Apple & Environmental Groups

by bgetch.

If you had Al Gore on your Board of Directors, you might think you’d get a pass with environmentalists.  Not so.  Apple is stung by a series of stories on groups saying the company does a poor job using and handling toxic materials in the manufacture of its computers.

Steve Jobs heard the criticism of a Greenpeace annual ranking of responsible computer makers (again, the power of original research).   Greenpeace is no doubt embolden by their lobbying tactics.  The below is from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution:

The environmental group Greenpeace greeted Apple’s announcement as “tasty news,” and said it shows that thousands of letters and e-mails its supporters have written the company to change its policies are starting to pay off.

But in a statement, Greenpeace also said it’s only a start for the computer maker with the worst environmental record, and that Apple should aspire to be “green to the core,” not just on the surface.

In an annual Greenpeace ranking of computer and electronics companies last month, Apple ranked dead last. Lenovo, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Dell and Samsung topped the list.

Without naming names, Jobs, in his memo, jabbed at environmentalists who have faulted the company, indicating that some of their rankings are flawed. He also wrote that the company doesn’t get the credit it deserves for making environmentally friendly computer design changes, most notably for eliminating the use of lead-containing cathode-ray tube monitors last year. Other computer makers still ship CRT monitors.

If Apple has fallen down anywhere, Jobs wrote, it has been in promoting and communicating its environmental efforts. (emphasis added) “Whatever other improvements we need to make, it is certainly clear that we have failed to communicate the things that we are doing well,” he wrote.

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