Nokia secures top spot in green electronics ranking

Greenpeace has today released its quarterly Guide to Greener Electronics, again awarding top spot to mobile giant Nokia and slamming games console manufacturer Nintendo for its poor environmental record.

Nokia was singled out for praise as a result of its comprehensive plans to phase out toxic components and wide-ranging recycling programme, which features almost 5,000 phone recycling collection points worldwide. However, the lobby group also warned that its recycling rate of three to five per cent is "very poor" and advised the company to provide more information on how it calculates these figures.

The latest version of the long-running report paid particular attention to firms' green marketing claims, awarding points to companies that promise to improve the environmental performance of their products and operations, but docking points for those who fail to deliver on marketing promises.

As a result, HP, Dell and Lenovo all dropped in the rankings for failing to live up to public promises to eliminate polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from their computers by the end of 2009.

It noted that HP formally pushed back its phase-out of the chemicals to 2011, and ruled that Dell will fail to meet its 2009 deadline. It also accused Lenovo of "back-tracking" on its commitment to eliminate BFRs and PVC by the end of 2009.

Apple also dropped to 11th place from ninth, on the grounds that while it had some success in making products completely BFR-free and "virtually free of PVC" , it was still using "unreasonably high threshold limits for BFRs and PVC in products that are allegedly PVC-/BFR-free".

Microsoft also received a dressing down from the green lobby group for its " poor" eWaste policy.

In contrast, Samsung received plaudits for producing PVC-free LCD TVs and lowering the overall amount of toxins in its other products by significant amounts, and Sony Ericsson moved up from fifth place to third for improving its energy efficiency.

Nintendo, however, continued to languish at the bottom of the rankings despite securing extra points for switching to PVC-free internal wiring in its gaming consoles.