CES 2011: Greenpeace Green Electronics Campaign

Posted 01/06/2011 at 6:27pm | by William O'Neal

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Greenpeace takes to CES to implore companies to manufacture greener electronics.

While CES attendees clamored to check out the latest in cosumer electronics, Greenpeace was on hand to share their third Green Electronics Survey. Simply put, the survey grades consumer electronic companies according to four criteria: use of hazardous chemical substances, power consumption, product lifecycle, and innovation and marketing and issues awards in a series of categories. The winners were the HP Compaq 6005 Pro Ultra-Slim desktop computer, Asus UL30A notebook, the Acer TM8172 netbook, the Asus VM-247H-HF monitor, the Samsung GT-S7550 (Blur Earth) mobile phone, the Sharp LC-52SE1 television and the Sony Ericcson Aspen smartphone.

In addition to awarding companies for their green efforts, Greenpeace also uses CES to champion other causes related to consumer electronics. High on Greenpeace's list of priorities is getting consumer electronics companies to stop using two hazardous chemicals in electronics manufacturing, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFR). To this end their studies show that each year more companies stop using these chemicals.

Going forward, Greenpeace wants global, free and convenient e-waste programs as well as a complete ban on e-waste exports. According to Greenpeace, 40 billion tons of e-waste are produced every year and Greenpeace hopes to increase take-back programs where manufacturers take back used electronics free of charge to consumers. As it stands Dell and Nokia have the most extensive take-back programs.

For the survey, Greenpeace invited 20 companies to participate and 18 chose to participate. Apple and Philips declined to participate. Furthermore, they've recently added gaming consoles to the survey as well.

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