The latest edition of our Guide to Greener Electronics has revealed that very few firms are showing true climate leadership. Despite many green claims, major companies like Dell, Microsoft, Lenovo, LG, Samsung and Apple are failing to support the necessary levels of global cuts in emissions and make the absolute cuts in their own emissions that are required to tackle climate change.

More from our international site  »

Company scores plummeted in the previous edition of Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, when new criteria on climate change were introduced. However, leading brands like Nokia and Samsung are now making significant progress in greening their electronics products, with improved environmental policies responding not only to these new energy criteria, but also to the more stringent chemical and e-waste criteria.

I don't know what's made Apple post the iPhone 3G's Environmental Status Report but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Maybe Apple Chief Steve Jobs read my blog and decided to act before our scientists got their hands and screwdrivers on his latest phone. While the new iPhone has less polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR) than the original one, Apple has yet to eliminate these and other harmful substances like antimony, beryllium and phthalates.

Making phones without any PVC or BFR isn't a problem for Sony Ericsson and Nokia so why is Apple lagging behind? The iPhone in my opinion is a very stylish handset that scores high on usability and enjoys a cult following judging from the queues to buy it. It's a pity that it's not as green as the others when there's no reason why it couldn't be. Apple has promised to get rid of PVC and BFRs by the end of this year though. Let's see if they fulfil it.

Update 17 July 2008: Apple releases iPhone 3G's Environmental Status Report

Get ready folks, the Apple iPhone 3G is out today. What are you going to do? Run to the nearest store and join the queue or find out whether Apple has lived up to its green promises? Well, I have some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is that the iPhone 3G will come in potato starch packaging which is definitely greener than plastic. But what we are concerned about is the nasty stuff inside the iPhone like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR).

With expanded and tougher criteria on toxic chemicals, electronic waste and new criteria on climate change only Sony and Sony Ericsson score more than 5/10 in our latest Guide to Greener Electronics. Nintendo and Microsoft remain rooted to the bottom of the Guide.

The Greener Electronics Guide is our way of getting the electronics industry to face up to the problem of e-waste. We want manufacturers to get rid of harmful chemicals in their products. We want to see an end to the stories of unprotected child labourers scavenging mountains of cast-off gadgets created by society's gizmo-loving ways.

This time last year Steve Jobs was ignoring our calls for a greener Apple, but yesterday he revealed the new MacBook Air – the thinnest notebook on the planet and Apple’s greenest computer so far.

It uses less brominated fire retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), but it hasn’t eliminated them entirely. Had it done so, it would have made Apple an ecological leader.

I can remember my first games console, the Atari 2600, a Christmas present in 1984. It seemed space age at the time, fake wood panel, RSI inducing joysticks, Pac man, Asteroids, I think I even played Pong on that thing, and for hours. I’m sure there was nothing green about it, I didn’t even understand boys, let alone the toxic chemicals lurking in my beloved games console.

But we’ve come a long way since Pac man, although I still don’t understand boys, I do know that games consoles don’t have to come with toxic chemicals. Nor should they contribute to the mountains of e-waste once kids tire of them a few months after Christmas.

With Christmas getting ever closer we've some unfestive bad news for gaming giants Nintendo, makers of the popular Wii, Gamecube and Game Boy consoles. They've achieved a spectacular zero score in the latest edition of our quarterly Greener Electronics Guide - the first time such a feat has ever been accomplished.

The guide ranks companies on the toxic content of their products and their willingness to take back and recycle them once they become redundant. This is the first time that we've included gaming consoles, giving Nintendo the chance to leap straight into last place - an opportunity they grasped with both hands!

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.

Our campaign against toxic e-waste in computers and electronic equipment is starting to show results, with many of the biggest names in the business tripping over themselves in the rush not to be left on the bottom rung of our Green Electronics Guide.