Microsoft

Today we took the ‘How Clean is your Cloud’ challenge directly to Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, the three companies which need to switch from dirty coal to clean, renewable power. This challenge follows yesterday’s launch of our 'How Clean is your Cloud’ report.

If you use a smartphone, Facebook, email or any sort of online storage then you're using what is referred to as "the cloud". Every day, our lives revolve more and more around the phenomenon that is the cloud. We check our email, store our music, and share photos and status updates. It’s a key part of how we connect with our friends and family.

But have you ever stopped to wonder… where does the cloud actually exist?

For most of us, when we think about our environmental footprint, the first things that spring to mind are how to commute to work, the kind of bags we use for food shopping, or the detergents we wash our clothes with. But how often do we consider the energy we use when surfing the web? Or, how much polluting, dirty energy our Facebook profile generates?

With expanded and tougher criteria on toxic chemicals, electronic waste and new criteria on climate change only Sony and Sony Ericsson score more than 5/10 in our latest Guide to Greener Electronics. Nintendo and Microsoft remain rooted to the bottom of the Guide.

The Greener Electronics Guide is our way of getting the electronics industry to face up to the problem of e-waste. We want manufacturers to get rid of harmful chemicals in their products. We want to see an end to the stories of unprotected child labourers scavenging mountains of cast-off gadgets created by society's gizmo-loving ways.