According to Greenpeace, Chinese computer maker Lenovo is the world"s most eco-friendly electronics firm (scoring 8 out of 10) while Apple is last (scoring 2.7 out of 10) of the 14 profiled. The quarterly report ranks firms by how green their production processes are and what they do to recycle hardware they sell. Lenovo, which bought IBM"s consumer electronics division in 2005, offers takeback services for any broken or obsolete merchandise in all the nations where its products are sold. Lenovo lost marks for still using some of the most toxic substances to make its products. Greenpeace criticised Apple for not setting a deadline for eliminating some toxic chemicals from its production processes.
The study, which was first compiled in 2006, looks at how big electronics firms make their hardware to see if they use toxic chemicals in the production process and scrutinises what they do to recycle goods when customers have stopped using them. The campaigning group said that overall scores for the hi-tech firms it profiled had improved (nine out of 14 now score more than five out of 10) but it shied away from describing any hardware maker as "green". Iza Kruszewska, Greenpeace international toxics campaigner, noted that in the last 12 months, firms have started to act rather than just issue statements of intent.