Posted on Tuesday, July 07 2009 @ 15:43 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Greenpeace released its latest quarterly report about how tech companies score on the environmental scale. You can check it out
over here, the best company this quarter was Nokia with a score of 7.45/10.
Nokia stays in 1st place with the same score of 7.45 that it scored in v.11. Nokia scores maximum points for its comprehensive voluntary take-back programme, which spans
84 countries providing almost 5000 collection points for end-of-life mobile phones. It now also scores top marks for the information it provides to customers on what to
do with their discarded products. However, its recycling rate of 3-5% is very poor and more information is needed on how Nokia calculates these figures. It also needs to
start using recycled plastics beyond just packaging.
Nokia scores very well on toxic chemical issues, launching new models free of PVC since the end of 2005 and aiming to have all new models free of all brominated and
chlorinated compounds and antimony trioxide from the start of 2010.
Nokia’s score on energy remains the same. It scores full marks for committing to reduce absolute CO2 emissions by a minimum of 10% in 2009 and 18% in 2010, from
a baseline year of 2006. It provides a third party verification certificate for its disclosed CO2 emissions. Its score is boosted by sourcing 25% of its total energy needs from
renewable sources in 2007 and by having a target to increase use of renewable energy to 50% by 2010. Top marks (doubled) are given for product energy efficiency as
all but one of its mobile phone chargers exceed the Energy Star requirements by 30-90%.
The worst offender, according to Greenpeace, is Nintendo:
Nintendo remains in last place but with an increased score of 1 out of 10, up from 0.8 points in v.11, for putting on the market games consoles whose internal wiring is
PVC-free. The company has banned phthalates and is monitoring use of antimony and beryllium and although it is endeavouring to eliminate the use of PVC, it has not set
a timeline for its phase out.
It continues to score zero on all e-waste criteria.
On energy, Nintendo loses a point due to a second year of increases in greenhouse gas emissions, despite a commitment to cut CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases
by 2% over each previous year. Emissions in 2007 increased by 1.5% compared to 2006, following a rise of 6% in 2006. Nintendo retains a point on energy for disclosing
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from its own operations.
