MAR 26

The majority of modern-day electronics use a variety of potentially toxic chemicals, like arsenic, lead and mercury. While those chemicals are safely contained within pour electronic devices, if disposed of improperly into a landfill, they can leach those toxins into the ground and water table.

The world uses many electronics and creates a lot of e-waste, and the U.S. in no exception. To address people’s concerns about this potential harm, some laptop manufacturers have developed green models of their newest notebooks. Here are five of the greenest laptops on the market.

Lenovo Thinkpad X301

The Lenovo Thinkpad X300 was one of only 15 notebooks to receive the EPEAT Gold certification, a sophisticated standard by which a device’s components pass evaluation in terms of eco-friendliness. Its successor, the X301 follows the same standards, but comes with faster and even more efficient components – all in a professional-looking and highly portable package.

For starters, this laptop features mercury-free LEDs in the display. Its low-voltage processor can stretch battery life with the aid of special efficiency software, and the package that the notebook comes in is now 90 percent recyclable. Additionally, the packaging doesn’t include any cadmium, lead or arsenic.

Toshiba Portégé A600

The Toshiba A600 is Gold EPEAT certified and Energy Star 4.0 compliant; it boasts a few green attributes that set it apart from other eco-friendly notebooks. For instance, the laptop uses a processor that runs on extremely low voltage, but processes at 1.4GHz.

With an LED backlit screen, the Toshiba Portégé A600 is thin (less than an inch) and weighs only 3.2 pounds. Toshiba also earned praise from environmental groups with a promise to cut down dramatically on the use of harmful chemicals in their PCs over the next several years.

HP 2730p Tablet

HP stepped into the green laptop market with the HP 2710p Tablet. This eco-friendly notebook’s claim to green fame is a longer battery life, estimated at around six hours. The laptop is Energy Star compliant and comes with low voltage Intel processors at speeds ranging from 1.2GHz to 1.6GHz.

ASUS Eee PC 1000HE

This revolutionary laptop is one of the quaintest, greenest and most aesthetically pleasing notebooks on the market. The 1000HE model has a 10-inch screen and weighs just two pounds. The super-efficient Atom processor uses no more than three watts and the intelligent “Super Hybrid Engine” can automatically sense changes in the power needs of the CPU and components, adjusting voltage and LCD brightness to maximize energy efficiency.

Apple MacBook Air

This gorgeous laptop is also one of the greenest available. The display on the MacBook Air is without arsenic or mercury and the case is made from recyclable aluminum.

While it does have a very powerful processor, which runs on approximately 14 watts, the laptop does qualify for the EnergyStar 4.0 certification. Apple also paid attention to the MacBook Air’s packaging, reducing the amount of potential waste by roughly half.

About the Author: Emilia Johansson works for the laptop site LaptopLogic.com. On their site you can find lots of information on laptop computers, technology and gadgets.

Comments (12)

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Power supply of eeePC
written by wouter, March 27, 2009

I have the eeePC 1000H, with Europe model power supply. What strikes me is that the supply becomes very hot when it charges the eeePC. So I looked at the labels on the supply and couldn't find an EnergyStar label on it.

It reads 12V 3A (e.g. 36Watt) output,
and 110-220V ~ .5A input.

To me that does not look like a 80+ energy efficient supply. Or am I missing something?

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environment friendly production
written by wouter, March 27, 2009

Not only energy consumption is important. The ePeat rating of the products defines how friendly the production and packing process is.

ePeat Silver
eeePC 1000HE : 17/27 : http://www.epeat.net/ProductDi...uctid=2378

ePeat Gold
Apple MacBook Air: 21/27 : productid = 2072
HP 2730p: 21/27 : productid = 1879
Toshiba Portégé A600: 22/27 : productid = 2079
Lenovo Thinkpad X301: 21/27 : productid = 1841

P.S.
I was not able to post 5 direct links to the products, so I gave the product id's above here in plain text.

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Bogus Measurements
written by Carl, March 27, 2009

In nearly all the "greenness" measures I've seen for computers, the score is mostly unrelated to actual environmental cost. Since manufacturers aren't required to measure energy consumption like a refrigerator manufacturer, there is no direct proportional measure of electric consumption. Ratings tend to be qualitative (what kinds of green marketing is written) rather than qualitative, like how many pounds of mercury is released into the atmosphere.

The EPEAT rating is a good example of a misleading scoring system-- take a look, it's just a checklist of ideas, not a measure of pollution or energy consumption.

Wouter, the numbers on the charger is the maximum capacity of the converter, not a measure of typical use. But from my own measurements, most laptops are a fraction of the energy consumption of a desktop, mainly because they are worried about battery life not wall power. For people that don't shut machines down, a laptop could save >$500 in electricity over 5 years vs a desktop.

A true measure of greenness would be a score based on energy consumption, plus indirect and direct pollution. (Indirect could be from manufacture of materials or energy production.) People complain about mercury in a CFL, but the amount is way less than the mercury released into the air by incandescent lights.

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Another look at Green Laptops
written by Casey Harrell, April 02, 2009

I would encourage readers, especially the comments above that talk about the need to measure pollution in terms of environmental impacts, to take a look at the latest Greenpeace Survey of Green Electronics. This is a yearly ranking (different than our quarterly guide on company-wide policy) of the greenest products on the market for laptops, desktops, TVs, mobile phones, and monitors. The only caveat is that the questions we ask companies to provide are detailed enough that we can not properly score companies that do not submit products to us (such as Apple).

I'd encourage people to check out our last report and the criteria we use: http://www.greenpeace.org/inte...rvey080109

Feel free to send any comments to me, as I authored the report This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International

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Far from bogus
written by Sarah O'Brien, April 02, 2009

I work with the EPEAT system and wanted to point out that the majority of EPEAT criteria definitely measure actual environmental impact. In fact the criteria are very specific about exact limits on toxic materials, specific design attributes to facilitate recycling, etc. This may not have been apparent from our website summary of the criteria - which does not provide the specific verification measures that must be met to declare a product compliant with any criterion. Those are contained in the full IEEE 1680 standard which underlies EPEAT - available through www.ieee.org (It costs $70 - sorry - we don't own it.)
A few EPEAT criteria relate to disclosure - these were developed in those areas where there was little coherent information at the time the criteria were developed (2003-4) on some areas of product content(average mercury in lamps, availability of usable recycled resins, for example). The information that has been disclosed by the more than 1000 porducts registered in EPEAT so far will likely form the basis for specific requirements when the underlying IEEE standard is updated by stakeholders starting this year.
ENERGY STAR specifications do form the EPEAT system's required energy criterion. Stakeholders felt that since ES is a requirement in almost all government purchases in North America, as well as a growing body of purchasers worldwide, it made sense as the baseline requirement. We expect that in updates to the IEEE standard, starting this year, additional energy specifications will be integrated into the system.
EPEAT also provides an environmental benefits calculator (reachable through www.epeat.net/Fastbenefits.aspx) with very detailed information about anticipated reductions per product and EPEAT tier from specific criteria, which you might like to take a look at. Like any lifecycle calculator, it will always be a work in progress, but it does allow for specific assessment of the benefit from design to EPEAT standards. I'd be happy to discuss the details of our criteria, system, verification process, and benefits calculations further - feel free to contact me at sarah.obrien(at)greenelectronicscouncil.org .

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upgradable?
written by Tom, April 04, 2009

Nice laptops, but how many of them is upgradable, repairable?
Buying a gadget and throwing it away as soon as it goes broke is NOT green, neither is it green to replace it after 1½ year because it cant run the new windows/game/whatever.
Lets be honest, 60% of those buying a laptop could just as well do with a desktop, that can be upgraded when needed, and where you can replace parts gone broke.
No sorry, there is no spoon, or wrinkleremovercream, or green laptops.

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...
written by Yvelle, April 06, 2009

I think people should focus on being able to recycle all parts of a laptop and its packaging in addition to efficiency/effectiveness.

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...
written by Fred, June 24, 2009

I agree with Yvelle, it will take alot more than using greener computers to fix that simple problem of getting energy under control.

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not sure about all that
written by cheap laptops, April 07, 2010

I think people should focus on being able to recycle all parts of a laptop and its packaging in addition to efficiency/effectiveness.

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Mr
written by Web Oracle, June 29, 2010

What do you mean greenest? Was it environmental friendly?

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...
written by RachelEvans, August 03, 2010

Thanks for posting these ecological machines. As consumer demand grows for cheap laptops we must remember that cheaper prices should NOT come at the expense of the enviroment. I'd rather pay more for an expensive computer if I knew it was enviromentally sound.

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thanks for sharing
written by kembud, February 28, 2012

thanks for sharing, this really helped me when I want to buy notebook

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