Are Big High-Tech Companies Green Hypocrites?

Is the iPhone Toxic?

In Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, Apple received much better marks than Microsoft and Nintendo for making green gadgets, but it doesn't escape the environmentalists' green thumb's down on some criteria.

In laboratory tests analyzing components inside the iPhone, Greenpeace found that device contains hazardous chemicals including brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and hazardous polyvinyl chlorides (PVCs), two chemicals that Apple had promised to stop using by the end of 2008. Greenpeace discusses its findings in this video.

In a 2007 open letter posted to the Apple Web site, Steve Jobs stated, "Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors on environmental issues." When Apple released the iPhone, however, Greenpeace and the Center for Environmental Health deemed the product a step in the wrong direction.

By comparison, according to Greenpeace, Nokia products are totally PVC free, and Motorola and Sony Ericsson have handsets on the market with BFR-free components. Greenpeace published its study last October; the full report can be read online.

Greenwashing Label Hurts

Many firms with green initiatives find that they're damned if they do go green and damned they don't, according to Kristina Skierka of Bite Communications' clean-tech practice, an expert in green marketing.

"The challenge for some companies with a green message is avoiding being criticized for what they are not doing," Skierka says. Though some companies are legitimately criticized for pretending to embrace environmentally responsible behavior, she says, some well-intentioned companies end up being unfairly labeled as "greenwashers"--eco-phonies who conceal environmentally unfriendly practices beneath a veneer of Earth-friendly rhetoric.

In Skierka's view, fear of being labeled a greenwasher prevents many comfpanies from pursuing their environmentally beneficial business practices more aggressively and visibly.

For its part, Nintendo recycles 70 percent of its waste and has created "green procurement standards" that prevent vendors from using banned substances such as lead and mercury.

Apple says that it has significantly reduced the amount of toxins in its computers (an achievement Greenpeace acknowledges) and that it sponsors an aggressive component recycling program.

Microsoft--along with Dell, Google, IBM, and Intel--formed the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI), which works with the Environmental Protection Agency, the World Wildlife Fund, and other organizations to tackle the problem of global warming.

Greenpeace's biggest beef with Microsoft and Nintendo involves the game consoles the two companies sell. The ecology organization says that both companies continue to use too many hazardous substances in manufacturing the consoles and don't have adequate takeback and recycling programs for obsolete models.