If you’re looking to buy a new gadget, but want to figure out which brand is greenest, you’re in luck. The Consumer Electronics Association has released its first Environmental Sustainability Report showing how major electronic companies stack up when it comes to sustainability.

The report covers a wide range of devices and examines companies like Dell, Nokia, Intel and Hewlett-Packard based on design, energy conservation, manufacturing, delivery strategies and charitable practices.

The report is a mixture of good and bad news. In the past four years, companies saw a reduction in electricity use of 5-25% per one million dollars in revenue, but greenhouse gas emissions have increased by an average of 15% per one million dollars in revenue. A total of 69 percent report active recycling programs but only 38 percent report reusing electronics whether whole or in part.

All companies have introduced more energy-efficient products, notably monitors, which have shown a 30 percent energy consumption reduction compared to older models.

The most interesting information is the brand-specific data. You can check out the full report here (PDF).

So Apple has once again managed to get the world all excited about some fancy new device...though I don't think anyone's quite certain exactly why this is so cool. In essence, Apple will be carving their new MacBooks out of one solid block of aluminum, certainly not as green as some of the bamboo cases we've seen. The advantages, they say, are unsurpassed style and ultra-light weight. But I'm only concerned about one thing...is this thing going to save the earth...or destroy it?

Well, it turns out it's a little of both. The new process slices the computer case out of a 2.5 lb brick of highly processed aluminum. At the end of the process, there's a 0.5 lb case. So, right off the bat, Apple is creating a block of metal with a huge amount of embodied energy (from the mine through the final milling process) and the vast majority of it is just going into the recycling bin to be re-melted and re-processed. Green? I think not.

The current Macbook cases (I'm typing on one right now) are simple, hard, white plastic. They're just as durable, and take far less energy to produce than a 2.5 lb brick of highly milled aluminum. I'm not sure what the advantage here is, but it's certainly not sustainability.

The other concern with Apple's gadgets is that they can sometimes be extremely difficult to repair. Aluminum-cased iPods sometimes can't even be repaired without scrapping the case entirely. Obviously that would be a big environmental no-no for Apple - to have to scrap a case every time an internal repair was needed.

But on other fronts, the new Macbooks are chock full of green cred. Their rated EPeat Gold, a measure of environmental friendliness of computers, something only a handful of other computers boast. They contain no mercury, no BFRs, no lead, and the LCD screens are backlit by highly efficient LEDs. They may even be just as green as the Macbook Air.

I'm glad to see Apple focusing on the efficiency of their computers, not to mention decreasing the amount of toxic materials they contain. But this new carved-brick process isn't green, it's wasteful, and I'm happy to be sticking with my good-ol' plastic clunker.