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This month is Earth Month, and is as good a time as any to look at the efforts of video game companies around the world to ‘go green’. Greenpeace consistently updates its guide to greener electronics by ranking the top 18 electronic companies in the world, and Nintendo has been dead last for years. We spoke to Greenpeace representative Casey Harrel about the results, and what Nintendo could be doing to improve their dismal environmental record.
What do you consider when shopping for a new video game console?
This year, like every year, Greenpeace has given Nintendo the lowest marks out of the electronics companies it graded.
Doesn’t look like cutting a bunch of plastic out of the standard game cases did much for anyone’s Greenpeace ratings. The environmental advocacy group released its quarterly rankings of electronics companies, again tsk-tsking Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.
Measuring the 500 largest corporations in America, Newsweek found no video game maker in the top 100 and even rated Activision behind environmental bogeyman ExxonMobil.
Greenpeace today released three videos to highlight what they say is the presence of “highly toxic substances” in video game consoles.
Every year that Greenpeace releases its “Guide to Greener Electronics”, one company is always at the bottom. That company is Nintendo.
Nintendo used to be bad for the environment. Now? Just sorta bad! Last year, Greenpeace singled the Kyoto-based game maker by giving it the lowest score in its “Guide to Greener Electronics” had ever awarded to a company — a 0/10. Part of the reason for this dubious honour was that Nintendo failed to provide any data about its environmental standards. Nintendo issued a response, and Greenpeace still wasn’t satisfied. (In comparison, Microsoft got a 2.7/10 and Sony got a 7.3/10). Zeina Al-Hajj, Greenpeace’s International Toxic Campaign co-ordinator points out:
Sony has a very good record in our ranking guide. They have committed to eliminating these chemicals from mobile devices. But why are we finding them in such high percentages in a console? This is a tool used by children in our homes. None of these chemicals exist in Sony’s Vaio laptop. So if they can do it for a laptop, why can’t they push this for the console also?
Greenpeace has taken things into its own hands. Literally. The environmental organisation has dissected each of the three major game consoles and examined how environmentally sound the consoles’ innards are.
Results, after the jump. Onward!
