Greenpeace recently named HP, Dell, and Lenovo in their latest report of environmentally un-friendly tech companies. Greenpeace is alledging that the companies have backtracked on commitments to eliminate PVC and BFR’s by the end of 2009. Dell still leads the pack in 13th place, Lenovo in 14th, and HP second to last in 16th place.

Greenpeace’s major complaint is the failure to meet commitments for removal of hazardous materials, but I think Dell spells it out pretty well here:

“We remain very committed to proactively eliminating environmentally sensitive substances from our products, and we’re working closely with our suppliers to eliminate these chemicals from our products,” a spokesperson for Dell said. “This commitment is genuine, and we do deliver some BFR/PVC-reduced products today. However, as there are no viable alternatives to many of the components used in our products which include these chemicals, we’ve adjusted our timetable for eliminating them accordingly.”

Could these companies put more money and effort towards faster elimination of these materials in product manufacturing? Sure. But these companies are concerned with staying in business. Add to that the fact that realistically they can only indirectly effect material usage, as they do not themselves produce the individual parts used in their computers. They buy pretty much everything from suppliers and generally pay another company to assemble and ship them. OEM’s like these sure do carry a big stick with their suppliers and manufacturers, but there’s only so much they can do to force a transition and this economy is not likely to see a huge expenditure towards that goal. The bottom line is that “green” is a luxury, something people are willing to pay for when they have comfortable amounts of resources. That time is not now.

Lenovo specifically is moving its commitment to remove PVC and BRF’s out to 2010 and has even recently released a monitor free of these hazardous materials, but that just wasn’t enough for Greenpeace. If you’re curious who the greenest companies are according to Greenpeace, they are Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Philips, and Sony. Microsoft and Nintendo round out the five worst companies with Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

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