To offer an alternative view to those bashing Apple it appears they have made solid progress on reducing emissions over the last 5 years. Some concrete stats on their emissions reductions can be found on page 84 on this report https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Pr...
Total gross carbon footprint (without offsets)
(metric tons CO2e):
Fiscal Year 2017: 27,500,000
Fiscal Year 2021: 23,200,000
This include Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions so AFAIK includes things like transportation of goods.
"Reducing emissions" is just shifting numbers around. The same way we "recycled" for decades by selling our trash to SEA where they burn it. Now we manufacture "green technology" and mine rare metals abroad to make a KPI go up at home.
It is not even remotely similar to recycling by selling trash to SEA. Green energy reduces emissions on net, even including the rare earth mining. I suppose you could argue that the rare earth mining is also bad for some reason - but it's certainly not the case that global net carbon emissions are not being reduced by green energy.
It seems to boil down to taxes, credits, and getting things done in places with poor controls. Everything electronic requires copper, the less pure the more it needs to be refined using massive amounts of energy provided by diesel and coal. The large trucks (400 ton behemoths) burn ~92gal/hour or 350liters/hour and run 24/7. Solar panels come from China, China uses coal and questionable labor to produce the panels. Everything is shipped across the world using oil. Minerals for the batteries and minerals for the wind turbines. Turbines use about ~5tons of copper, half of which is copper wiring. The amount of refining and how dirty it is I don't think people really grasp. The refining process is really something. Here's a neat thread on it: https://twitter.com/mining_atoms/status/1584306032653717505
These sorts of Twitter threads are hilarious, because they assume first of all that renewables fans are going to aghast, just aghast, when they realize that somehow there's extractive lining to produce the raw materials! Oh no! What ever will we do, guess it's time to go back to rubbing sticks together and massive degrowth!
Which, sure, there are a few naive folks like that; but the renewables space is filled with industrialists that did the hard technology work of actually creating an entirely new energy future. Come on, random Twitter dude... these folks know their supply chains and are smart enough to know that basically all reports everywhere for the past 10 years are predicting this massive shift from fossil fuel extraction to mineral extraction. Nobody is surprised.
As for the rest of your comment, none of the rest of the energy source has to be carbon based. And by saying that they are going to decarbonize their supply chain, Apple is creating a guaranteed customer for new business to actually deliver that supply. And for a new business, that guaranteed market is by far the most important factor for getting a new business off the ground. It means that no matter their costs, as long as they are better than the other decarbonized sources, they can win the bid. And that's where subsidies/tax credits are weaker, because they have to predict the delta between the earliest decarbonized product and the traditional alternatives. A guaranteed market gets around that.
For tough-to-decarbonize sectors such as concrete, having more purchasers of the zero-carbon early products, such as city governments or state governments, is a huge boom to entrepreneurs looking to pioneer a new space.
So Apple really is doing something significant, which will actually change the economy for the better, and probably more so than a tax credit scheme.
It takes and is going to continue to take a massive amount of energy and resources to complete the energy transition.
People are working on reducing demand for electricity through efficiency, but if we electrified everything in the US today, demand for electricity would something like 9x. So, yes, we're going to need a lot more copper.
I mean not all of this is because of conscious improvements based on improving emissions. Every new generation of processor is going to take less energy to operate and every new generation of power management chip is going to be more efficient.
"we have investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing."
If apple were interested in decarbonization they would change their business strategies and put their wealthiest company in the world money to good use. So far, it's hoarded in off shore bank accounts.
The issue currently is that we have gone from around 88% fossil fuels to 83% fossil fuels in the last ~2 decades.
Electricity and power make up around 20% of global use, with manufacturing taking a portion of the pie closer to 30%. Migrating those systems is a very large hurdle, but I'll admit that whilst doing some investing around this recently, it seems to be a clear target by many organisations. Migrating traditional manufacturing processes for chemicals and base materials is going to have a massive impact on the overall situation.
In saying all this, the idea that we will be anything close to decarbonised by 2030 is a joke of epic proportions, the scale of the problem is mind boggling. Not that that means we shouldn't try, as it's a very necessary goal. But I actually think being more realistic about the scale of the issue is more likely to generate more interest in crafting fixes, as opposed to these bullshit goals that in many ways, make the problem sound solveable within the timeline. Which it isn't.
Decarbonizing doesn't mean not using oil, it means not releasing CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, correct?
This seems to be more about moving manufacturing to use renewable electricity sources, which should be pretty easy (just get a different contract and pay slightly more).
Decarbonising means moving away from sources of energy with extreme levels of CO2 output.
I like your thought on this, but it really is not that simple, however great it would be if it was. You get into issues of energy density very quickly, and hard industries requires lots of heat, which the conversion rate for electricity is very inefficient, necessitating other forms of energy source. It's nowhere near as simple as just "switching provider", you can't smelt steel with solar power.
For the big 5 products, steel, plastic, cement, ammonia and icantrememberthelastone, you have a bunch of processes that require energy densities that are fundamentally different to residential tier appliances etc that can be provided by solar, wind etc. And for some of these products, which are integral to worldwide economies, there really aren't feasible replacements.
I understand the environmental reasons for a company to do this, it’s very important and would you happen to know the business incentives for them doing this?
IMO (and I'm talking from a perspective here that I believe aligns with their incentives) it's basically at this stage rational self interest, and I'm not talking about survival lol. Straight up makes sense investment wise because companies are starting to be shamed (rightfully so) for not being green, so there's a business case for increased investment returns on your capital, also with some of the carbon credit type deals (an area I have little knowledge of other than it being "important"), being able to trumpet cleaner production processes means that your product will be chosen over another. I figure there's a fundamental shift in the market coming, and I (and others who want to see their investments grow and not shrink) want to be on the wave.
Most stick listed companies have similar actions underway or will do so shortly. The market will demand it. A good thing in general however there will be green washing...
I don't think Apple is claiming they were always good about this, though for quite a long time they've at least been making some movements towards more sustainable products--as an example, they were an early adopter of minimal-plastics packaging in tech, and to "feel more premium" the market chased them. In terms of software, iPadOS 16 works on devices as far back as the iPad Air 3 and the iPad 5, though, which is pretty deep into the "usable life" of these electronics.
Beyond that, this definition of "repurposing" seems...slanted. You probably aren't repurposing an iPad 1 anyway because it's a very slow single-core processor, but I still have multiple 30-pin-connector iPads around my house (including at least one iPad 2) being used as dedicated kiosks/control surfaces for stuff. I wouldn't expose them to the internet, but I also don't really see a reason why I would anyway--they'd be too slow to use to browse the web. (I do the same with a couple of old Nexus tablets, too.)
And that I repurpose them is a particularly exceptional use case. It is for any stuff that old. This mythical idea of "oh, well, if they had unlocked bootloaders, people would still be using iPhones and iPads long into the future!" is just...pretty clearly untrue. Android devices with unlocked bootloaders end up in the bin at no less of a rate than iOS devices, even though one could go install an AOSP flavor on them and keep them ticking. There aren't enough people interested in doing so to soak up all of those; why would adding more devices move the needle?
> Beyond that, this definition of "repurposing" seems...slanted. You probably aren't repurposing an iPad 1 anyway because it's a very slow single-core processor
I have 10+ year old Macs that make excellent Linux machines, and I can connect them to the internet, too, because they're capable of running modern software.
Allowing iPads to run non-Apple approved software opens the door to a world of opportunities for iPad owners, even if you personally can't think of what you'd do with that freedom.
I would be interested in this number as well. A quick search of the report shows they are tracking it:
"With the help of customer and employee participation across recycling programs, we directed more than 38,000 metric tons of e-waste to recycling globally in fiscal year 2021."
Keep in mind some of this behavior is because of carriers / telephone companies. They are they ones that force the phone to be locked in the first place.
Carrier locking isn't the same as firmware locking that I believe OP was alluding to. You can unlock via carriers and various means, you cannot by default install any applications or third party software packages (sans jailbreaks).
Disappointing there's no explicit mention of shipping here, which is almost certainly a huge part of things and an area where a big mover could make a big difference for an entire industry.
Page 11: "we model our emissions across
the entire life cycle of our products — including the sourcing
of raw materials, manufacturing, shipping, product use, and
end-of-life processing"
Page 85 contains information on how they model emissions transportation:
"To model transportation, we use data collected on
shipments of single products and multipack units by
land, sea, and air. We account for transporting materials
between manufacturing sites; transporting products
from manufacturing sites to regional distribution hubs;
transporting products from regional distribution hubs to
individual customers; and transporting products from final
customers to recycling facilities."
> no explicit mention of shipping here, which is almost certainly a huge part of things
It's not. We ship food from half way around the world and still make a profit, so the shipping cost are very low.
And very low cost implies low carbon emissions.
Not sure about that. I read one mega container ship produces produces the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars and emissions from 15 match those from all the cars in the world
That's pollution in general, not carbon dioxide. Ships used to use extremely dirty bunker oil which produced a lot of sulfur dioxide. But there were new limits introduced in 2020 on sulfur in fuel oil that should drop the pollution.
The thing online people hate is anyone trying to make the world better. This creates certain Schelling points. Take carbon neutrality, for instance. Google is operationally carbon neutral. So why don't they spend the extra dollar and become carbon negative? Because neutrality is one kind of Schelling point. It's a safe checkpoint. If they were $1 worth of carbon negative, it's better, but now the new Schelling point is they spend all of their excess into carbon negativity.
Anyway, lots of grumbling in the comments, but that is the nature of online fora. Presumably a CSAM scanning comment will make its way out here soon.
There's no way that Apple could enforce this or even confidently guarantee that they have a carbon-free product, global supply chains are just too complicated. Can they even guarantee that there is no slave labour at any point in the production?
There is a great article, focused primarily on the clothing industry, that shows that most companies just can't know the details anymore, even when they try to:
And this has to do with dynamics that are bigger than any one company. All these countries that we outsource our labour or resource extraction to are encouraged with trade deals and international debt to operate in certain ways that benefit the West and lead to inequitable and unenvironmental practices. That, or the US just outright intervenes in their governance and invades them or funds anti-democratic coups.
I don’t think people need to be shamed here. We all do what we can, when we can. There aren’t enough jobs and but enough social support for most of us to work in climate tech or drop jobs out of principle.
Until you stop all activity and immediately compost your body, you are not serious about climate change.
Increasingly escalating 'No true Scotsman'/appeal to purity arguments are sure fun!
I say let's just assume people are not by default acting like a villain in an episode of Captain Planet.
Partner and I have dabbled in Veganism, it was detrimental to our health. One diet can't fit all and we should not apply morality to one or the other, within reasonable limits of course.
It's a buzzword to "disrupt" the energy market. This green energy is all arbitrary, like how nuclear is not considered green in Europe but deforestation is. You don't need to work in the scam industry to be able to recognize it for what it is. The only solution is decreasing consumption, but that doesn't make good marketing material or fund political campaigns.
That last part could be said of most corporations. The difference is Apple has so far backed it up with concrete proof that they genuinely have at very least done something, even if its not as much as we'd all like.
Yes, but Apple is exceptionally wealthy, has a huge brand following etc. Unlike other big corporations. They can make large bets, set examples etc. They won’t, it will hurt short term profits. They’ll just do a little and let their marketing machine spin it
How will they offset the emissions that are harmful, but not carbon, from the aluminum refining process most their products use and the diesel used to ship countless cargo containers of their products?
Do they just pretend that the emissions from their likely hundreds of parts suppliers don't count?
What do they intend to do about their products having a short lived lifespan and then are thrown away or sent to the third world for a horrific "recycling" process.
I am going to guess if I took a bunch of iPhones, ground them up in a blender and then filtered water through it no Apple exec would drink it.
Planting trees is great and all, but this is hilariously misleading. Just seems like a big distraction.
> What do they intend to do about their products having a short lived lifespan and then are thrown away or sent to the third world for a horrific "recycling" process.
Pages 49 + 50 contain information on their approach to recycling. I haven't read it all but a skim appears to show they're thinking about how to improve recycling processes. No idea how harmful their recycling approaches are to health.
About the diesel: it's mentioned indirectly in the post.
Of course there are going to be co2 emissions caused by the products. The factor, even the workers are causing co2. Some of it is unavoidable and they recognize this. Still a lot can be saved.
What can't be saved by Apple('s partners) will be saved by avoiding to burn oil, wood, etc in poorer countries, offsetting the co2. This is how many companies already call their products co2 neutral (by offsets) right now.
By contrast: other companies (Stripe) invest in co2 capture, but this is wildly less efficient than offsets.
Apple letting people know how they're championing environmental initiatives, all while their high horse is shitting out earpods and other disposable electronics at inflated prices like there's no tomorrow unless the billions roll in.
Airpods is probably the worst example of a disposable product. Still rocking my day 1 Pro's, meanwhile all those cheap crappy budget ones from other companies will have already been in a landfill for a couple of years by now.
My dad is still wearing the Galaxy Buds I bought 3 years ago at launch. They still work, but the battery is fairly shot after ~800 charging cycles. Much like your Airpods after they die, these perfectly-usable headphones will go in a dumpster because they weren't designed to be repaired or used without batteries.
True wireless headphones are nice products, and I share your enjoyment of them. Let's pressure all companies to design their products so we can use them even more than 3 years after they launched.
How long you keep them is only one side of the story. The other side is how often you buy stuff. You could make an argument that the average person buys more electronics because Apple started pushing it to the market.
This means that the employees of said supply chain companies will come to work by bicycle and will eat only food made with organic fertilisers?
All this greenwashing brouhaha makes me regret the times when all capitalists were greedy capitalists, not hypocrites. You can successfully fight capitalist greed, it's much more difficult to fight this, whatever this is.
And going by the definition of greediness, that tax will be passed almost entirely to the non-greedy "proletariat". Which is why I find this "fight" against climate change fought by the West to be so harmful, it's enough to look at the incomes of those who are in its front lines to know whose material interests will be protected first and foremost.
Please stop using class-warfare terms. It's very 1850 and is unproductive.
> non-greedy
If they are mammals or any biological organism, they are greedy, even if they hide it well.
If the carbon tax is simply passed to the consumer, this will have exactly the intended effect. People will pick the cheapest products and we'll end up with an economy that's optimizing for the most efficient ways of lowering carbon.
> Please stop using class-warfare terms. It's very 1850 and is unproductive.
Why should I “stop” that? Do you think we’re at the classless level already? Because we’re definitely not, hence why saying things like “class talk is stuff from the past” comes from pure class privilege.
> People will pick the cheapest products and we'll end u
What’s cheaper than basic bread and basic cooking oil? Because the prices for those two have certainly gone up thanks to all the EGS craziness of “let’s not invest in fossil fuels anymore!”. Again, this type of speech and ignoring all these basic aspects comes from class privilege alone.
Ethical in what areas? They're pretty good with their environmental reforms after Tim Cook took the helm (I'm not talking about removing the headphone jack or lack of chargers in boxes, but having mostly paper packaging which he needed to convince Jobs to adopt, the book Tim Cook is a great introduction), but the way they take 30% off every transaction and generally act like an artifical gatekeeper when IMO they should be more intercompatible with other companies, is unethical to me.
As a former indie dev I took no issue with Apple taking a chunk of my sales. They litterally created tens of thousands of dollars of income for me for a handful of very basic utility apps.
Meanwhile over in the Google play store I didn't even break $100 for the exact same apps.
Thanks for your answer. I kept the question vague on purpose. When deciding to buy from one of those companies or to go work for one, I would have to consider the question as a whole. Do I care more about big carbon footprint, a closed ecosystem, a company helping spreads fake news, etc..
Decarbonisation is so utterly not going to happen to a sufficient degree by 2030.
And if Apple were to succeed, under our current political systems, it'd just mean, they'd have made their customers pay a premium to push carbon emissions to cheaper companies/products/sectors.
Apple is already somewhat of a luxury brand, I don't think there's anything wrong with them spending a bit of money to push the envelope on decarbonization
It is somewhat better than them not even trying. The problem I see: if they partly succeed, it will convince many people that things (carbon dependency) aren't as problematic as they are .. which is .. not so good.
Easy one. Apple pays a premium (to their suppliers) compared to what other non-luxury-hipster-feelgood companies can, thus buying up those (more or less) green capacities (which are scarce). Which leaves those other companies less of these green capacities. Which makes their production less green.
Don't get me wrong, it's totally ok they do that. But it shouldn't lead people to think, that since Apple/Tesla succeeds, humanity doesn't need to drastically change its way of doing things.
Sustainable ressources are scarce. One company stocks up on them -> others are pushed to less green sources or they have to reduce output (which they try to avoid obviously).
Yeah, sure, there's also positive effects such as economies of scale improving things with sustainable business when there's more demand for it. But, in my opinion, the mining and sourcing of raw materials and the supply of renewable energy is in a pretty inelastic situation right now because of physical constraints.
This inelasticity means: one players buys up more, others are pushed elsewhere.
> ... falling prey to the fallacy that decarbonization is impossible.
Oh it is possible. It's not possible as fast as most politicians make it appear.
Here are some numbers at minute 40:
"Assoc Prof Simon Michaux - The quantity of metals required to manufacture just one generation of renewable technology to phase out fossil fuels"
That would be the case if there were fungible inputs, some of which were decarbonized and some of which were not.
But that's not the case, as far as I understand any Apple's inputs. New supply chains and new accounting for all the supply chains will need to be created.
Let's say you have a facility where chips/semiconductors/electronic components are produced.
Supplying this facility with green electricity only is pretty easy. Sign contract with energy company, done.
All the raw material inputs needed to produce the components, that's where it gets interesting. I kind of doubt you'll find a copper (or whatever) mine where green electricity powered dump trucks drive around (which .. in turn would need to have been produced sustainably, otherwise they add CO2 to the BOM).
And good luck trying to first build the factories for the production of components from exclusively decarbonized materials. Steel? Concrete? Plastics?
I do not know, Apple must be having monthly material science break throughs, esp. when your current manufacturing base in China which is notoriously spews more CO2 than the entire developed west and your future manufacturing base is India whose energy portfolio has 90% coal for electricity generation.
In the methodology, Apex claims to have visited only Apple's Oregon and Haifa, Israel facility, none of its China or Asian based facilities were visited.
The relationship between Apex and Apple is like rating agencies and banks -- you know what happens there.
Overall, I have to say, Apple is certainly using a premium quality paint in their green washing campaign.
edit: Any company that is saying their goal is complete de-carbonization in 8 years is a thorough fraud or has carved-out and does not count the polluting parts.
OK then. Put your money where your mouth is, Apple, and send some checks to UPS, FedEx, DHL, Foxconn, TSMC, Samsung, 3M, BOE, Flextronics, Hitachi, LG, Micron, Molex, Nidec, NXP, Panasonic, Pegatron, Qualcomm, Skyworks, Sony, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and all of your other hundreds of suppliers and get them carbon neutral. Otherwise it's just a "we call on" when you are fully capable of "we funded everybody to the point where."
If this is truly a climate emergency, that cash (what was it, $200B in reserves?) is a small price to pay, and would help a long way for companies that can't afford it like you can. Otherwise keep your mouth shut - it's nothing more than a "we really think you should spend your money on..." at best and a "spend your profits on this or else" at worst.
Total gross carbon footprint (without offsets) (metric tons CO2e):
Fiscal Year 2017: 27,500,000
Fiscal Year 2021: 23,200,000
This include Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions so AFAIK includes things like transportation of goods.
For scope definitions see https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/what-a...
Edit: Corrected yearly emissions