While electronics companies around the world have been working hard to assure buyers that they’ve gone green, Apple has had an especially difficult time convincing consumers of their eco-friendly actions. They’ve been called out by Greenpeace, ranked low on a few green company lists, and been critiqued by Dell for their campaign touting that they had the “greenest family of notebooks”. But the new portion of their site addressing environmental concerns could finally prove that there’s more green to Apple than just that familiar fruit logo.

Called Apple and the Environment, the site could well be one of the most open and consumer-friendly eco-focused sites in the electronics industry, and it may do more than just earn Apple consumer approval; it could set a standard for other companies, too.

On the site, Apple analyzes their environmental impact from a new approach, fully recognizing the lifecycle impacts of their products instead of just the effects of manufacturing, transportation and disposal (as many electronics companies have done). Ultimately, it states that its greenhouse gas emissions break down likes this: 38% from manufacturing, 5% from transportation, 53% from product use, 1% from recycling, and 3% from facilities. Factoring in the product use greenhouse gas emissions brings their overall emissions higher, but gives a much more accurate understanding of the effects of each product. Click here to read more

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Following in the footsteps of nonprofit organizations like Greenpeace, Newsweek took on 500 of the biggest companies in the US last week to rank the greenest businesses (and those farthest from it). The list, called Newsweek’s Green Rankings, was published both in a special 12-page section of the print magazine and online, and assessed the 500 largest publicly-traded corporations.

Hewlett-Packard secured top spot for their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions—even in its supply chain, a first for IT companies—and for their efforts to remove toxic substances from their products. The newly number one company has taken heat from Greenpeace lately, however, for their failure to follow on green promises. The ability for HP to rank first when it much of its green action is talk highlights a common concern some environmentalists have raised about Newsweek’s Green Rankings; namely that the division of scoring across three categories (Environmental Impact, Green Policies and Performance, and Reputation) leaves room for businesses with big green intentions to beat out businesses with smaller—but more concrete—green actions.

Dell found its way into the number two spot, thanks in large part to their major use of renewable energy and the (much debated) carbon neutrality they achieved last year. HP and Dell weren’t the only two tech companies to receive high marks, however; half of the top ten highest ranking companies were tech companies and, likewise, half of the top 20, and those findings have also resulted in some doubts on the Green Rankings from environmentalists. The concern being that comparing tech companies to other corporations is unfair because of the very significant differences in operation, but Newsweek has stated that they not only took into account the difficulties of comparing companies in various sectors, but that the issue was the hardest they wrestled with and where they devoted most of their time. Click here to read more

Powered by Bookmarkify™

If you’re a regular Greenzer visitor, you know by now that we made the list of Time magazine’s Green Design 100 (you can find us in the Websites category) and that we’re rather excited about it, but we thought we’d take a moment to give you a very brief overview of some of the other names on the list (you can check out the full list on the Time site or in the Time issue on newsstands now).

Under the Pioneers category we were happy to see David de Rothschild, who was recently featured on the Greenzer blog for his upcoming Plastiki Expedition from San Francisco to Sydney on a boat made of 100% recycled materials (mostly in the form of two-liter plastic bottles), and who’s been raising environmental awareness all around the world.

Nike securing a spot in the Companies category may have some surprised (few have forgotten the issues the company had with child labor), but they’ve been steadily greening for awhile now and made our blog repeatedly for their eco-friendly products like jackets made from recycled polyester, organic cotton tees, and athletic shoes made with recycled materials. Their Reuse-A-Shoe program has even helped create public basketball courts and athletic tracks worldwide. Click here to read more

Powered by Bookmarkify™

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ranked the top annual green power purchases of leading organizations within the United States and the list of top purchasers features both the expected and the unexpected.

To meet EPA purchasing requirements (and for ranking in the list), organizations could use any combination of renewable energy certificates, on-site generation, and utility green power products, with purchase figures based on annualized partner contract amounts instead of calendar year totals. For each organization, the EPA also lists  the green power percentage of total electricity use, the providers, and which resources were used.

Topping the list with 1,301,200,000 kilowatt hours (kWh), is the Intel Corporation, a company who’s been making headlines recently for their goal of going green and for environmentally-focused innovations, like the Nehalem processor. A little under half of Intel’s total electricity use comes from green power in the form of wind energy. The number two contender may come as a shock to many; PepsiCo purchased 1,144,773,154  kWh and 100% of their total electricity use came from green power (in various forms). Despite sometimes being the cause of environmental concern, PepsiCo seems to be moving toward making their products and operations more eco-conscious—hopefully in ways that aren’t simply greenwashing—even testing greener vending machines in the Washington, D.C. area for rollout nationwide in the next few years.  Rounding out the Top 5 of the National Top 50 Green Power Purchasers are Kohl’s Department Stores, Dell Inc., and Whole Foods Market. Click here to read more

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Apple’s new ads for the world’s “greenest family of notebooks” had all the appeal that comes with a Mac ad–minimalism, background music and a sleek, shiny electronic item. But not everyone was buying it.

On December 19, 2008, Bob Pearson (Vice President of Communities and Conversations at Dell) posted an entry on the Direct2Dell blog titled “The Real Meaning of Being Green” and it bit into the Apple ad with statements about the importance of making green changes instead of just claiming things. While some readers took the post as a desperate attempt by Dell to try and sully Apple’s claims, others wondered about the truth to the topic and whether Apple was all talk. Since Mac versus PC has long been a favorite argument for computer-lovers everywhere, techies everywhere jumped at the chance to enter the ring once again.

The reality is that the claim Apple has made is a hard one to prove; while they’ve removed mercury from their displays and are making MacBooks with recyclable aluminum casings and recyclable glass screens, there are many more components to what really constitutes a green laptop. Like whether the computer contains brominated flame retardents (BFRs) or polyvinyl chloride (PVC)–and the MacBooks do, although in reduced quantities. Of course, a huge element of a green laptop happens at the company. Carbon sensitive operations help, as do thorough and consumer-focused take-back programs for recycling old computers, and while these may be areas where Apple is working on improvement, it would be tough to prove them as the industry leader (Dell achieved carbon neutrality in 2008, although it was met with skepticism). Click here to read more

Powered by Bookmarkify™