Tech Companies Ranked By Environmental Friendliness

Greenpeace has ranked the makers of all types of electronics by how friendly they are to the environment, and two companies that produce mobile devices -- Nokia and Dell -- received high marks.

Handheld and smartphone makers near the bottom of the list include Motorola and Fujitsu-Siemens.

Ranking were determined by which of the major electronics companies are doing the most to remove the worst toxic chemicals from their products, and which companies have good recycling programs.

Results by Company

Nokia, with a score of 7 out of 10, leads the way on eliminating toxic chemicals, since the end of 2005 all new models of mobiles are free of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and all new components to be free of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from the start of 2007.

Dell, who received the same score, has also set ambitious targets for eliminating these harmful substances from their products.

According to Greenpeace, HP (5.7) has only created timelines to develop a plan to phase out toxic chemicals, but the company's score was improved by the amount of recycling it does.

Some of Sony Ericsson's handsets are without some of the worst chemicals, but it lost points for failing to report the number of discarded mobile phones that it takes back and recycles (5.3).

Motorola received one of the lowest scores -- just 1.7 out of 10.  The company recently backtracked on a commitment to eliminate PVC and BFRs from its products. Motorola also scored poorly on product recycling.

More information on this study can be found on Greenpeace's web site.