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Introduction
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) and the Computer Take Back Campaign (CTBC) are pleased to release the 2005 Computer Report Card. The Computer Report Card, issued by SVTC since 2000, tracks the progress that computer and electronics companies are making on social and environmental indicators, including materials policy, supply chain management, take back programs, and end-of-life management of their products. By providing this information to the public, and to the companies themselves, we hope to improve the social and environmental performance of the brands. We believe that these companies must set and achieve the highest performance standards for labor rights, environmental protection, and human rights; just as they do for computing speed, functionality, size and product innovation.
This past year SVTC and CTBC created a survey for manufacturers of business and consumer electronics to measure the progress of these companies in protecting public health, worker safety and the environment. The scores of the report are limited to the companies that returned the survey. During the span of this annual report card we have seen some limited progress in key indicators such as toxic materials reduction, recycled content, and recoverable content. The greatest challenge has been creating standards that can adequately measure progress in a rapidly changing and chemically intensive industry with inadequate benchmarks of its own.
The most alarming trends in the electronics industry in the United States continue to be staunch opposition to producer take back programs (with the exception of two responsible companies) and ongoing use and release of hazardous chemicals throughout the life cycle of electronic products. This reluctance to adopt and support producer take back systems has impeded the growth of an environmentally and socially protective electronics recycling infrastructure. In many parts of the United States, depending on where you live in, electronic waste from your community is still being land-filled, incinerated, dismantled in prisons, or shipped overseas where it is causing great environmental harm. Many of the chemicals used in electronic component manufacturing -- such as semiconductors, printed circuit boards, and disk drives -- have not been adequately tested, and workers exposed to these chemicals in these manufacturing plants continue to have high rates of occupational illnesses.
CTBC was formed in Spring 2001 to promote "clean and green" electronics production and responsible end-of-life management through producer responsibility in the US. Our goal has been to raise the standards in the U.S. to become at least comparable to European and Japanese standards. In that year, the CTBC developed the Electronics TakeBack Platform. The criteria used to grade the companies' performance are derived from the principles in the platform. (See Appendix I)
Companies graded in this Report Card produce and sell consumer electronics products including desktop computers, laptop computers, televisions, monitors and/or printers.
