Latest rankings : Sony 7.3/10, MS 2.7/10, Nintendo 0/10!

[liuelson]

IMHO Nintendo does have to take responsibility of their own report. It's not like Greenpeace snuck up on them and used only the information on the website.

Also keep in mind that Greenpeace is an advocacy organization, and giving Nintendo a score of "0/10" instead of a more accurate "N/A" puts public pressure on Nintendo to cooperate with Greenpeace's requests for information in the future.

The methodology of the report means that the score is not about the environmental impact of Nintendo's manufacturing practices per se, but rather the lack of publicly available information about such manufacturing practices.

I think we can agree that greater transparency is a good thing. I think we can also agree that Greenpeace is not acting as an impartial environmental auditor in this case, but mainly as a public advocate.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

It's utter nonsense IMO.

 

[Crossbar]

Some interesting comments in this thread. Good research by spong BTW, they have their days.

Greenpeace happen to have quite a few specialists employed full time carrying out research and writing reports, some tree-huggers may find them to be too professional.

"Attention-seeking whores" is a correct denomination if you leave out the "whore" part. Given their PR-budget their "stunts" are quite efficient at getting the media attention at multinational companies dumping toxic waste in third world countries or whatever they do. Most companies do not enjoy that kind of attention as the number of responsible and aware consumers are increasing. Which hopefully makes the companies start acting pro-active on these issues. I am quite sure that the board of Nintendo will pay some attention this, I´ve already seen the report qouted in newspapers.

A lot of people are also moving from not-in-my-backyard sentiment to not-in-anyones-backyard sentiment, which is a good thing. But things are moving pretty slowly and the coming generations will probably look back at us with detest, as a bunch of shortsighted morons, judging from recent reports:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/25/climate.summit.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/17/spain.climate/
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/27/climate.change.ap/index.html

There may be hope after all, I just read that Peter Garrett will get a Minister position in the new Australian government.

Enough rant, probably does not belong in this thread but I thought there were quite a few posts there before me.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Wow, this is ridiculous. Just shows how greenpace will do anything to "create" a story.

The score, is based on what kind of information the three console makers have on their website, it has nothing to do with real life.

How do we know it has nothing to do with real life?

Because any human with the slightest brain activity is able to understand if you got one relatively small (compared to how much CE they produce vs sony) console company (nintendo), one software company (Microsoft) and the biggest producer of CE goods in the world (Sony) its relatively safe to assume that Sony will be the biggest polluter pretty much no matter how good they are at recycling

 

[patsu]

Because any human with the slightest brain activity is able to understand if you got one relatively small (compared to how much CE they produce vs sony) console company (nintendo), one software company (Microsoft) and the biggest producer of CE goods in the world (Sony) its relatively safe to assume that Sony will be the biggest polluter pretty much no matter how good they are at recycling

The point is about practices and policies. Even a software company who outsources their hardware work should impose minimal standards on their partners' environmental policies. No company should run away from the responsibility.

I think it's a good thing for Green Peace to put pressure on the vendors, but they may not have the power to regulate or impose any practices/policies. So all they can do is PR/awareness. It does not mean they are wrong. It may mean they (or someone else) need to do _more_.

If MS and Nintendo have good environmental practices, then putting those information up in a consistent way will help to promote the movement and consumer awareness. It is also a minimal standard people can hold the companies against once it's written down by themselves.

As a whole, we all still have quite some ways to go. It's good for Sony to have clear environmental policies, and MS to have some. But both can do more by implementing better power saving mode.