Greenpeace has just published a survey revealing just how green some of the coolest gadgets on the market actually are.

Some products came out significantly better than others, but not even the best scored above 5/10 in the comprehensive survey.

Greenpeace asked all the top brands for desktop PCs, notebooks or laptops, mobile phones, and PDAs to submit what they considered to be their greenest products.

Sony surprisingly came out on top. The best of the best included the Sony Vaio TX11 and the Sony Ericsson T650i mobile phone. Apple did not submit any of its products, and are believed not to be currently on talking terms with the pressure group, believing that they have been unfairly targeted because of their market prominence.

In their Guide to Greener Electronics Greenpeace ranked companies by their policy and practices concerning recycling, the use of energy and toxic components.

Greenpeace also praised some manufacturers in their pursuit of innovations in toxic reduction, energy efficiency, longer lifecycles and recycling.

Electronics manufacturers unlikely to co-operate long terms with Greenpeace on product lifecycles issues

trade 2 save is a champion for increasing the lifecycle of electronics products, however, to hope that manufacturers would willingly increase the lifecycle of their products is too much of a hope by Greenpeace. Over the last two decades, the consumer electronics giants have quadrupled their revenues by significantly reducing product lifecycles. This has resulted in the sizable explosion of the non-recyclable electronics waste that we see today

Manufacturers will, in the short term at least, be willing to make their products greener to enhance their green credentials and bolster their marketability to an increasingly green conscious target market. However, history suggests that their profits are directly linked to the increased rate at which these products are produced, so it’s folly to think that they would encourage consumers to hold onto their products for longer without upgrading to the next new model which is only 3/4 months away.

The life expectancy of an iPhone may well be 5-7 years. But with the new 3G model coming out 5-7 months after the previous model’s launch, it will be interesting to see how many of those who queued up on the first day of launch will be upgrading to the nearer model. For this is the true measure of a product’s lifecyle that Greenpeace should take closer note of.

When consumers buy, sell or trade pre-owned or used computers, games, electronics, movies or cell phones, they significantly reduce the demand for manufacturing nre products in the same way that buying a used car (sadly) reduces the profits of the ford motor company. 95% of consumer lectronics sold today is brand new. In the car industry, it is under 20%. trade 2 save want to change this, reduce e-waste, and save consumers money in he process.