As many of you will have noticed, it’s been a little quiet on here.

The New Year always starts with a bang – first we have the global kick off which this year was in Rome. For that I’m usually asked to check to make sure the speeches are all “presentable” and we also were responsible for the CSR presentation which, in addition to the other projects, finally announced to the 300+ managers the fact that we’ve been providing support for Sustainable Coastlines and the late, great Ady Gil.

Oh and BTW, seems like plans are underfoot for an Ady Gil 2 so we’re not done yet.

Then as you’ve no doubt read somewhere, “Acer’s about to present a gazillion smartphones in 2010” and obviously the place to do that is the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona which means yours truly is racing against time to write all the necessary marketing material.

If I’m not mistaken this happened last year and I’m very grateful to you generous folks who day in day out keep the conversations flowing.

In between writing the web content for a bunch of new smartphones I’ve been trying to get my hands on information about the notebook that is making a few ripples over on Twitter – the Aspire 3811TZ and Aspire 3811TZG, Acer’s first notebooks to get Greenpeace’s stamp of approval and receive an Energy Star 5.0 rating.

Aspire Timeline 3811TZ

The reason? Because they are the first notebooks made with materials free of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

According to the press release: “The chemical characteristics of PVC and BFRs may generate toxic substances like dioxins and furans at a product’s end-of-life, so the reduction of PVC and BFRs in Acer products will help reduce the negative impact on the environment over its entire life cycle.”

Bear in mind that we are talking about the Timeline series, which is already one of the most energy-efficient notebooks while in use – system-wide energy consumption of a Timeline series notebook can save up to 40% compared with traditional products – so eliminating two key harmful elements from its case means it’s now greener while it’s “off”, too.

The moment I get my hands on one, I’ll post some images.

On the same argument, Greenpeace used the CES event to publish and push its Guide to Greener Electronics. Pity it had been prepared before this product launch… If you’re interested in reading it you can download it here.