I met the delightful Zeina Al-Hajj, of Greenpeace International at a SXSW awards show - she was up for an activist award for her work with the Green My Apple campaign.
Green My Apple seems like a no-brainer for Apple, but I learned a few surprising pieces of information from Zeina. Apparenly she had recently attended a MacWorld conference and didn't get a very warm reception. She was even told by conference coordinators that they didn't think Apple & Greenpeace were a good fit. Huh?! According to the Green My Apple site, just 2 years ago, Steve Jobs called environmentalists concern about Apples "bullshit."
The Greenpeace campaign focuses on the toxic chemicals used in making Macs and iPods which eventually end up as toxic waste. They set up a whole pseudo-apple site on which they invite you to create your own tshirts and video campaigns, write to Steve Jobs, and generally spread the word.
I was happy to learn that Zeina found SXSW and Austin to be much more receptive to the campaign than MacWorld was. She also mentioned that she saw tons more Macs in use at SXSW than at Macworld - I love that! (Love the Rebel Inside shirt too...)
And as I promised Zeina, I hereby swear that she paid for her own drinks, and that one of the two drinks she's holding was mine :)