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March 19, 2008

business

Greenpeace: Apple’s environmental progress slow but steady

Posted Mar. 19, ’08, 11:00 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Business

GreenpeaceApple and Greenpeace have been at odds with each other for some time over the company’s commitment to the environment. The environmental activist group famously ranked Apple near the bottom of its Guide for Greener Electronics, a ranking that was substantially improved after Steve Jobs’s essay, A Greener Apple, appeared last May. Since then, Apple has gone from a 2.7 to a 6.0 in last December’s scorecard.

In their newly released March ‘08 guide, Apple’s environmental score has jumped slightly, to a 6.7, a number that puts them in 9th place out of the companies ranked, behind competitors such as HP, Sony, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba. Apple’s strong points, according to Greenpeace, are its promises to phase out toxic materials such as BFRs and PVC from its models by the end of the year, but it falls down on the geographic limitations of its takeback program (which is US-centric) and its lack of transparency about some of its environmental practices.

Many see Grenepeace’s targeting of Apple as an attempt to take advantage of the company’s prominent profile. Jobs in particular has accused them, at the 2007 Apple shareholder meeting, of depending “too much on principle and not enough on fact.” As our own erstwhile Senior Contributor Scott Silverman pointed out last year:

One thing that concerns me in this whole Greenpeace “ranking” system is its level of accuracy. I mean how can Apple’s score double in one day? Removing chemicals, altering manufacturing processes, and implementing recycling programs take time. Thus I question the amount of research Greenpeace has done on Apple’s actual environmental record.
Apple’s penchant for secrecy extends on some occasions even to touting its own good deeds; like the rest of us, Greenpeace’s rankings are largely dependent on what Apple says it’s doing. Not to mention that Greenpeace’s scorecard focuses on a very narrow section of environmental responsibility, namely toxic chemicals and e-waste. There’s no mention, for example, of energy consumption.

While we certainly want our favorite computer company to keep the environment healthy, we’re also plenty aware that Greenpeace has its own particular agenda. At this point, we’re pretty comfortable with the fact that both seem to be going in the same direction, at least, and we eagerly await Jobs’s promised annual update on the state of Apple’s environmental progress.


1 Comments

Dave-O said:

It's ridiculous to judge a company now based on what it says it will do. Give them credit when the plans are implemented. And ignoring enegy consumption is inexcusable. If, as I suspect, Apple's products remain in service longer than the competition, energy consumption becomes the more important variable; and Apple's score should be boosted because machines aren't going to recycling centers or landfills as frequently.

March 19, 2008 1:10 PM

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