microsoft

The latest edition of our Guide to Greener Electronics has revealed that very few firms are showing true climate leadership. Despite many green claims, major companies like Dell, Microsoft, Lenovo, LG, Samsung and Apple are failing to support the necessary levels of global cuts in emissions and make the absolute cuts in their own emissions that are required to tackle climate change.

More from our international site  »

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.

Nintendo's Wii. Sony's PlayStation 3 Elite. Microsoft's Xbox 360. They promise a whole new generation of high-definition gaming, but when it comes to the crunch, it's the same old story. As our search for greener electronics continues, it was time for the game consoles to go to our labs for scientific analysis – and all of them tested positive for various hazardous chemicals.

Our analysis, published in our new report, Playing Dirty, detected the use of hazardous chemicals and materials such aspolyvinyl chloride (PVC), phthalates, beryllium and bromine indicative of brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

More information on our international site »

Question: switching from a computer running on Windows to one running on Linux could slash computer-generated e-waste levels by 50 per cent. True or false?

And the answer is (cue long drawn-out tension building drumroll): TRUE!

With Christmas getting ever closer we've some unfestive bad news for gaming giants Nintendo, makers of the popular Wii, Gamecube and Game Boy consoles. They've achieved a spectacular zero score in the latest edition of our quarterly Greener Electronics Guide - the first time such a feat has ever been accomplished.

The guide ranks companies on the toxic content of their products and their willingness to take back and recycle them once they become redundant. This is the first time that we've included gaming consoles, giving Nintendo the chance to leap straight into last place - an opportunity they grasped with both hands!