This week, Greenpeace ranked Apple dead last in its quarterly list of electronics companies -- the exact position that Apple held in September's roundup. At the top of the list were Nokia, Dell, and Fujitsu-Siemens, followed by Motorola and Sony-Ericsson.
The Greenpeace "Guide to Greener Electronics" ranks the top producers of mobile phones and PCs not only for the products they make, but also for how they behave.
"We focused on two specific criteria," said Greenpeace spokesperson Zeina Alhajj. "We focused on the chemical policy for the companies, and their responsibility for their products."
Nokia Leads
Greenpeace gave points -- or took them away -- for everything from how much a company does to make its products more ecologically friendly to whether it posts recycling information  on its Web site.
Greenpeace also looked at corporate commitments to the "precautionary principle," which states that in the absence of a global scientific consensus, a company bears the burden of proof for showing its product won't cause enduring public harm when questions are raised.
Nokia topped the Greenpeace list for the second time in a row, while Motorola, which jumped from next-to-last to fourth place overall, did so largely on account of its public commitment to pursue eco-friendly policies.
Acer and Lenovo, meanwhile, have promised to remove most of the hazardous chemicals they use in their products, according to Greenpeace.
Global Problem
Despite the improvements, no firm on the Greenpeace list received a score higher than seven out of 10. "Electronic waste is piling up globally," said Alhajj, noting that U.N. estimates put the amount of global e-waste at 50 million tons per year.
Because the tech industry is known for innovations such as e-mail, which cuts down on paper, and video-conferencing, which cuts down on air travel and its carbon emissions, the public assumes that high-tech firms are largely green, according to Alhajj.
But what's missing in that assumption is what it takes "to produce these products and live with these products on a daily basis, and to keep producing waste in such an enormous amount," she said.
Mobile phones and PCs are special problems because they're replaced, on average, once every 18 months, adding to landfills at alarming rates. "It has an environmental footprint that needs to be looked at," she said.
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