Greenpeace: Electronics Industry Needs Improvement
Written by Philip Buonpastore
Friday, 07 March 2008
HANOVER, GERMANY - According to Greenpeace, the
electronics industry is taking steps to become more responsive to
environmental concerns, but still has a long way to go in the
development of truly environmentally friendly products.
In a recent Greenpeace survey, Searching for Greener Electronics,
conducted at the CeBit trade show in Hanover, Germany, only Sony's Vaio
notebook and Ericsson Phone/PDA products received more than half of the
available 100 points.
Products were voluntarily submitted by 14 manufacturers, with testing
criteria in the areas of energy efficiency, the use of hazardous
materials, product lifecycle and marketing.
Greenpeace said that while the results were less than satisfactory,
they showed that the industry was improving its environmental
awareness, in some cases moving beyond basic compliance with existing
regulations, such as the WEEE and RoHS directives.
The campaign group also highlighted the new Apple MacBook Air laptop
and Nokias Evolve phone as examples of energy efficient design, but
still urged manufacturers to increase efforts to make their products
more environmentally sound.
“Manufacturers need to embrace a truly comprehensive approach,” said
Yannick Vicaire of Greenpeace. “Consumers should not have to choose
between a toxic-free product or an energy-efficient one. They should
not need to ask if being recyclable is better than being durable. When
a product offers all those standards… then we can say there is a true
‘green’ product on the market.”
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