Greenpeace Slams Nintendo

27 Nov 2008 at 17:48:03 by Andy Alderson

Greenpeace has questioned Nintendo's comittment to environmental issues in a recent report. 

According to Edge, the conservationist group has compiled data on the big electronics companies ahead of December's talks on global emissions. A number of factors were observed by Greenpeace, including the use of certain chemicals, waste management and manufacturing standards. The companies were scored out of three in all 15 categories.

Of the three main console manufacturers, Nintendo came out worst with Greenpeace's Iza Kruszewska criticising the company for a lack of transparency on environmental issues.

"Nintendo are not engaging at all,” said Kruszewska.

"I have spoken to Nintendo’s sales people in the UK, and even they admit that Nintendo isn’t communicating enough, not just externally but internally, apparently."

The lack of communication has led to the company scoring no points in 11 of the 15 categories. Its total score was four points out of a possible 45.

"We’re in continuous dialogue with all the companies we speak to, apart from Nintendo", Kruszewska continued.

"I’ve never been able to get an answer from them aside from a couple of marketing people in the UK who have been trying to forward the messages to global headquarters in Japan, but we get no response from Nintendo. The company has an incredibly poor standard of communication regarding this issue."

The environmental data Nintendo has disclosed has not impressed Greenpeace. "Nintendo does have a target to cut absolute emissions by 2 percent each year," said Kruszewska.

"[B]ut they themselves said they didn’t meet that, and I understand that their emissions actually increased by 6 percent when their sales began to shoot up in 2007."

Both Microsoft and Sony fared considerably better, scoring 15 points and 24 points respectively. 

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