At their Press Conference at CES on Friday, January 10th, 2009, Greenpeace released the latest results of their "Green Electronics: the search continues" survey.
While "the electronics industry has taken encouraging strides towards increasing the green features on some gadgets over the past year but none stand out in all environmental categories. The race for the green winner is still on," according to Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International Toxics Campaigner. This year"s scores were higher, but no products exceeded a score of 7 out of 10.
Criteria questions focused on but are not limited to the following areas: toxic chemical phase out, energy efficiency, product lifespan and energy used in production, with additional points given for unique innovation.
The Lenovo L2440x wide computer monitor scored highest with 6.9 points (on a 10 point scale) and is far ahead of the competition in the monitor category. Other product category leaders include the Sharp LC‐52GX5 television (5.92), the Samsung F268 mobile phone (5.45), the Nokia 6210 Smart phone (5.2) the HP Elitebook 2530P laptop (5.48) and the Lenovo ThinkCentre M58 Desktop (5.88).
Companies who refused to participate are Apple, Asus, Microsoft, Nintendo, Palm, Philips. Only Sony submitted game consoles for review. A representative for Greenpeace said they were most upset that Apple had declined to participate, as they claim to be committed to being green, but have a history of not having a great track record despite their claims.
Harrel concludes the press release by stating "The electronics industry is heading in the right direction. To stay in the race, each company needs to put its foot on the accelerator, applying any progress it has made across all of its product lines and adopting each others best practices. We"re confident that, as part of the most innovative industry on the planet, these companies can step up to this green challenge."
Previous Greenpeace surveys for comparison can be found here.