The new MacBook, the latest notebook from Apple, spins on an invisible podium in the US television ad. Oh, how thin. How sleek. How shiny. All that, yes, but the voiceover is most thrilled by another feature: how green.

Little animations of chemical jars appear and dance around the spinning machine. “Now free of bad chemicals, like mercury,” the voiceover notes. A child-like lightbulb bounces into sight: “Uses less than a quarter of the electricity needed to run a lightbulb.” How green.

Apple is the cheeky chappy of the electronics industry and has never held its lightbulb under a bush. The fact that the company comes fourth from bottom in the ninth Greenpeace guide to green electronics, published in November 2008, is neither here nor there for Apple. It is as green as it says it is, and the ever-growing number of faithful MacBook buyers will feel that much better about their purchase.

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