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According to Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization backed by yogurt company Stonyfield Farm, Apple ranks at the bottom of the list for companies that are the most environmentally friendly, receiving a score of 11 out of a possible 100.  Specifically, Climate Counts cites Apple’s lack of publicly available information on its global warming policies and Apple’s poor public policy stance on climate change.  You can check out Apple’s score card at the Climate Counts website by clicking here.

This is nothing new for Apple.  In the past, the popular electronics company has been bombarded with complaints from environmental groups.  Last year, Greenpeace ran an article stating that the iPhone contains a variety of toxic substances, such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and PVC.

Apple has been doing a great deal to raise awareness about the environment and show how it is building more environmentally-friendly products.  It has a section of its website dedicated to the environment and Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, even composed a lengthy article titled, “A Greener Apple”, in which he lays out many of the things Apple is doing to help the environment.

In 2007, Apple released a version of the MacBook Pro that featured an LCD backlit display and therefore contained no mercury.  In 2008, a MacBook with LCD display glass was released that was arsenic-free.

Nevertheless, many of Apple’s products, such as the iPhone, continue to house dangerous chemicals.  On Apple’s MacBook Technical Specifications page it states that the “Majority of circuit board laminates are free of brominated flame retardants” and goes on to list other chemicals that are contained in the computer in small amounts.  However, it doesn’t state how much of each chemical is inside the computer.  “Majority” is a fairly broad term and could be taken in many different ways.  Furthermore, many companies, such as Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson have products that are completely free of certain toxic materials such as BFRs and PVC.

Apple is doing quite a bit in terms of freeing its products of dangerous chemicals.  But what seems to really be holding it back, and what caused it to rank so poorly in the Climate Counts assessment, is that it is not doing enough with regards to greenhouse gas emissions.  It doesn’t have a comprehensive inventory of what kinds of emissions it’s producing, nor does it seem to have a definitive goal as to how to reduce those emissions.

Hopefully next year we’ll see Apple start to address these concerns and move up on the list.  But until then, it looks like Apple will, unfortunately, once again be relegated to the status of the least environmentally-friendly electronics company around.