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June 25, 2009HP = "Hazardous Promises"
In 2007, HP promised to phase out using brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics in their products (except for servers and printers) by the end of 2009.
But earlier this year they said they would keep using these toxic chemicals until 2011.
So these Greenpeace activists in Beijing donned Mark Hurd masks (that'd be the CEO of HP) and held laptops declaring "HP: Harmful Products," and demanded that somebody come out of the HP headquarters and collect their toxic laptops.
Greenpeace has been campaiging against hazardous e-waste by pressuring manufacturers to get the toxics out of their products.
HP has no excuse for inaction: Apple's new computers are almost PVC free and don't have any BFR's. Dell, Lenovo and Acer have more products with less or no PVC and BFR's.
The next edition of Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics comes out next week. The guide ranks the 17 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TV's and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Expect to see HP paying a Hefty Price for Horrible Performance.
Top Tech CEOs - "You've got work to do!"
I'm chalking down California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer as a supporter of our IT climate leadership challenge. On Monday she told told more than 50 Silicon Valley CEOs to lobby for greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the US:
"We need your help," Boxer said. "Once the price of carbon is set by the free market, your world will change dramatically. Others control the price of oil, and they know exactly what they're doing."
Which is pretty similar to what we are asking for - Tech CEO's to stand up from a strong global deal on greenhouse gas emissions reductions because it makes good business sense. A strong international climate change deal would certainly increase demand for energy saving solutions offered by the IT industry.
Sun Microsystems first with response on climate leadership
Back in March we launched our IT Climate leadership Challenge to the biggest IT companies to stand up and be counted in support of a strong Kyoto deal this year and lead the way in providing climate solutions across the economy.
Since then we've been following up letters sent to company CEO's back in February in preparation for releasing company scores during May. With many companies it's taking a long time to get answers but kudos to Sun Microsystems for sending and now publishing a response which already puts down a good marker for where they will score against others in May.
Sun Microsystems is a founding member of Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP). A key principle among the eight put forth by BICEP is that the United States must achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and at least 25 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2020. (snip) Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz will be featured on a plenary panel at the upcoming (April 2009) Ceres conference. We expect that Sun's support of BICEP and its principles will be featured in his remarks.
I've asked for more details from Sun on a few points but so far this is the best response.
So IBM, Dell, HP, Google, Fujitsu and co, now you know what you have to beat…..
The card image is the Sun CEO and a sneak preview of how the climate leaders website will look come the May launch.
HP responds to Greenpeace penalty point
Over on Greenmonk HP has responded to us giving them a penalty point in the latest Guide to Greener Electronics for backtracking on their commitment to remove toxic PVC and BFRs. It's an interesting post from a consultant who works with both HP and Dell on sustainability. I've posted a response there, seemingly HP PR department still thinks they are leaders on toxics phase out.
Lets just say we see HP far from a leadership position. On Greenmonks partner site, RedMonk there some musings on corporate commitments/goals and how companies can or should be held accountable:
The danger is that if we slam companies too hard for making sustainability commitments they don’t manage to keep then they might avoid putting forward audacious goals at all. The danger is that environmental reporting goes the way of financial reporting - which is all about managing analyst expectations rather than truly reflecting the state of the business. Be conservative about the numbers so you can beat them- that’s the GE Way. But massaging figures to look good has a rather more unpleasant corollary- fraud.We’re already effectively defrauding the planet by not accounting for environmental damage and degradation on our balance sheets. If environmentalism is reduced to a PR-driven quarter over quarter “continuous improvement” then we’re really screwed. Of course we should hold public statements by companies and governments up to scrutiny, but we should rate organisations on what they do than rather than on what they say.
I'd say if we don't hold companies publicly accountable for meeting goals that their competitors have met then companies can fail to deliver the corporate priority required to meet environmental targets. The right level of 'carrot and stick' is crucial in any corporate campaign.
EU Comission agrees with us on IT industry and climate change
It's nice when occasionally big political institutions agree with you. Last week we launched our IT Climate Leadership Challenge, looking for IT leaders to raise their game on tackling climate change. Yesterday the EU Commission followed with a new proposal on IT and its role in tackling climate change:
Today the Commission announced its intention to set out concrete measures that will pave the way for ICT to contribute to energy efficiency gains and emission reductions. It will also call on the ICT sector to lead the way by setting itself concrete targets to become more energy efficient, by collectively agreeing a common approach to measuring energy performance and benchmarking progress.The Commission also announced a new public consultation to establish a common base for commitments to and claims of improved energy efficiency. Only by identifying who does what within the set deadlines, that targets have a real chance of being achieved.
Unfortunately there's no mention in their press release about the need for the IT industry to push for a strong deal at the vital meeting on the Kyoto treaty in Copenhagen in Dec. Maybe that's because the EU is struggling it's self to show climate leadership right now.
What is promising is the fact that the EU Commission is calling on companies to set concrete targets for themselves, we've put numbers on that ask to IT companies:
Measure the company's absolute emissions and commit to cut them by at least 20 percent by 2012.
This EU consultation should also push companies to prioritise carbon reduction solutions they can provide and have done the right homework to prove that those solutions can reduce overall emissions across the economy, much like our ask to the industry:
Prioritise those technologies and product development lines that cut greenhouse emissions across the economy.
So the challenge is out there and not only from us. So which company will be the first to rise to it?
Apple moves closer to eliminating toxics
Regular readers will know we follow Apple news closely because we want them to be an environmental leader in the electronics industry. Apple announced new products this week and took a step closer to meet their goal of removing toxic BFRs and PVC completely. New iMacs and Mac minis are BFR free and PVC free internally.
That seems to just leave Apple to get rid of the PVC in external power cords, a move which industry insiders tell us is coming soon. Infinite loop has a good analysis of the latest moves from Apple here:
"We have spent a tremendous amount of time and engineering effort and money in coming up with these kinds of solutions ahead of the rest of the industry," (David Moody, Apple VP of marketing).
On toxic chemicals elimination they are leading the industry, now it's time for Dell, HP, Lenovo and co to match Apple's effort and money they have put it to this since May 2007.
Illegal e-waste export to Nigeria tracked down
Today we've been able to expose an illegal export of e-waste from the UK to Nigeria. Get the full details here or watch the slideshow below but here's the behind the scenes story of the expose and the tracking technology that made it possible. This is how new tech tracked the dumping of old tech.
To highlight environmental crime we've been using tracking techniques for a long time, such as ultraviolet light to track illegal logs from the Amazon, inside info from satellites to track toxic ships but finding out how tonnes of e-waste finds it's way to places like China, India, Pakistan and Ghana has been especially challenging.
Firstly it's a shady business often operating on the boundary of legality. Then there's the technical challenge. E-waste often passes through several locations before being loaded into shipping containers where it often sits for weeks before being loaded onto container ships for export. Once the containers arrive in ports in places such as China, India, Pakistan, Ghana or Nigeria they often are stored for weeks amongst thousand of other containers before being unloaded.
To follow an e-waste shipment we had to solve several problems. As e-waste might take months to reach its destination the tracking device needs to be able to have a very long battery life. It needs to be able to transmit a signal while buried under other waste in a shipping container and be traceable to its final destination.
Following the e-waste trail - a Greenpeace investigation
Greenpeace investigates allegations of illegal e-waste dumping from Europe to developing countries. This is the story of how one very broken TV managed to avoid being tested and recycled according to EU regulations and instead ended up in Nigeria as "second hand goods". View the story
Greenpeace and Green Gadgets at CES 2009 – Day Three, Part 2
Our merry band of canvassers hit the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2009 to encourage attendees to think Green when they think Gadget. We wanted to promote the new consumer guide Green Electronics -The Search Continues.
Here are the same five magic questions we asked each person:
1. What does a green electronic mean to you?
2. How much responsibility do companies have to produce green electronics?
3. How important do you think it is for companies to eliminate toxic chemicals for their electronics?
4. How far to you think you should have to travel to recycle your electronics?
5. If available, would you purchase environmentally friendly electronics?
We got lots of very interesting responses. Here are a couple of the best we thought you might like to check out.
Conversation 1 - Attendee/Smart Guy:
Conversation 2 - HP Booth Worker:
Greenpeace and Green Gadgets at CES 2009 – Day Three
You'll recall that we were having trouble finding the Greener Gadgets Tech Zone after 2 days of searching. Well, our intrepid team managed to find it. Our collective reaction: "meh". Martin Hojsik, Toxics Campaigner, summed it up saying that it's small and there's little that was breakthrough technology. The team has some praise for the solar powered chargers and for the new greener TVs that use the same amount of power as a light bulb. Watch the video below with Kian and his solar powered cell phone/PDA charger for a futuristic product. We'd like to see more products that are not only green, but faster and more innovative. It was so cool that a CES attendee left his iPhone with Kian's crew to charge it while he explored the convention floor!
GreenPeace and Green Gadgets at CES 2009 – Press Conference
There were over 100 journalists, bloggers and other interested parties at Greenpeace's Green Electronics - The Search Continues press conference yesterday. Press included BBC, Newsweek, Businessweek, Discovery Channel and more. Some people even came over an hour early! It was standing room only and a lot of folks told us they'd heard about the press conference over @Greenpeace_Intl's Twitter, where it was retweeted several times. Here's Casey Harrell, Toxics Campaigner for GPI and lead presenter, talking about his impressions of the press conference. Above you can find Casey's powerpoint slides.
GreenPeace and Green Gadgets at CES 2009 – Day Three
Here's more about our adventures from our intrepid team of canvassers here at CES 2009. Overall, the response to Greenpeace's rap about greener electronics has been well-received by conference attendees who seem electrified and glad that we're here. The BBC released an article "Tech Fair Offers Greener Vision" on Wednesday that says: "In the near future, the 'greenness' of a gadget will have a big influence on whether consumers will buy it".
Check it out our on-the-ground reports just in:
Brenna: I think our presence here at the CES is a welcome and necessary surprise. The people I have interacted with have been responsive and seemingly excited to have us here which is great! I can't wait for the press conference and the days ahead.
Lisa: I've been having mixed feelings about all of the "green" initiatives we've seen so far here in Vegas. While there's a huge amount of buzz and it's great people are paying attention to these problems, among the industry there seems to be more hype than solid action. One of our goals here that I feel we're making good headway on is helping folks separate green "fact" from "fiction". Getting people more informed about our new report will help a lot of people who want to go "green" but don't know how to cut through the spin.
Scotty: I'm having a great time on my first Greenpeace action here in Vegas! Today felt like a big success, just letting people know about our press conference and about our presence. The majority of the people seemed stoked to see us there, which was a very nice feeling! The great part about this in particular is that we can also work WITH companies, praising them when they do a good things and pushing them to make sure they follow through. Yay for good cop! Don't worry, we're having fun, too: tonight, we're going to see The Thunder from Down Under. More on that later.
Jay: Finding any signs of awareness about toxic contamination at the Las Vegas showcase of consumer electronics is like getting dealt a strait flush on the first hand – very long odds. Industry insiders representing companies of all sizes are here displaying the newest and hottest they have to offer, but the chances of finding one promoting low toxicity, take-back programs or even the energy efficiency of their products is about the same as drawing a fourth ace at the stud poker tables. Good luck. Very few of the exhibitors have made any attempts at branding that includes environmental responsibility. That is why I believe so strongly that being here with the Greenpeace toxics campaign team is essential to driving accountability in this industry. We're here to let the big boys know that we are watching their efforts closely and expect nothing less than fully meeting the commitments they've made to reducing toxicity (and the dangers and costs of recycling), energy demands during a product's lifetime and the carbon impact of making these products in the first place. Luck ain't enough here in Vegas, we need action!
Donniell: Overall, great response. Actually the best response coming from the international press eager to attend a Greenpeace press conference, let alone anything involving green electronics and/or technology. My favorite interaction was with a French man who literally stated, "but of course, I adore Greenpeace." I may have giggled and proceeded to engage with a professional Greenpeace demeanor. The day was smooth and gratifying. The result of our efforts will be realized tomorrow at 10am. Here's hoping!
CES 2009: Where is the Greener Gadgets Tech Zone?
Our team from Greenpeace have looked high and low for two days in vain to find the much-touted "Greener Gadgets Tech Zone" at CES 2009. We heard from the Discovery Channel video crew the same story - searching for an hour and a half with no luck. Above, this is a typical response from an info booth worker.
It's no dis to this young lady. She was perfectly nice if uninformed like all the other info workers. The info on the website and in the CES guide and on the maps have all been incorrect. Last night at a party, I managed to find a friend who'd actually seen the elusive zone who says it's neither in the South Hall nor the North Hall but the Central Hall. I can't even begin to explain to you how huge these "halls" are, btw.
I asked @philsfeed, ultra-cool blogger for Intel, what he thought of it. He said there's some cool stuff over there. But "it's no rainforest. It's more like one of those tiny green spaces you see between two off-ramps on the highway." I've gotten the name of someone who might be able to help. We'll keep you posted.
We're off to our big press conference to promote the new consumer survey "Green gadgets - The search continues". Wish us luck!
Greenpeace and Green Gadgets at CES 2009 – Day Two
Today Martin Hojsik, GPI Toxics Campaigner, and I sat in on the "Going Green: More Than a Label" which featured execs from big companies like Panasonic, Sharp and HP. A smaller, younger company was also on the panel -- Greenzer, which is a site that helps consumers find and rate green electronics. Kind of like a Green C-Net! Jeremy Arditi of Greenzer (@jarditi) gave Greenpeace's reviews of electronics a shoutout from the dais, not knowing we were there. I had a chance to interview him about how Greenzer is using Greenpeace's consumer product survey along with data from ClimateSmart, EPA and others to provide a database-backed solution to help people buy green more easily. He was pumped when I told him we'd just released the latest 2009 "Green Gadgets - The Search Continues" today!
Greenzer.com is up to 300K unique visitors a month and growing so they must be on to something. 98% of consumers (according to HP during the panel) say they want a greener TV. Do you?
Why greener gadgets matter
When you're buying a new electronics products there's lots to consider, a few years ago there was practically zero information if you wanted to make an environmentally sounder choice. The huge problems caused by the dumping of old electronics in places like Ghana was only just starting to be recognised. Fast forward to 2009 and there's a plethora of competing claims made by companies and much more awareness that simply dumping your old gear is a bad idea.
Clearly there's now demand for greener gadgets, a fact confirmed by recent research from the US Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) on demand for green products. Tellingly the BBC highlights that
"More than 38% of those interviewed by the CEA said they were confused by green product claims and 58% wanted to know the specific attributes that prompted hi-tech firms to label their products green. Many, said Mr Koening, were also very sceptical about the claims many manufacturer's made for their products."
Now that's exactly were our new Greener Products Survey released today comes in. Back in March 2008 we released our first survey of the greenest electronics products on the market on the basis of toxic chemicals use, recycling and durability and energy efficiency. The first results were distinctly under whelming with most products not even getting more than 5/10.
Almost a year later here are the top products in summary:
The Lenovo L2440x wide computer monitor scored highest with 6.9/10 and is far ahead of the competition in the monitor category.
Sharp LC-52GX5 television (5.92)
Samsung F268 mobile phone (5.45)
Nokia 6210 Smart phone (5.2)
Toshiba Portege R600 Notebook 5.57
Lenovo ThinkCentre M58 Desktop (5.88)
Greenpeace and Green Gadgets at CES 2009 – Day One
GP US Media Officer Daniel Kessler reports in the video above from the floor of CES 2009 – check it out. There's a lot of early buzz here at CES about green gadgets. There's even an expanded Greener Gadget Tech Zone on the exhibition floor for 2009. It seems "green is the new black" this year. Lots of people are already asking the question: how green is green? What do manufacturers mean by green? Slashdot says: Green Is In At CES, But Is It Real? CNET wonders if the 'Green' tag should be banished. We're here to ask the tough questions. It's not just about packaging – that's the tip of the iceberg. Exponentially more dangerous for our environment and ourselves are:
- Take back and recycling – how easy and global are electronic manufacturers' programs for recycling old products?
- Toxics elimination – how many gross, poisonous, nasty chemicals were used to make the product? Those toxins like mercury, phthaltates and PVCs end up in our water, our soil and in our kids' bodies. This is especially a problem in places like Ghana, Pakistan and China.
- Energy efficiency – U.S. game consoles alone use as much energy as the city of San Diego. The carbon footprint of all the electronics in the world equals that of aviation. How are companies helping to fight climate change with greener, more innovative products?
These are the questions we'll be answering over the next few days while our scrappy band is here at CES. Follow our adventures here on the blog and on twitter: @Greenpeace_Intl. Tweet us back, retweet – tell your friends and let us know what's up.
The bottom line is that clean, green technology exists. Which gadget makers are truly green and which are greenwashing – we'll find out. We're on the hunt. On Friday, we'll also be releasing the 2009 product survey "Green Electronics: the search continues", a consumer guide to the greenest, most guilt-free products out there. Learn more here. Stay tuned!
What no greener Apple product line?
Several people in the Greenpeace office follow every Apple keynote like millions of other devoted Mac fans. Today a few extra of us were tuning in, expecting an annoucement that Apple had eliminated the worst toxic chemicals across their entire product range. Steve Jobs made this promise to eliminate toxic PVC and BFRs by the end of 2008 back in May 2007. In October last year he updated this and progress seemed good:
Last year we announced the unprecedented goal of eliminating polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from Apple products by the end of 2008. I’m proud to report that all of Apple’s new product designs are on track to meet our 2008 year-end goal. Steve Jobs, October 2008
However the only new product Apple announced today was a new MacBook Pro with reduced amounts of PVC and BFRs. Good, but not what Apple had promised for 2009 and no substantial further progress than MacBooks announced in October.
Maybe there's going to be a new annoucement coming from Apple soon, but so far nothing new on the Apple site. For now we are keeping the praise on hold...........
Steve Jobs greener Apple update
Yesterday we were listening closely to Apple's announcement of their new MacBook line up - Steve definitely put a lot of emphasis on the green elements of the new MacBooks - reduced toxics, more energy efficient, less packaging. All good news, but in our campaign for greener electronics we were looking for the new MacBooks to be the first computers completely free of toxic PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs).
A check of the full specs revealed the MacBook Pro, MacBook and MacBook Air - as well as the LED Cinema Display will now have internal cables free of PVC and will have internal components containing no BFRs. Not quite the breakthrough we were hoping for. These new MacBooks are currently on a similar level of toxics reduction to the Sony Viao laptop series on PVC, and the Lenovo Think Vision in monitors. The BFR free internal components represent an improvement from the bar set by the Vaio line.
However while most including us were examining the specs of the new MacBooks, Steve released a long awaited (but much less hyped) update to his May 07 Greener Apple statement made in response to our successful GreenmyApple campaign. It makes very interesting reading, here are the highlights:
Sony Ericsson recycled, Dell greenwash and Obama support?
Last week saw a good announcement, a slippery quote and even a nice Obama quote related to greener electronics.
Sony Ericsson announced a new global recycling scheme for mobile phones and a commitment to make sure every single phone is responsibly recycled. This is a key ask we've been making to all the biggest electronic companies in our Guide to Greener Electronics and will help bring Sony Ericsson's score closer to the current leader, Nokia, in the next edition.
Sony Ericsson also talked up a green concept phone – all sounds nice, just like Nokia's Remade phone, but both remain just concepts right now. With mobile sales continuing to skyrocket there's an urgent need to reduce their environmental impact now.
Meanwhile Dell's head honcho was in London and facing a few questions about how he can claim Dell is well on the way to being greenest technology company on the planet when Dell only gets 4.6 in our Guide? As the FT noticed he just avoided the question, and IT Pro even quotes Michael accusing other brands of greenwash:
“…What a number of firms have done in Japan is they’ve introduced one model that has a very, very green footprint and it might be something that is one per cent of their sales. That’s a nice thing to do as a test but doesn’t really change the equation in terms of the volumes. Greenwashing is what it’s usually called.”
Maybe he's miffed that Dell currently ranks behind competitors like Sony and Fujitsu Siemens in our Guide!
Less toxic iPods rock
Yesterday Steve Jobs announced Apple new iPod line up. Here’s the bit that really got our attention about the new models:
• Arsenic-free glass
• Brominated flame retardant-free
• Mercury-free
• PVC-free
It’s great to see Apple dropping toxic chemicals like PVC, BFRs and mercury in their latest products and a victory for everyone who supported our Green my Apple campaign. In May 2007 Steve Jobs stated that Apple would improve its environmental record by removing toxic chemicals by the end of 2008 and boosting recycling by 2010.
While these iPods may rock what would really shake up the computer industry is if Apple sticks to its promise and becomes the first company to make personal computers free of toxic PVC and BFR’s. That would be truly groundbreaking announcement.
Regressive TV brand lobbying coalition killed off by Greenpeace ranking guide
It's common practice for big companies to use trade associations and coalitions (with innocent or even nice sounding names) to do lobbying for their vested interests over the public good. That way they can appear to keep their hands clean of any dodgy tactics.
We come across these lobby groups all the time. We've exposed the role of the car industry lobby in Europe recently but it's not often that we see them disappear due to our work. That's what happened last week with the demise of the US based "Electronic Manufacturers Coalition for Responsible Recycling".
Companies "for Responsible Recycling", now that sounds good doesn't it? In fact it really lobbied for the pubic to bear the cost of recycling so that could avoid responsibility for recycling their own old products. TV companies in particular often don't want to have to recycle their old TV's that are filled with toxic chemicals.
We first encountered it after the first version of our Guide to Greener Electronics was released in August 06. The US Computer Take Back Campaign tipped us off that many TV companies featured in the Guide were in the coalition that was actively lobbying in many US states against progressive e-waste recycling bills.
The eternal promiser
Michael Dell has no doubt about the aspirations he sets for his company. Make Dell #1 - not only in sales, but also environment. Roughly a year ago, he announced that Dell wants to become the greenest technology company.
The company is committed to phasing out hazardous chemicals like BFRs and PVC in all their products by 2009. But it had not yet done so. Not a single Dell computer is PVC or BFR-free. Dell also claim to provide an almost global take back service for all their products.
An examination of dumpsites in Ghana reveals lots of Dell branded e-waste. It is time for the company to make more effort to get their products back so they do not end up being dumped.
We can't wait to find out who will be #1 in v.9 of Guide to Greener Electronics in September.
The Persister
No one expected that Steve Balmer is going to have an easy job. Well, everybody talks about how hard it will be for him with Vista not beeing as good and Explorer just catching up on Firefox, Apple getting more popular. The challenges are numerous. And environment is one of them.
Because (suprise suprise to some non-gamers) Microsoft does not only produce software but also hardware. Mouses, keyboards, Zune, XBox and the list is growing. This hardware still contains hazardous chemicals like brominated flame retardants and PVC. And can be seen on the dumpsites, like the one in Accra, Ghana.
So Steve has to rise up to this challenge and clean up Microsoft's act. Ensure that it's products are free of hazardous chemicals and take responsibility for the end of life. This means collection and responsible recycling so they do not end up beeing exported as waste to countries like Ghana. So Steve, do we want to see more action!
The Guru
Hi there, my name is Will Morris-Julien and I'm a comic artist based in the far west of Wales over here in the UK. Over the last two weeks I have been working with the Greenpeace International Toxic's team on a series of comic strips to highlight the e-waste dumps in Ghana. In our research for the project we listened to the main men in the business talking about how wonderfully green their companies are. They obviously thought of themselves as higher beings. Men, with a message they all thought we should hear. We were so impressed with what they had to say that we thought we'd give them a hand and do a comic called ' The New Heroes of Green?'
I hope that you enjoy the comics. I'll be posting all three over the next three days.
Here's number one Steve 'The Guru' Jobs talking about how wonderful Apple is...
Apple posts iPhone 3G 'Environmental Status Report'
Last week we called out Apple on the lack of any environmental info on the new iPhone 3G. Pre-launch publicity and specs for the new MacBook Air and iMac included info on how Apple was making progress on eliminating the worst toxic chemicals by the end of 2008. There was none of this for the iPhone, but last night we noticed a late addition to the iPhone tech specs:
iPhone 3G embodies Apple's continuing environmental progress. It is designed with the following features to reduce environmental impact:
- PVC-free handset
- PVC-free headphones
- PVC-free USB cable
- Bromine-free printed circuit boards
- Mercury-free LCD display
- Majority of packaging made from post-consumer recycled fiberboard and biobased materials
- Power adapter outperforms strictest global energy efficiency standards
So how does this compare to what we found when we tested the first iPhone, how does it measure up against other phones from competitors and what does Apple have to do to meet it's commitment to stop using toxic PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants?
Philips takes baby steps on recycling
We've been pressuring the consumer electronics company Philips to improve its regressive position on recycling recently. Yesterday they got back to us with a few tiny improvements.
Philips stands out as the only major company that says that recycling is the responsibility of the public and governments. Philips gets zero on all e-waste criteria in our Guide to Greener Electronics and gets a penalty point on top of that for double standards. Philips current position is what has helped create the huge volumes of toxic e-waste dumped in developing countries.
Clearly the electronics companies need to change. Some like Dell are taking action by launching free global takeback schemes to encourage recycling. Until now Philips has not only been sticking to its regressive policy while competitors change but also been lobbying in the US and Europe to ensure it does not have to take any individual responsibility for the products they sell at the end of life.
After our last action at the Philips HQ in Amsterdam they promised us to improve their policy. Now they have responded.
A new green iPhone by the end of 2008?
With the familiar hype, the latest "revolutionary" iPhone 3G is released by Apple this Friday. In all the promises of faster, better, cheaper, there's not a peep about it being any greener than the first iPhone.
Well there is a rumour that the iPhone will be partly packaged in potato starch trays instead of plastic. Aside from that rather dull, and un-revolutionary (Motorola already uses them) potato titbit there's no info yet on how green the actual phone will be. The first generation iPhone contained toxic chemicals that competitors like Nokia and Sony Ericsson have already removed from their new phones.
Update 15 July: Apple posts iPhone 3G 'Environmental Status Report'
Philips - Simply take-back & recycle
This was the sight that greeted Philips shareholders at the company's AGM in Amsterdam. Philips is one of the few big electronics makers who don't want to take responsibility for their own e-waste. That's the main reason Philips is almost bottom of our Guide to Greener Electronics.
Philips is definitely the most vocal company in lobbying that customers should pay a fee to recycle e-waste. More progressive companies like Dell will recycle your old e-waste for free, ensuring more old electronics are recycled and saving resources at the same time. We want Philips to match other companies' global recycling schemes that are vital to stem the rising tide of toxic e-waste being dumped in Asia.
A Philips spokesperson responded in the Dutch press that Philips is talking with governments and consumer groups about who's responsible for recycling. As Martin, our campaigner, paraphrased - yes, Philips is talking to governments asking them to make the consumer pay for recycling!
However at the AGM the Philips chairman did claim he wanted to lift the company off the bottom of the Guide, so lets see what happens....
''Striking fear into the IT industry''
This quote from The Register caused much amusement in our little corner of the Greenpeace office yesterday, with an amusing description of our colleagues at CeBIT IT show:
Greenpeace weighed in to the debate. From the inside. In recent years the environmental organisation has pitched up at the gates of the show, pitching piles of IT scrap onto the floor to shame attendees into rethinking their attitude to the environment. This time they were on the inside, staging a press conference to highlight their report into how green a sample of PCs, phone, and PDAs were. The panel would have struck fear into the hearts of the IT industry jockeys who sneaked in. Young, committed, multi-ethnic. The sort of people who would have once been haranguing one another in the student union, while the geeks were playing /Dungeons and Dragons/ in their bedrooms.
As well as some gentle ribbing of our 'young, committed and multi-ethic' colleagues we also had to explain to Zeina what Dungeons and Dragons was.
As usual from The Register the rest of the article is a good read, on how the IT industry is seemingly lacking a cohesive plan to tackle it's carbon emissions. Our upcoming energy criteria for the Guide to Greener Electronics should help them there!
Nintendo stuck on start
Back in November we added Nintendo to our Green Guide to Electronics. Despite several requests for information Nintendo provided none and was the first brand to score 0. The next edition of the guide is released today and Nintendo only gets 0.3 due to an indication that it does have a chemicals management policy.
We covered the reasons why Nintendo got zero last time around. Since then we have not received any response from Nintendo aside from one person from its UK PR department. Nintendo has been sending out a pretty lame response to emails on the subject, which tells you mainly about office recycling.
Nintendo has added to its one meager FAQ on the environment some information on product recycling. There is now one phone number for US customers where eventually an operator refers you to the EPA for recycling options. That doesn't compare very well to other electronics makers. Sony for example offers much better recycling services.
Nintendo remains the odd one out of the 18 companies in the Guide, without any public time lines to eliminate the worst toxic chemicals or a global recycling policy for the millions of products it sells every year. If Nintendo has better policies why not make them public like the other 17 companies in the Guide?
You can keep up the pressure on Nintendo to improve by writing to them.
New energy criteria for Greener Electronics Guide
Today we've published our latest quarterly ranking of the leading electronics companies environmental policies and practice. Often this generates a lot of online discussion so this time around we've added an in depth question and answer section to cover questions like why we only rank on public information, how we ensure companies are doing what they claim, why we don't suggest alternatives and many more.
Many of the companies are rising to the challenge on the existing chemicals and e-waste criteria - in the next edition these will become more stringent, and new criteria will be added on other chemicals and the use of recycled plastic. The biggest change will be the addition of criteria on climate and energy. Electronics products are very energy intensive to produce and the rapidly increasing amounts of home electronics are driving up electricity usage in many countries. Data centres that run Internet services use huge amounts of electricity. Many electronics companies are now making many claims about their energy saving products. But how do the companies claims, policies and practice on energy and response to global warming compare?
In the next edition of the guide we will be scoring the companies against the new criteria. All companies now have these new criteria and have several months to respond. We have published them in advance to be transparent about how the companies will be assessed.
Cebit: What do people think about “Green IT”?
It’s Sunday, day six and last day of Cebit, world’s biggest IT fair. And we still didn’t find really green electronics.
As we also wanted to know what the Cebit visitors think of “Green IT” and what they expect from the industry, we asked some and have it on video. Our campaigner Zeina also summarizes the Greenpeace position on green electronics.
Personally, at the end of Cebit 2008, I have to say that Cebit didn’t keep its much-advertised “Green IT” promise, but at least “green” aspects seem to raise on the agenda of the IT industry. We at Greenpeace will keep the pressure on the industry to make those promises into action. The industry has to take responsibility and develop solutions.
Cebit: How green is the Green PC?
German IT magazine Chip has been honouring some products and services with its Chip award at Cebit. One of their awards is a “green” one. It went to a Fujitsu Siemens Desktop PC called “Green PC”. Fujitsu Siemens states that it consumes 27 percent less power than its conventional counterpart and includes a “green mainboard” without halogens, cadmium or mercury. But: It’s still not 100 percent free of toxic chemicals.
In contrast to many desktop computer models in our survey “searching on greener electronics” at least it’s a computer which is greener than others and yet doesn’t cost much more than not-so-green models.
We sent our video activists Omer and Giona to Fujitsu Siemens’ exhibition at Cebit to get some more information. Watch the video to see their interview with a Fujitsu Siemens spokesperson.
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Cebit: Ice cream for the Greenpeace women
It’s Saturday – weekend – and we see much more people coming to Cebit and our booth today and expect even more tomorrow, as many end consumers attend Cebit at weekends. The train to the fairground this morning was overcrowded – actually mainly with young male population, although today is International Women’s Day and women may attend Cebit for free – our volunteer and gentleman Rembert from Hamburg local group even treated the women in our team to an ice-cream …
So, women! Please come to our booth in hall 19 and inform yourself about Greener Electronics. And men as well, please.
Cebit: “IT greens” versus “Green IT”
Our toxics campaigner Yannick Vicaire wrote up his view on the “Green IT” at Cebit. Read what he says about the tactics of IT managers not to take on responsibility.
It’s understood, “Green IT” in Cebit is all about energy efficiency, an easy first step to take for this industry that kept ignoring the issue for decades. Yet, looking at those brilliant “bla” quotes below shows that even this effort is not taken so willingly by the IT industry.
“ICT covers two percent of the global energy consumption. We can work to halve it to 1%, but the priority is to work to decrease the remaining 98 percent,” said Francesco Serafini, vice-president of Hewlett Packard in the EMEA region.“The real challenge is to address heavy energy consumers. ICT can help. It is indeed a typical anti-inflationary industry that with time gives you more for less. But the real problem is to cut heavy consumption,” argued Intel chairman Craig Barrett.
Let me translate: “don’t pick on us cos’ we can save the world”, they claim. I’d like to challenge this here.
Green Cooking @ CeBIT
Day 4 here at CeBIT in Hannover, and despite the excellent work and camaraderie of our international crew here in Germany, I am definitely missing my home of Oakland in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides the great weather (hey, it’s going to be 64F/18C today!), I also have to admit I miss the fine vegetarian food of California. Let’s just say that CeBIT is a bit lacking in the available vegan goodies, unless I want to start crunching on the new bamboo covered laptop from Acer.
Not THAT hungry. Yet.
My rumbling stomach has made me start thinking about all things through a culinary lens, and I figured that this would be a good theme for today’s post. As you’ll see in the video below, my colleague Omer visited various exhibits in search of the newest eco-friendly laptops.
There’s still no clear winner, which is consistent with the report we released earlier this week, ranking company’s greenest products to date.
No one product excelled in all areas. It appears that when certain electronics focused on improved energy efficiency, they lagged behind in the elimination of toxic chemicals such as PVC and Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs). Similarly, products that excelled in designing out these toxic chemicals didn’t possess good policies on product lifecycle – a product’s warranty, upgradeability and recyclability. Ho hum.....
Gold-rush at Cebit
My colleagues Omer and Giona strolled a little bit around at Cebit. They visited the famous Green IT Village, had a look at the brand-new and much-hyped Lenovo X300 laptop and the Asus “Ecobook” with parts out of Bamboo – but not yet a true eco-laptop according to a holistic approach. And then they found a very special Apple Macbook Air – gold-coated with 12,000 crystals on the top. Omer got really enthusiastic about that shiny golden computer – although the Macbook Air is still not entirely free from PVC and BFRs. But watch yourself.
Cebit not so green
Over at the official Cebit blog Sascha is wondering about an exhibitors’s huge Humvee car (blog post in german) and whether some companies take “Green IT” really that seriously.
We wondered too. That’s why we – that’s me and our german-language blogger Frida – went to the so-called Green IT village at Cebit in hall 9.
And we have to admit that we are a little bit disappointed. Why?
The whole Cebit should be a Green Village
… claims our Greener Electronics campaigner Zeina Al-Hajj in an interview she gave to the Cebit Channel on Youtube. Please watch it, blog it, spread it.
Vlog from CeBIT: xBox
Hi, this is Casey, reporting Greenpeace's first video blog from CeBIT. Here, I am showcasing the Greenpeace e-waste exhibit and am on the hunt for a comment from Microsoft, whose CEO Steve Ballmer announced on Monday that the company was "going green". Hmmm. Stay tuned for more updates this week from Hannover.
Buy it, Use it, Break it, Junk it, it's Toxic
The work of long nights, just published on Youtube and screened at our booth at Cebit: Our new video on (not yet) Greener Electronics.
“CeBIT talks green, but the industry has some way to go”
That’s the title of our today’s press release. We did a press conference at Cebit this morning, releasing our “Searching for Greener Electronics” survey. Some pictures of the very well-attended conference you’ll find at our photo pool at Flickr. As we started this morning at 6 o’clock and winter (even snow) came back to Hanover we have now first to clear our coffee and personal energy situation and then will head to the “Green IT village” in hall 9 to have a closer look on how seriously companies mean “green IT” and to see what’s rather greenwashing. More on that later.
CeBIT: Booth up, running and online
After a long Monday of setting up our booth at CeBIT – world’s largest computer trade fair –, a lot of press and visitors attended already and discussed with us about Greener Electronics, from news agencies Reuters and AFP, german national TV ZDF and Bavarian Radio to bloggers like Charbax from Techvideoblog.com, who showed us his XO, the “$100 laptop” by the OLPC initiative. We had a very nice discussion on the Pro's and Con’s of OLPC.
Who's the greenest of them all at CeBIT 2008?
Next week is the latest big event in the IT industry calendar – the CeBIT trade fair in Hanover, Germany. Green seems to be the fashionable IT buzzword right now and certainly the Consumer Electronics Show made a big deal about being greener.
But how much of this is just talk and PR puff. Are electronics products really becoming greener? Should claiming to be "green" mean more than just cutting power use? Are companies really addressing short life spans and miniscule recycling rates for their products? Which products contain the least harmful chemicals? Will CeBIT's Green IT village be showcasing real environmental innovations with wide applications?
To discover the answers to some of these and other relevant questions we'll be at CeBIT to cut through the corporate green speak and see which companies and products are on the cutting edge of environmental innovation. Our experts will be investigating the facts behind the hype and highlighting the leaders and showing up any superficial green claims.
Nintendo ranking creates a stir
Last week we published our latest Guide to Greener electronics with new companies added - Microsoft, Sharp, Philips and Nintendo. Nintendo being new and coming our bottom with 0/10 certainly made the biggest splash with many big news sites, tech blogs and gaming websites picking up the story. This made for some amusing headlines on several gaming sites. However there was also criticism from some technology sites (Arstechnica, BoingBoing, Guardian) and several angry emails from the public, mainly focussing on Nintendo getting 0/10.
Here I'll address some of the common points raised in detail, this from BoingBoing and lots of other blogs and several emails:
Answering the call about the iPhone protest that never was
Now anyone who follows technology news knows the Apple rumour phenomenon well. Sometimes they are true, occasionally they have some basis in fact but more often they are completely made up. This week there was a "Greenpeace to protest at iPhone launch" rumour that despite being repeated widely belongs firmly in the 'completely made up' category.
Watching it develop this week was a bit like an amusing version of Chinese whispers online. Last Sunday Zeina gave an interview to the UK newspaper The Sunday Times with this quote about the UK launch:
"The iPhone is a unique product and for us it is a missed opportunity for Apple to combine the innovation of the product with a green performance."
The EETimes then took the same story and headlined it "Greenpeace tries to gatecrash Apple's Euro iPhone party" (nice and attention grabbing headline but in the article nothing about gatecrashing). Next up was MacNN who made it into "Greenpeace to show up at Euro iPhone debut" stating "Greenpeace is planning a rally during Apple's launch of the iPhone in Europe to protest the use of alleged toxic chemicals in the device.." Even Macworld UK reported it.
State of Independence
Greenpeace doesn't take any government or corporate money. Period. It's something we don't always explain clearly enough, and some of our supporters quite reasonably ask us why we don't just take the money - after all, once it's in our hands it's going to a good cause.
Well, here's one reason why. One of the things you can do on our website, right now, is challenge the IT industry to develop a green computer. We have to challenge them, because right now a green computer just doesn't exist.
One of the other things you can do on our website is download a ranking guide which shows Sony Ericsson to be one of the greener manufacturers of hi tech electronics. Now, suppose we took money from Sony Ericsson. All the other companies on the list would cry foul and say we were only being nice to Sony Ericsson because of the money - and a lot of people would believe them.
Or suppose we took money from one of the lower scoring manufacturers, like Panasonic. Suddenly we'd find ourselves in a very difficult position, having to trade off spending the money on (say) saving the Amazon versus campaigning against Panasonic.
So by restricting ourselves to donations from individuals we make sure the only questions we have to ask ourselves when spending money are 'would our supporters approve of this?' and 'will this make a difference to the environment?' It keeps things simple and it lets our supporters have confidence in us.
So, if you feel like joining the 3 million or so individuals around the world who support our work just click here. You'll be in good company.
Bromine industry lets out the attack poodles
A full week after the release of our report on toxic chemicals in the iPhone, a chemical industry group has released a press release attacking our report. The story is doing the rounds on a few big blogs so here’s our response.
iPhone's hazardous chemicals
When we released our iPhone testing results that revealed toxic chemicals in the iPhone, chemicals that other phone makers have removed, we expected the news to travel. Two days after the release there's been loads of coverage, especially online, varying of course from the factually accurate in wired to the predictable ranting, like this on gizmodo.
Dell to go "carbon neutral"
Dell has stepped up the ante in the computer industries competition to show how they are becoming greener by announcing this week plans to become carbon neutral by 2008. It's certainly had the intended effect to generate a good amount of positive media.
Leaving aside the dubious nature of 'carbon neutral' marketing speak and the definitely less than perfect option of carbon offsetting (especially by planting trees) it is good that they are looking to increase the use of renewable energy in their operations and making their products more efficient.
Much ado about nothing: Apple's new iMac
I feel a little bit ashamed but, as I have already said, I can't resist to have a look at the Apple rumours sites when there is a Steve Job's Keynote.
For those who are not Mac fans, it may be useful to know that Apple doesn't stream live the conferences when they launch new products, so all of us good folk meet in chats and in rumours web pages where we crave to read some reports of Steve's speech.
Last Thursday I decided to stay a couple of hours longer in the office and from 7 pm (central Europe time) I was ready to read some news from the Steve's keynote that was taking place in the Apple headquarters.
After 10 minutes MacObserver reported:
"Steve says that recycling has been kept in mind from the ground up. Says iMac is great in this area."
As I understood later he was speaking about the new iMac case and screen: the display is now made with glass, and they replaced the plastic at front side with aluminium (the back side is still in plastic). Ok, it's nice to hear Steve saying something about the environment, but to be honest these updates are not revolutionary at all. So I was quite surprised when the morning after I found out on my RSS reader that so many Mac Blogs were reporting it as a great announcement for the environment.
Room for a Green View?
I'm always very excited when the Apple store goes offline and Apple is presenting its new products but on Tuesday I was even more since I was really curious to see what Apple would have offered after the Greener Apple statement. They disappointed me last May 15th when they updated the MacBook without adding anything relevant for the environment, but I was sure that this time Apple would not have failed to show that they really care to change their environmental policy.
At nearly 14.30 Apple Store went on line, I ran to the Apple site and at the front page I saw the new wonderful MacBook Pro. WOW. Have they launched the first toxic free laptop on the market? Are this new MacBook PVC free or BFRs free? Are they using the mercury free LED display?
Dell vs Apple: Eco-Rumble in the Electronic Jungle
Get the popcorn folks, it's the computer industry's heavyweight championship fight of the century.
Michael Dell led with an uppercut to the chin when he announced Dell's free worldwide recycling policy and challenged the industry to match it. Steve jobs staggered back to the ropes, dazed, then came back with a surprise left when he declared a phase-out of the worst toxic chemicals in the Apple product line (and a deadline to do so sooner than Dell's), along with a new commitment to eco-transparency. Yesterday, Dell shook it off and sucker-punched Jobs when he laid down his plans to become the greenest computer company in the world.
This is the kind of prize fight we love.
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