Environmental watchdog group Greenpeace has released an update to its Guide to Greener Electronics, in which both Nintendo and Microsoft have again rated poorly – with Nintendo again being singled out for particular criticism following a
zero rating in 2007.
As before, the poor ratings do not necessarily relate to non-environmentally friendly business practices but instead a lack of public policies. Nintendo ranks last out of a group of eighteen consumer electronics manufacturers, with the companies’ zero rating last year being upgraded to 0.3.
Each company is rated in nine categories. The only category in which Nintendo was not rated as zero being Chemicals Management, which was upgraded to “Partially Bad”. As the Greenpeace report states this allows “lots of room for future improvement”.
Microsoft was the third lowest ranking company, after Philips and Nintendo, with a rating of 4.7. Again a lack of public policies was the main criticism, with the company praised for an improved timeline for toxic chemicals elimination but a poor takeback policy and practice.
Sony was the fourth highest ranked company (after Samsung, Toshiba and Nokia) and was praised for making more products free of toxic PVC and improving reporting on recycling and takeback, particularly in the U.S.