Blackberry Ranks Bottom in Greenpeace Survey of Eco-Friendly Firms
 |
November 10, 2011 TheFreshOutlook  |
Research in Motion, the technological firm who make Blackberry, are ranked last place in an ecologically-friendly survey conducted by Greenpeace.
Environmental charity Greenpeace released this year’s version of their Guide to Greener Electronics on Wednesday. The guide compared 15 different technological firms and then ranked them in terms of how environmentally friendly they and their products are.
Blackberry makers Research in Motion (RIM) came last with an overall score of 1.6 out of 15.
The Canadian firm has disclosed the amount of greenhouse gasses that it emits from its manufacturing and business travel to the Carbon Disclosure Project; an “independent not-for-profit organization holding the largest database of primary corporate climate change information in the world”.
However, according to the Greenpeace guide, RIM has not made any data available in order to back up its claims. The report also claims that RIM does not have a clean electricity plan or any targets in place to increase the amount of renewable energy that it uses.
RIM’s best score was for sustainable operations. The company scored many points for “conflict minerals” because it does not source its products from conflict zones. RIM was also given points for using recycled paper and because the Blackberry phone charger has a European Commission IPP four-star rating. The new charger has increased its energy efficiency from 63.6% to 68.3%.
In response to the survey, Greenpeace has suggested that RIM should aim to lower its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2015, use 100% renewable energy by 2020 and phase out the use of toxic materials in their products.
Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics has been published every year since 2006. The intention of the guide is to pressure firms who make and manufacture televisions, computers and mobile phones to use cleaner energy and less toxic chemicals such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BRFs) in their products.
According to Greenpeace’s official website: “Previous releases of our Guide to Greener Electronics have prompted improvements within the electronics industry.”
Since 2009 the guide has been made in conjunction with Greenpeace’s Cool IT Challenge, which was launched in order to encourage companies to be greener.
Major computing firms such as Facebook and Google are not ranked in the guide. However, due to the energy used in their data centres, they are targeted in Greenpeace’s Unfriend Coal Facebook campaign which is “a campaign to get Facebook to run on clean, safe renewable energy”.
A spokeswoman for RIM has responded to the information published in the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics by stating that: “We are continuing to improve our sustainability practices and have a number of initiatives underway.”
This is the first time that RIM has been ranked in the Greenpeace guide. Nokia, which has previously come first in the rankings, slid to third place. American corporation HP was ranked first, followed by Dell. None of the companies reviewed reached the green area on the scale on Greenpeace’s website.
By Louisa Guise
[Image courtesy of arrayexception]
