Poisonous Apples hit bottom of eco barrel

A NEW REPORT ranking how well companies do when it comes to going green and doing their bit to reduce their carbon footprints, shows that while many in the Tech industry have made huge strides towards eco-ness, Apple still has rotten environmental policies.

The report, which came out on Wednesday, was put together by a not-for-profit outfit called Climate Counts, which gets most of its funding from a yoghurt-making company called Stonyfield Farm.

The organisation's second annual report gives green scores to 56 big corporations, over several consumer sectors ranging from clothing and electronics to fast food. The firms were given points on a scale from zero to 100, on 22 different criteria within four categories: whether the company measures its carbon footprint; what efforts it make to cut down its impact on the climate; whether it actively supports or opposes global warming legislation; and what it tells the public about its actions to address climate change.

The IT industry as a whole and the electronics industry in particular, did exceptionally well in this year’s report, scoring a 56 average out of 100 points. IBM was the example to follow, scoring a whopping 77, which boosted it to oust Canon from last year’s top spot. Toshiba, Sony and HP also had excellent eco scores, whilst Apple, already a target of Greenpeace rage, came bottom of the list with a pathetic 11 points.

The report noted that the tech industry scores highly because of the fact that most companies analyse the life-cycle of their carbon emissions, and examine factors like energy consumption and impact of toxic waste from products.

In fact, the main gripe against Apple remains that the company uses materials considered more toxic than others it could be using, and its lack of transparency on green issues. The company has also not set any concrete goals for the reduction of its own, or its partners’ greenhouse gases, which also knocked points off the fruity toymaker’s score.

Google was the goody-two-shoes of the Internet/software industry, snapping up the title of 'overall most improved' company from last year’s report, jumping an impressive 38 points to 55. This is mainly due to the fact that the search engine giant has implemented programmes to measure its own carbon emissions and because it hosts programmes through Google.org to invest in clean-energy ventures.

Wood Turner, Climate Counts project director, noted that "company transparency is critical to allowing consumers to make good decisions". He added, "The time for companies to just say 'trust us, we’re good on climate' has passed. Consumers want to see the proof behind the green claims. They want to know it's not just marketing talk, but real substantive action."

The overall green leader across all industries was shoe and sportswear company Nike, with an incredible score of 82. Talk about running laps around the competition.

L'Inq
Climate Counts Report

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