Author: Maciamo Hay. Written in September 2020.
There is no such thing as "green" electronics or home appliances. All of eletric appliances and electronic devices have a significant ecological footprint due to the various plastics, metals or rare earths used in their manufacturing. Nevertheless some companies try harder than others to reduce their environmental impact.
Consumers in the EU can see the energy rating for any electric/electronic product they buy. This only indicates the efficiency of the electric consumption. These labels already had a major influence on consumers, which in turn led manufacturers to develop more energy efficient products. Nowadays the biggest part of a device's ecological footprint is going to come from its manufacturing and the way it is disposed of. Proper recycling reduces environmental pollution after a product's life has come to an end, but it does not prevent the resource depletion and carbon emissions linked to the manufacturing of the product in the first place. This analysis attempts to determine how committed manufacturers are to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, to design products in a sustainable manner with sustainable materials, and to remove dangerous chemicals from their products.
The following scoring does not include ethical ratings such as working conditions, worker's rights, wages, tax avoidance and the like as I wanted this ranking to be specifically about the environment.
Methodology
Four indices were used to assess the manufacturers' ecological commitment.
The S&P Global ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) for 2019 is the most comprehensive rating and assesses company's overall sustainability with regard to economic, environmental, and social factors. S&P (Standard & Poor's) is a New York-based company specialised in corporate ratings.
CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) is an organisation based in the UK which supports companies and cities to disclose the environmental impact of major corporations. It provides separate ratings for climate change and water security. Scores are for 2019.
The American magazine Newsweek's Green Rankings 2017 are one of the world's most recognized assessments of corporate environmental performance. It focuses on energy, carbon, water and waste productivity. They did not rate several Japanese (Brother, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Nikon, Olympus, Ricoh, Seiko Epson) and Taiwanese (Acer, Asus) companies.
Greenpeace published a Guide to Greener Electronics 2017, which measures 3 factors:
- Reduction of greenhouse gases through efficiency and renewable energy
- Sustainable design and use of recycled materials
- Elimination of hazardous chemicals from both the product itself and manufacturing
In order not to give twice more weight to the CDP rating, the Climate and Water scores were averaged before calculating the overall score.
The letter scoring were converted to a percentage this way:
- A = 100
- A- = 95
- B+ = 85
- B = 80
- B- = 75
- C+ = 65
- C = 60
- C- = 55
- D+ = 45
- D = 40
- D- = 35
- E = 20
- F = 0
Ranking
Note that Chinese companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Haier had too few ratings to be included, but generally performed poorly when rated. Lexmark, JVC Kenwood and Sanyo were only rated by CDP but all scored poorly and are best avoided.
| Brand |
S&P Global ESG |
CDP Climate |
CDP Water |
CDP Average |
Newsweek |
Greener Electronics |
OVERALL SCORE |
| Konica Minolta |
88 |
95 |
80 |
87.5 |
|
|
87.75 |
| Philips |
82 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
77.9 |
|
86.63 |
| Ricoh |
85 |
95 |
80 |
87.5 |
|
|
86.25 |
| Siemens |
79 |
95 |
75 |
85 |
85.3 |
|
83.10 |
| Electrolux |
67 |
95 |
95 |
95 |
|
|
81.00 |
| HP |
90 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
67.1 |
65 |
80.53 |
| Xerox |
64 |
95 |
95 |
95 |
|
|
79.5 |
| Nikon |
66 |
100 |
80 |
90 |
|
|
78.00 |
| Seiko Epson |
73 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
|
|
76.50 |
| Kyocera |
57 |
95 |
95 |
95 |
|
|
76.00 |
| Nvidia |
72 |
95 |
75 |
85 |
62.8 |
|
73.27 |
| Olympus |
51 |
95 |
95 |
95 |
|
|
73.00 |
| LG |
78 |
100 |
|
100 |
67.5 |
45 |
72.63 |
| Acer |
87 |
80 |
|
80 |
|
45 |
70.67 |
| Apple |
29 |
100 |
|
100 |
71.5 |
75 |
68.88 |
| Microsoft |
57 |
100 |
95 |
97.5 |
66 |
55 |
68.88 |
| Fujifilm |
76 |
100 |
95 |
97.5 |
25.5 |
|
66.33 |
| Hitachi |
37 |
95 |
100 |
97.5 |
63.5 |
|
66.00 |
| Samsung |
75 |
95 |
95 |
95 |
53.7 |
35 |
64.68 |
| Lenovo |
54 |
95 |
75 |
85 |
58.8 |
55 |
63.20 |
| Canon |
53 |
95 |
80 |
87.5 |
48 |
|
62.83 |
| Fujitsu |
71 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
17.2 |
|
62.73 |
| Panasonic |
35 |
100 |
75 |
87.5 |
60.3 |
|
60.93 |
| Nokia |
40 |
95 |
|
95 |
47.1 |
|
60.70 |
| Whirlpool |
57 |
60 |
75 |
67.5 |
57.5 |
|
60.67 |
| Dell |
32 |
80 |
75 |
77.5 |
|
65 |
58.17 |
| Sony |
41 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
39.1 |
45 |
56.28 |
| AMD |
32 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
|
|
56.00 |
| Intel |
39 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
46.5 |
|
55.17 |
| Asus |
70 |
60 |
40 |
50 |
|
40 |
53.33 |
| Toshiba |
33 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
41.1 |
|
51.37 |
| Brother |
21 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
|
|
50.50 |
| Google |
38 |
100 |
|
100 |
14.9 |
40 |
48.23 |
| Foxconn (Sharp, Belkin) |
28 |
40 |
40 |
40 |
26.6 |
|
31.53 |
| Amazon |
16 |
0 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
4.00 |
Rannking by category
