Lenovo Tops Eco-Friendly Ranking

gollum123 writes to tell us that according to a recent list compiled by Greenpeace, Lenovo has topped the list of "eco-friendly" companies scoring an 8 out of a possible 10 while Apple fell to the bottom of the list with only a 2.7. "Iza Kruszewska, Greenpeace international toxics campaigner, said the industry had made some positive steps in the last 12 months with firms starting to act rather than just issue statements of intent. Of the 14 companies profiled, said Ms Kruszewska, nine now score more than five out of 10."

Toxic substances?

[biocute]

From the FTA: "However, Lenovo lost marks for still using some of the most toxic substances to make its products. Other firms in the top five, such as Sony-Ericsson, have already eliminated toxic chemicals including brominated fire retardants, polyvinyl chloride, beryllium and phthalates from their factories."

So can we really say Lenovo tops the list?

Re:Bah.

[Qwavel]

What? No this is terrible PR for Greenpeace. All over the world Apple owners are grabbing at any anti-Greenpeace thought or news they can get to rationalize their love for Apple. I mean, Apple is cool (isn't that what the ads tell us?) so if Greenpeace disses Apple, Greenpeace must be making it up for propaganda reasons.

You want an eco-friendly computer? Here it is!

[Anonymous Coward]

Check it out here:

The Damn Small Machine! [damnsmalllinux.org]

This guy is the same guy who produces the distro Damn Small Linux. The distro is basically Knoppix cut down to fit within a 50MB CD. Well, he decided, being a tree-hugger California type, to build fanless and low-power boxes for people to buy. They use VIA's low-power (8 watt peak) x86 "Eden" CPU's and are actually pretty good.

There are now even newer ones by other folks which use the VIA C7; I saw a couple of models at TigerDirect. The C7, while requiring a fan for the highest CPU speeds, goes up to 2.0GHz [mailto] and uses 20W at full tilt, max. If I didn't already have a bunch of computers (I'm an IT consultant), I'd have bought one already. Matter of fact, my next one will indeed be one of these.

Re:Most unexpected

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

but I still wouldn't choose to allow my money to fund the militaristic policies of the Chinese state.

I wouldn't buy a computer then (or just about anything else).

You do realise that Apple PCs are made in exactly the same Chinese factories as other PCs? Using the same cheap 60-hours-a-week-isnt-overtime labour?

Re:Most unexpected

[wellingj]

So buy a Panasonic ToughBook. Engineered and Made in Japan, and aguably more bomb proof than a ThinkPad.

Re:But...

[Superfarstucker]

Repeating "Apple computers have a longer useful life" doesn't make it any truer. I've got a PII 233 that is a router (running m0n0wall). I've got a 1.2 GHz K7 (running linux) I use as a fileserver/repository (it originally had a 800 MHz K7 in it but I got an upgrade for free). That's some vintage equipment in my book.

In addition I have numerous left over components from machines long since gone which I could easily work into something servicable should the need arise. I think the exact opposite of what you're trying to argue is true. When a PPC Apple machine expires you'd be hard pressed to find a good source of cheap components to bring it back into action. There are so many cheap pc parts available people practically give them away.

Unless of course you're trying to imply that an Apple machine does more "work" per MHz, which is a laudable claim at best.

XP and linux both run just fine on my notebook with the processor throttled to 600 MHz. The disk subsystem is also in line (1.8" 4200 RPM drive with ~10 MB/s sequential reads), and it only has 512 MiB of memory.

Go have fun burning candles on those faulty G4 iBook logic boards hoping to resolder the BGA.

What about AL GORE!

[JesseJackson]

Wouldn't one think that Mr. Al Gore, the warrior that is leading us all to carbon utopia in his private jets and SUV's would be able to do something about this? As a member of the board at Apple you would think he'd be leading the company towards a greener way
I suppose he'll just educate us carbon hogs and make it everybody elses problem to reduce their pollutants. As long as he talks about the problem it's ok that him and the companies he is afiliated with are some of the worst offenders.

Re:In related news...

[Sunrun]

"Apple computers have a significantly longer lifespan on my desks than the PCs"

...and Porsches have significantly longer lifespans than Fords. One of the main factors people take into account when replacing something is how much the replacement will cost.

So, yes, if you consider the total environmental impact of a company, those with more expensive products will have a smaller effect. But this says nothing about the relative impact per unit sold, which is what really matters when you evaluate how "eco-friendly" a corporation is.


Except that "relative impact per unit sold" is actually largely meaningless when comparing one company which sells ~3.5 million PCs/year to one which sells an order of magnitude more than that per year. The one that sells 10 times more product must also be 10 times "greener" -- i.e. contain 1/10th the amount of pollutants -- in order to pollute less than the one that sells less.

That said, it's still in Apple's best interest overall to be or become the most aggressive at producing "green" hardware, especially in light of their rapid rise in popularity and hence public scrutiny.

- 'Drew