Anyone who follows either Apple or eco-friendly technology likely knows Apple’s green past is a bit checkered. One minute Greenpeace is calling Apple out on their lack of eco-friendly products, the next thing you know, Steve Jobs is penning a manifesto, declaring that "Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors," with regards to green tech. Is Apple an environmentally-conscious company? As with most things in life, the answer usually depends on who you ask.

For that reason, Apple fans will probably find the following news encouraging: the latest Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) scorecard awards Apple a number of silver medals for eco-friendliness. Apple’s priciest machine, the octo-core Mac Pro, as well as the 17 and 15.4-inch MacBook Pros, the 20 and 24-inch iMacs and all of the currently available Mac Minis were all awarded silver medals for having been manufactured in an eco-friendly manner.

Despite this fact, Ars Technica points out that Apple is still being beaten out in every category by the likes of Dell, HP, Toshiba and even Zonbu–so there’s definitely room for improvement. However, if one compares the gold and silver award winners, the difference often comes down to differences between the public reporting practices of the vendors–not actual differences in the products themselves or the manufacturing processes used. "So once again, Apple manages to score relatively badly because of lack of reporting rather than actual issues with their hardware," Ars Technica notes.

For more on the latest EPEAT rankings:
– see this article from Ars Technica