chock full of many non-biodegradable substances that competing electronic manufacturers have abandoned. At the same time, Apple's notebooks outrank Lenovo's according to the EPA's EPEAT ranking, which is far more thorough than Greenpeace's "standards." What's the moral of the story? Greenpeace's Electronics Guide is another one of their typical, attention-grabbing campaigns--high-style, low substance. Anyone else remember them crashing their boat into a reef that they were supposed to protect in 2005?

via Inhabitat + Greenpeace