Just in time for the holidays, Greenpeace has released its 2011 Guide to Greener Electronics. This annual report serves as consumer guide for 15 leading global electronics companies and ranks each company on its energy use and emissions, green products, and sustainable operations. This year HP ranked first on the Greenpeace scale by a fairly significant margin, while RIM brought up the rear with a score of only 1.6 out of 10.
With a score of 5.9 out of 10, HP scores most of its points in the new Sustainable Operations category, which includes the management of its supply chain. The Enough Project partnered with Greenpeace to create the criteria for a section on Sustainable Operations called, "Policy and practice on avoidance of conflict minerals."
HP and Apple together led the way in this category with the highest individual scores of 4/5. Both are active in the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition, or EICC, the Conflict Free Smelter initiative, and both have published their suppliers online. The conflict minerals criteria also ranks companies on additional factors such as their participation in various stages of the process like compliance with OECD due diligence standards, joining in a multi-stakeholder submission to the SEC on the issue, and participating in the U.S. State Department sponsored Public Private Alliance.
The lowest ranking company on Greenpeace's list in the “avoidance of conflict minerals” category is currently Sharp, who lags far behind on requesting information from their suppliers (beginning three full years after the leading companies), and has not yet participated in any of the procedural processes necessary for the creation of and eventual compliance with SEC regulations.
Building on our partnership with Greenpeace, Enough will be updating our own company rankings in the coming months.