Greenpeace has continued its fight with Apple by releasing an updated version of its Guide to Greener Electronics (PDF). This ranks China's Lenovo first with a spiffing 8/10 with Apple in last place with a humiliating 2.7/10.
This is partly the result of a breakdown of communications. Greenpeace spokeswoman Iza Kruszewska told AP that "Apple initially participated in regular conference calls with Greenpeace on the ratings scheme, but didn't change its practices any more than required by law."
"Once we launched the 'Green my Apple' website, we stopped hearing from Apple altogether," she said.
Of course, Apple could easily get a much higher score with little effort and at no cost just by putting dates on some of its committments to adopt certain practices. Why not simply do that?
Ranking Apple bottom is great for Greenpeace, because of the publicity it gets, and bad news for Apple. And in any fight between green campaigners and any very rich, multinational mega-corporation, the green campaigners are most likely to win, regardless of the facts.
Since Apple computers are now basically just Intel-based PCs knocked out on the same Asian production lines as rival products, there's not likely to be much real difference in their environmental impact. What's different is the spin suppliers put on their committments. Since Apple is far better at spinning than any other company in the electronics business, it's hard to explain why it doesn't apply its talents to Greenpeace. Maybe it's just corporate arrogance and stupidity, but it's not helping Apple's image.
Apple could also do much more on take-back. It has already missed the chance to be a leader, like Dell, but in many countries, it's eventually going to be forced into doing more recycling. Sure, it would cost Apple a few bucks to do this sooner rather than later, but it can afford it, and it would be doing the right thing.
Incidentally, I notice from Google News that Guardian Unlimited has already run a story on this topic: Not all Apples are green. That's actually a post on our Comment is free blog by John Sauven. It may not be immediately obvious to all readers of his post that Sauven is, as his profile says, director of Greenpeace.
