back to article Apple snubs O2's handset enviro-spec rating

O2 has added environmental impact to its handset specifications, rating the Palm Pre as the worst while Sony Ericsson's Elm left the smallest footprint. The new labels, which indicate the environmental impact of each handset based on O2's own criteria, will be applied to 93 per cent of the devices supported by the network - a …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ahh Foxconn

    ....the suicide bullshit myth, spewed out by media that don't do any reseacrh!

    It is BELOW the average for China in general. One plant alone is the size of a small city!

    Yes the wages and conditions are crap, but the suicide rate is nothing special.

    1. blackworx

      Erm...

      I thought it wasn't so much about the suicide rate itself as the reasoning behind the recent suicides against this back story of Foxconn's over-zealous security goons? Or was that part made up too?

  2. Aron
    Big Brother

    count me out

    I won't buy anything with an eco rating. It's bad enough I'm forced to put up with CO2 footprint numbers on a milk bottle. Keep giving these people the power to do it and they'll stick a rating on you and make you live on rations in order to keep the poor poor and the rich in perpetual power.

  3. Richard Jones 1

    Who's Suicide

    Anonymous Coward trots out the tired objection to the so called suicide myth, but apple, (crapple?) chose not to participate so either crapple fell for the myth themselves, or they are the suicide jockies.

    Or could it be that they are just a bunch of arrogant layabouts who own, but take no responsibility for the planet, (at least in their own eyes) ?

    1. Chris 3

      Faulty reasoning

      No idea why Apple didn't go for this, especially since they've been attempting to buff up their green credentials over the last year. It could indeed be that they are arrogant layabouts.

      Nonetheless, the "ethical policies such as labour standards and employee safety are included too, so suicides at Foxconn won't do Apple any good." does look a bot sloppy, given as Mr Coward says, the rates at the factory were nothing special.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Jobs Horns

        Obvious why they didn't go for it

        They don't control the rating process (it's another organisation who decides how green they are), so they don't want to be a part of it.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    NFC?

    No Frills Christianity? How does that help you get on a bus?

  5. Daniel 1

    "Suicides at Foxconn won't do Apple any good"

    It shouldn't do the Palm Pre, much good either, since the Pre is made by Chi Mei Communication Systems... a majority-owned subsidiary of Foxconn International Holdings. Sony Ericson have longstanding deals with Foxcon, too.

    You can make your phones from recycled plastic, all you want, and still be an absolute bastard.

    However, there's no real evidence to suggest that Foxconn - for all its status as a scarily vast multinational, that is responsible for making just about everything anyone actually wants to own, on the planet - is actually a bad employer to work for (as city-sized, self-contained assembly plants go, that is).

    Consider this, if Sony Ericsson actually did make phones in Scandinavia, the chances are the plant would have a high suicide rate, simply by dint of employing Scandinavians.

  6. Zeke Thomas

    Non Eco Criteria

    I have a lot of issues with this "sustainability" index. For example, the Sony Ericsson Elm (the highest-rated phone) got extra points because it "replaces" an MP3 player, GPS, etc. ... but in my experience, my SE phone had such a crap MP3 player that I still bought an iPod. I can only assume a lot of the other built-in functionality that various phone models were rewarded for in these rankings are also of minimal quality/utility and similarly DON'T replace separate devices.

    Why can't they restrict themselves to just rating the enviro impact of the phones' production and stay away from such bullshit subjective areas?

    1. Lottie

      agreed

      I find that if I use my phone as an MP3 player, I have to recharge more often, but if I use a seperate player, I only need to charge it whne I replace the tracks (every 2-3 weeks) and charge my phone much less (every 2-3 days, but I do hammer the data connection and games).

      Also, I don't drive so does that make the phone less eco friendly because it hasn't replaced a satnav?

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