Great news.
Period.
Way to go Apple.
Please don't take this as an anti-Apple observation -- it's really truly not. But it's bothered me that Apple has taken so darn long to get on board. (Laura Scott, pointed this out on The COWBlogs last month.)
As of December, Apple was dead last on the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics, which is what sparked the current hub-bub.
On the same list Motorola, Fujitsu, Lenova and Acer had significantly improved their positions from the previous year. HP was docked a point when Greenpeace found a hazardous chemical that HP said they didn't use anymore. When HP ran an internal investigation and published the findings of what went wrong while affirming their commitment not to let it happen again, the penalty was lifted.
Seriously, how many companies can you imagine running an internal investigation about failures to meet promises made to Greenpeace, then publishing what they found?!?
The finding that Apple was still dead last led to holiday protests at the 5th Ave Apple store. I'm glad that the message is getting through. I really am.
I'm not going to belabor this, but one sentence in the Apple thingy jumped out at me, just below the graph. While noting that their "Weight Recycled as % of Past Sales"is rising, it's still going to take until 2010 to pass HP and Dell. Says so right under the big graph (with my emphasis added of course):
A note of comparison — the latest figures from HP and Dell are each around 10% per year, and neither company has yet disclosed plans to grow this percentage in the future. By 2010, Apple may be recycling significantly more than either Dell or HP as a percentage of past sales weight.
Now read the chart again: Apple has to more than triple its current percentage in the next 3+ years to catch up to those guys!
That also assumes that HP and Dell continuing on their current trajectories. I don't know about Dell, but...given HP's unusual efforts on that count, that seems unlikely.
Having written this kind of marketing response document more times than I want to admit, I could pick it apart even further. But I won't because I don't want to sound insincere when I praise Apple for joining the cause. Showing up late still counts as showing up.
Super-duper important to getting that this isn't a war, or even a little anti-Apple. Everyone has a long, long way to go: no company has ever received better than a 7 out of 10 on Greenpeace's scale. I was shocked by that.
Rather than specific "they do this we do that" marketing salvos, wouldn't it be cool if Apple forgot about what HP and Dell are up to, and aim for a higher overall score? Maybe setting the record with, say, a 9 out of 10. Now THAT would cool.
