Green Peace Raises the Bar on Electronics

If you need to purchase any electronics and want to make that purchase as green as possible, consider HP, Dell or Nokia. According Green Peace's "Guide to Greener Electronics" published in November, these three vendors lead the pack.

HP had the highest rating of 5.9 out of a possible 10 points. They ranked "strongest on sustainable operations and energy criteria but could improve on green products criteria."

"Dell scores best on energy criteria with a strong target to reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2015 but scores poorly on green products." Dell and HP also score high on their policy and practice for sustainable sourcing of fibers for paper.

Nokia is behind HP and Dell "over energy criteria but scores well on green products and sustainable operations."

Fifteen companies were reviewed in all. The criteria used to measure performance were in three areas:

• ENERGY
• GREENER PRODUCTS
• SUSTAINABLE OPERATIONS

The report is informative for both the public and the companies being reviewed. Green Peace provided detailed information on where the companies could make improvements, such as suggesting HP disclose the length of warranty and spare parts availability for its main product lines, or reporting on the "amount of post-consumer plastics it uses as a percentage of all plastics." This kind of feedback is useful to any business owner interested in reducing impacts on the environment, improving efficiencies, saving money and gaining a market edge.

Small businesses can receive ideas for improvement by going through the Shoreline Green Business Program checklist. This can either be downloaded from the Shoreline Green Business website to review, or a small business owner can register online and fill out the checklist online. There are additional links throughout the website for resources that are available at the county and state level to help small business owners with specific improvements.