[July 06, 2008]

Greenpeace ranks 'greenies' anew: Sony Ericsson tops survey; Nicrosoft and Nintendo scores still down

(The Manila Times Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jul. 7--Swedish cellular phone maker Sony Ericsson tops the 8th edition of Greenpeace "Guide to Greener Electronics," the environmental group said Friday even as other companies who previously scored high in the quarterly survey have seen their ranking plummet. In a press conference in Makati on Thursday, Greenpeace Southeast Asia Toxics Campaigner Beau Baconguis said that aside from Sony Ericsson, Japanese electronics giant Sony also scored high in the latest survey.

"Many companies score well on this ranking but it was Sony Ericsson who tops in most aspect. The company scored top marks especially on toxic chemical phase-out," Baconguis said though she added the company did not perform well in recycling.

Both company got 5.1 in the score card out of the highest possible rating of 10.

Greenpeace said all Sony Ericsson products are Polyvinyl Chloride-free and has met the new chemical criterion in the ranking, having already banned antimony, beryllium and phthalates from models launched starting January this year.

Sony on the other hand is a front-runner in eliminating toxic chemicals and with a 53-percent recycling rate while it has also committed to using renewable energy by as much as 50 percent in 2011. At present the company uses 20 percent of renewable energy to meet its needs.

Baconguis though cautioned the public that the survey is not an endorsement of a certain company adding that Greenpeace just wanted to pressure companies to go cleaner in their production and the public to be aware of what products they are buying.

But she added that the survey was efficient in pushing companies to go green.

But the overall score of the 18 companies ranked in the survey has plummeted as the group tightened the requirements on the disposal of e-waste and toxic chemicals and imposed new criteria for evaluating companies' impact on the global climate change.

The newly added energy criteria, Baconguis said, require companies to show their political support for global mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the post Kyoto political process.

Companies must also commit to absolute reductions in GHG emissions from their own operations.

Baconguis said most companies take a limited view of this by only focusing on the energy efficiency of their products rather than including the production process.

Data showed that Information and Communications Technology sector currently accounts for 2 percent of global GHG emissions.

"As one of the most innovative and fastest growing industries, Greenpeace expects the sector to take leadership in tackling climate change by reducing both their direct and indirect climate carbon footprint," the Greenpeace official stressed.

The survey was the first time that global warming was included in the criteria since Greenpeace came up with the project in August 2006. During its first year, 12 companies participated.

In December 2007, Greenpeace decided to include TV and game console manufacturers.

Based on the survey, many of the participating companies ranked well on energy efficiency as their products even exceed "Energy Star" standards.

Energy Star is a joint United States Environment Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy program setting energy efficiency standards for electrical and electronics products.

Using the said standards as the parameter, the best performer on energy efficiency are Sony Ericsson and Apple, with all of their products models meeting and even exceeding the requirement.

Other companies that made a score in the survey were Nokia with a score of 4.8, Samsung with 4.5, Dell with 4.5, Toshiba, 4.3, Acer, 4.3, Panasonic, 4.3, Motorola, 4.3, HP, 4.3, Apple, 4.1, Sharp, 3.9, Lenovo, 3.9, Philips, 3.7, Fujitsu Siemens, 3.7, LG, 3.3.

Because of their gaming consoles, Microsoft and Nintendo ratings are still down at the bottom with 2.15 and 0.8 respectively.

Baconguis said that while electronics companies pay attention to environmental performance on certain issues, they tend to ignore others that are just as important such as on e-waste and recycling and on the global "take-back-policies.

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