Apple refuses to take part in green phone ranking

If Steve Jobs has a secret plan to make Apple the most hated technology company in the world – as well as the biggest – his latest decision is a masterstroke. Apple has refused to take part in the UK’s first green ranking scheme for mobile phones.

A series of PR problems have hit Apple this year – from suicides at the Chinese plant making its products to problems with the iPhone 4 reception. Overtaking Microsoft to become the world’s biggest tech firm, Apple seems to have shed its nicey-nicey image – and the latest news confirms this.

Apple has given no reason why it has declined to take part in the voluntary labelling scheme, a joint project between mobile network O2 and sustainability group Forum for the Future. But a spokeswoman pointed out that Apple provides reports into its environmental impact online.

Apple is not the only phone manufacturer that voluntarily publishes its own data, however – and others who do, including Nokia, have agreed to take part in the new scheme. RIM, the manufacturer of Blackberry, has promised to join in next year.

Launched today, the rating system is based on a 63-point questionnaire on a phone’s environmental impact, answered by manufacturers. It is intended to give consumers an easy reference by which to judge how ‘green’ a phone is, giving each phone a rating between nought and five.

Phones are ranked on the ecological impact of harvesting the raw materials involved in making them, energy efficiency in use, how easy they are to recycle, how much energy is consumed in manufacturing, how much packaging they come with and how long they are likely to last before needing to be replaced.

Apple’s decision immediately opened the tech giant up to criticism from environmentalists. Gary Cook of Greenpeace said: “While Apple has recently made important strides … it still lags behind others in transparency. Consumers deserve to know the full story.” ·