Electronics companies clean up their acts

It's that time again; we've just released our latest quarterly Greener Electronics Guide, which ranks manufacturers on their toxics and recycling policies and practices.

It seems that publicly comparing the companies' performances is working; several leading manufacturers are cleaning up their acts and every company ranked bottom of previous editions has made improvements to move up the ranking. Back in August 2006, when we launched the guide, the average score was 4/10. Now every company scores above 5/10. You can see how the rankings have changed by clicking on the version numbers:

Nokia's still leading, closely followed by Sony Ericsson, Dell and Lenovo. The biggest movers are Sony and LG Electronics (they both left a US coalition that lobbies against producer responsibility for recycling discarded products). Because they don't deal with old products responsibly, Panasonic now languishes at the bottom, despite launching some products free from the most hazardous chemicals.

And Apple? Well, they've lost no points but they've dropped to 12th position. Their new iPhone, iMac and iPod lines still contain the worst toxic chemicals, allowing competitors to race ahead.

Our international office has the full story, and you can help keep up the pressure by writing to the CEOs of the top firms.

I just wonder how many more guides it will take before we see the companies come good on their promises to market a computer completely free of the worst toxic chemicals...