Greenpeace stick with their "Guilty until proven innocent" policy on scoring companies...

Greenpeace have given companies ratings once again. Sony get a score of 7.3, Microsoft get 4.7 whereas Nintendo get a score increase of 0.3...giving them a full score of 0.3.

Nintendo aren't doing anything wrong. It's just Greenpeace's way of doing things - if a company doesn't respond to Greenpeace they simply get a low score. They seem to do little research of their own. The main "problems" seem to be a lack of public policy on toxic elimination and recycling.

A quick browse of Nintendo.com gives us two important things. First is a public policy on what Nintendo are doing to reduce toxic products. Note that Microsoft's improved score was partly due to phasing out the use of PVC.

"As is stated in the manuals of the Wii console and DS Lite, neither product contains latex, lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE). Additionally, we have been phasing out the use of PVC in our packaging, using a safer, recyclable plastic instead."

And what do Nintendo have to say about recycling their products? Well, lets see:

"Because old Nintendo products are still in high demand on the used market, we rarely receive requests for the recycling of older Nintendo products; however, for customers who are interested in recycling their products, we offer referrals to local recycling options, as well as a take-back program if local options are not available."

So, it seems that Nintendo are getting punished because they tell people to sell/pass on their products as opposed to recycling them. Which is odd considering that passing the product on to someone else is more environmentally friendly than recycling it. Even if people persist on recycling their products Nintendo will give us information on how to recycle them and they even offer to do it themselves.

Greenpeace don't seem to want to reconsider the way they mark companies. Nintendo don't have many products that become obsolete or unwanted when they become "outdated" by newer technology, so why do they need to waste money on a big recycling policy?