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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