Apple has scored a 2.7 on Greenpeaceis latest quarterly Guide to Greener Electronics, ahead of only Acer (2.3), Motorola (1.7), and Lenovo (1.3). Nokia and Dell tied for the top spot with a 7, while Hewlett-Packard was number two with a 5.7.

Greenpeace said in its report: "For a company that claims to lead on product design, Apple scores badly on almost all criteria. The company fails to embrace the precautionary principle, withholds its full list of regulated substances and provides no timelines for eliminating toxic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and no commitment to phasing out all uses of brominated flame retardants (BFRs). Apple performs poorly on product take back and recycling, with the exception of reporting on the amounts of its electronic waste recycled."

The company scored Partially Bad or Bad in every category but two -- Amounts recycled and Reports on amount collected and recycled -- where it scored Partially Good.

Greenpeace explained: "The ranking criteria reflect the demands of the Toxic Tech campaign to the electronics companies. Our two demands are that companies should: clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances; and take back and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete. The two issues are connected. The use of harmful chemicals in electronics prevents their safe recycling when the products are discarded. Companies scored marks out of 30 this has then been calculated to a mark out of 10 for simplicity."

Thanks to MacNN for the heads-up.