Greenpeace claims that Apple is near the bottom of the barrel when it comes to environmental policy. Apple claims that its policy is so far ahead of the rest of the industry, it can't even be measured.

If the latest figures from the EPEAT are to be believed, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In the group's latest rankings of desktop and laptop systems, Apple consistently turned up silver rankings. Decent, but not great.

So what does this all mean? Jump to find out.

20 Aug 2007

The silver rankings are the second of the EPEAT's three tier system for ranking computers.  All of Apple's laptops, desktops, and monitors scored in the "silver" range, between 14 and 19 points.  No Apple product was able to crack the EPEAT's "gold" ranking. Dell scored four products in the top tier, while Toshiba had five of its notebooks achieve the ranking.

To put things in perspective, however, Apple met each and every required criteria in the report. The company lost most of its points by not meeting optional criteria for such things as auditing its recycling program and listing the amount of recycled content in each machine. So, while Apple is the lumbering, polluting giant that Greenpeace would have you believe, the company is also not the clear-cut leader it claims to be.

Greenpeace has admitted that they give Apple extra attention because of the company's influential position within the market. They argue that if Apple were to step up its environmental campaigns so would everyone else.

Judging by Apple's own words, it appears as if they share Greenpeace's position and do indeed consider themselves a trend-setter both in design and corporate policy. In that regard, it seems that there's still work to be done in Cupertino.