Filed under: Apple
Apple earns a silver in environmental evaluation
Recently, Apple has been the target of much environmental criticism, especially from Greenpeace, and a recent EPEAT survey reinforces some of that negativity regarding the company's lack of environmental attention. EPEAT is a government operation created to approve computers before they can be purchased by other governmental institutions, and the organization gives product ratings based on a multitude of environmental criteria. Apple has earned five silver medals for several of its MacBook Pro systems, meaning that the company has passed 23 mandatory standards, and 14 of a possible 28 optional standards. The highest rank, gold, is rewarded to computers that have passed all 23 mandatory standards, plus 21 of 28 optional ones. For comparison, Toshiba has earned five golds, 15 silvers, and four bronzes, Dell has earned two golds and 12 silvers for its laptops, and Lenovo has 48 silvers and a single bronze under its belt. Hopefully Apple will step up and make a greater effort to address some of its environmental shortcomings in the near future and go for the gold.
[via MacNN]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Leonard Nimrod said 11:23PM on 8-20-2007
Apple has a very limited product line compared to these other OEMs and doesn't focus on "corporate" sales the way other OEMs do.
Couldn't these other OEMs have specifically built systems that would qualify for EPEAT Gold status to gain gov't contracts while letting the majority of its product line fall well below the EPEAT standard?
I know this is technically just a blog but a link to the EPEAT site and a list of their mandatory and optional criteria would be nice.
• http://www.epeat.net/
• http://www.epeat.net/Docs/Summary%20of%20EPEAT%20Criteria.pdf
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Rich said 11:50PM on 8-20-2007
Hopefully, Apple will continue to design and sell technologically superior products that are consistently dependable and useful, and will appropriately ignore calls to sacrifice utility for conformity.
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Shon said 11:40AM on 8-21-2007
Well said Rich. Well said.
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sine nomine said 1:07AM on 8-21-2007
Hmmm, I'd have thought they'd have gotten a better score. I mean, they go longer than other manufacturers between product updates, so people aren't always rushing to buy the latest and greatest...they keep the same case designs for years, so no manufacturer retooling...there's the iPod battery replacement thing...you'd think all that would count for something.
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Sam said 1:14AM on 8-21-2007
Listen, I don't give a shit about environmental hysteria. Who cares who has more gold metals in the arbitrary bullshit. Greenpeace isn't the most respected and respectful of organizations anyway. I don't want the cost and quality of my products from Apple go down because of these nut-jobs. I love Apple, hate un-needed environmental hysteria.
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vistet said 3:52AM on 8-21-2007
# 4 : you don´t want the cost of your Apple products to down because of these nut- jobs ? Here´s a thought : the demands of the nut-jobs , and consumers like me , have been a factor that has had positive effects on for example battery technology - both for the environment and the consumers .
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shawn said 12:02PM on 8-21-2007
All-in-one desktop systems like the iMac create more waste when perfectly good monitors with years and years of life left are thrown into the trash.
What practical reason is there for the all-in-one design for a desktop?
An older, slow CPU shouldn't force someone to trash a beautiful, 23" HD monitor just to run newer software.
Form over Function is silly.
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Brychanus said 12:37PM on 8-21-2007
@7 - If someone trashes a beautiful 23" HD monitor just because they got a new iMac, that user is the environmental problem.
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AlexP said 11:43PM on 8-21-2007
To be honest, I think they'd get a gold if they made use of LEDs in all of their LCDs, not just Macbook Pros, but manufacturers aren't there just yet it seems.
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