| hsrob said: The reason this report doesn't hold much water for me, is not because it disrespected Nintendo (who is my father, not my mother, silly :P) but the manner in which it goes about reporting, which is to sensationalise. Half the news articles on the internet about this topic state that "Nintendo is bad for the environment" and Greenpeace does nothing to correct this. The reality is that this is a failing on behalf of Nintendo's PR department and not necessarily their green standards. In essence, it's not that Nintendo is actually doing anything bad but that it doesn't measure up to Greenpeace's standards of disclosure. Now i agree that Nintendo could easily pick up it's game in this regard, but in the end what is more important, that a company is actually green or that it's seen to be green? That is why i'd argue it more important for them to look at the products rather than green propaganda produced by the various PR departments. |
Greenpeace made the report and published it on their website. There's no more emphasis on Nintendo's case than on the other couple of dozens or so electronic producers in there. What were the criteria and what was the goal of the report is stated in the report opening and on their website.
If game sites want to take that public document and underline the Nintendo case, that's not Greenpeace responsibility. As long as they don't say anything factually wrong about the methodology or the data, it is actually none of Greenpeace's business what light the websites want to cast on the Nintendo case.
I do agree that in the end what counts is if a company is actually green. But everything starts by defining the processes that lead to the design of products and production lines, and with the indipendent verification of estabilished criteria.
As a customer, I want to know how much they are committing to reducing environmental damage. Knowing that they abide the laws of the countries where the pieces are fabricated (that could be going on in a pretty lawless province of China) is not enough. Obviously hearing "we're green because we say so" or "we're green because everybody knows we're green" is not enough.
Offering analysis on the products by a third party, and offering indipendent verification of the productive chain would be a good step. More than what the law asks them to do, but useful for me to trust them. Of course then these must not be empty promises: I expect the companies to keep their part of the deal.
That's also why in the Greenpeace report extra points are deducted from Dell and HP (I seem to remember) because they actually did not mantain their promises, and those two are the only cases that are underlined.
In the end it's PR, but the good kind of PR.
