Posted 12/03/08 at 05:32:15 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Apple is finding it extremely difficult to avoid being in Greenpeace’s cross hairs. Nearly a year ago, Greenpeace branded the iPhone as “toxic”. Now, the organization has flayed Apple’s pompous claim that its Macbook line of notebooks are the greenest there are.

The Macbook range of notebooks scored a highly disappointing 4.3 out of a possible 10 points on the organization’s green index. Greenpeace did laud Apple, though very frugally, for doing away with bromide flame-retardants and other toxic plastics. But it clearly believes that Apple should take more steps to substantiate its towering claims.

Greenpeace has put the ball in Apple’s court by asking it “to commit to phasing out additional substances with timelines, improve its policy on chemicals and its reporting on chemicals management.”

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Posted 11/26/08 at 05:36:50 PM by Andy Salisbury

Straight out of the “yeah, they’re still doing that” file, Greenpeace has released this year’s Guide to Greener Electronics. Since last year there have been plenty of notable changes for the better, but even more for the worse. Nintendo’s score continues to plummet, and Greenpleace’s traditional enemy, Apple, has fallen to 14th.

Nokia comes in at the top spot with some notably high marks in the chemicals department, and sports and overall score of about seven over ten. According to the report, “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 brominated flame retardants and antimony trioxide by the end of 2009. “

Near the bottom of the scorecard is everyone’s favorite software giant, Microsoft, scoring only about three out of the ten possible points. “Microsoft remains in 17th position with an improved score of 2.9 points, which it earns mainly on the toxic chemicals criteria,” states the Report. “The company has committed to removing PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from its hardware products by or before 2010, and phthalates by the end of 2010.”

While there have been some that have spoken of the absurdity of the report, thanks to Greenpeace’s use of manufacturer information instead of conducting their own research, there are some validity to the numbers (as far as we can tell). Feel free to check out the report and draw your own conclusions.

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