With expanded and tougher criteria on toxic chemicals, electronic waste and new criteria on climate change only Sony and Sony Ericsson score more than 5/10 in our latest Guide to Greener Electronics. Nintendo and Microsoft remain rooted to the bottom of the Guide.


The Greener Electronics Guide is our way of getting the electronics industry to face up to the problem of e-waste. We want manufacturers to get rid of harmful chemicals in their products. We want to see an end to the stories of unprotected child laborers scavenging mountains of cast-off gadgets created by society's gizmo-loving ways.

First launched in August 2006 the Guide is now on its 8th edition. It ranks the top market leaders of the mobile phone, computer, TV and games console markets according to their policies and practices on toxic chemicals and take-back. It has been a key driving force in getting many of the companies to make significant improvements to their environmental policies. New to this edition are criteria to assess the impact of electronics companies on climate change.

Companies are scored on disclosure of their greenhouse gas emissions, commitment for absolute cuts in their own emissions and support for the mandatory global emissions reductions that are needed to tackle climate change. On energy efficiency, a selection of each company’s product range is assessed to see how far they exceed the current de-facto global standard, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star. Energy Star sets minimum standards for energy efficiency for many types of electronic products. The overall percentage of renewable energy in a companies total energy use is also assessed.

What it really boils down to is not a single major electronics company, at the time being, is making the appropriate strides in environmental consciousness that they need, too. Hopefully, we can see a green Wii in the future!