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

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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

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The kings of ice cream, Ben & Jerry’s have been campaigning for the environment all along. Their Lick Global Warming campaign has been around for years. The company buys carbon credits and led a charge to get the EPA to allow for hydro-carbon refrigeration, which doesn’t use ozone-depleting hydro-fluorocarbons and uses 10% less energy. Last year, Ben & Jerry’s introduced the new hyrdrocarbon freezer technology with the help of Greenpeace.

Now, Unilever has bigger and better freezer dreams for Ben & Jerry’s and their other ice cream mega-brand, the UK’s Magnum. The company wants to develop a low-carbon dessert that can be shipped and sold at room temperature and later frozen at home before it’s served. Unilever, which is also responsible for big brands like Dove, Surf and Vaseline, says ice cream is one of the more energy-intensive products because it needs to be frozen during storage and transport. So when looking for ways to be more eco-friendly company-wide, room temperature ice cream stood out.

The challenge? Click here to read more

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If Big Oil gets its way, the new climate bill will be so heavily wounded from attacks by the time it makes its way back onto the Senate floor in September that it will barely stand a chance. At least, that’s what an internal memo from the American Petroleum Institute (API), recently obtained by Greenpeace, seems to imply. In the document, the president of API calls for current and former employees, contractors and vendors to attend rallies and protest against the climate bill. Should the rallies go ahead as planned—despite the memo being leaked—events could take place in an as many as 22 venues, with the API willing to bus in company members to add numbers to the protests. Click here to read more

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A battle for the Boreal forest is finally over. Greenpeace, along with an army of activists, launched the Kleercut campaign in 2004 to ask Kimberly-Clark to help save ancient forests like the North American Boreal Forest. In the southern frontier of the forest, which is home to grizzly bears, wolverines, woodland caribou, lynx and over 1 billion migratory song birds, over 90% of the forest is being clearcut. One of these highly-destructive logging companies ex-customers? Kimberly-Clark, of course.

While popular brands like Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle used to come from trees clearcut from the Boreal, the company announced a new policy that brings success to the Kleercut campaign and a new leader in sustainability in the paper products industry. Watch out Procter & Gamble and Georgia Pacific!

Kimberly-Clark’s new goal is to obtain 100% of the wood fiber used in its products from environmentally responsible sources, not ancient forests. By 2011, the company will stop using pulp from the Boreal unless its FSC-certified and will increase use of FSC-certified fiber and recycled fiber. Good stuff, but if you want 100% recycled fiber you’ll need to look to green brands like Seventh Generation.

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