Green With Envy

1:00 PM -- U.S. vendors are currently falling over themselves to join initiatives such as the Green Grid, which aims to boost energy efficiency in the data center, although a new, and somewhat surprising, environmental leader has emerged on the other side of the world. (See 365 Main Joins Green Grid, ColdWatt Joins Green Grid, APC Participates in Green Grid, Time to Turn Green, and Green Grid Addresses Efficiency.)

In Greenpeace's most recent "green ranking" of the IT industry, Chinese technology giant Lenovo snatched the number one position from Nokia. (See Redrawing the Storage Map.)

Lenovo, which bought IBM's consumer electronics operation back in 2005, got top marks for its electronic waste practices. The vendor offers recycling in all countries where its products are sold, and it even reports the amount of e-waste it recycles as a percentage of its sales.

This is significant given China's reputation as, quite literally, a dumping ground for the technology industry. Greenpeace has already highlighted the problems posed by the country's "growing mountains" of electronic waste, generated both by foreign firms and China's booming technology sector. (See Chinese Shockwaves and China: Storage Superpower?.

Lenovo has come a long way in a short space of time. At one point, the vendor was the bottom ranked company on the Greenpeace index, which measures recycling and toxic content policies. Now it has leapt ahead of firms like HP, Dell, and Toshiba in the environmental stakes. (See The Green Machine Challenge.)Firms like LG Electronics, Sony, and Apple, which were criticized by Greenpeace for their environmental efforts in the most recent report, could do worse than follow Lenovo's lead.

James Rogers, Senior Editor Byte and Switch