In a reversal of Apple’s long-held lipped and secretive stance, yesterday Steve Jobs announced the company’s environmental policies. Responding to the Greenpeace campaign for a greener Apple, Jobs acknowledged a failure to communicate that – actually – Apple is doing quite well on the environmental front.
It turns out that Apple had phased out CRTs mid-2006, met RoHS restrictions years before the EU regulations went into effect, and had significantly increased the amount of e-waste recycling as a percentage of sales. Most surprising was Job’s commitments for the future. As we covered in our report on the Green My Apple campaign, Apple likes keeping things close to its chest for a reason. “It is generally not Apple’s policy to trumpet our plans for the future; we tend to talk about things we have just accomplished.”
But the results of the Green My Apple campaign must have had some effect, and Jobs recognized that this policy has left “customers, shareholders, employees and the industry in the dark about Apple’s plans to become greener”. In response, Jobs announced the removal of the bad stuff that can get trapped in our bodies and make us sick. Arsenic in displays will be eliminated by the end of 2008. By the same date it will stop using polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs). Additionally, Apple plans to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of mercury by transitioning to LED backlighting for all displays when technically and economically feasible.
Looking beyond Greenpeace’s tunnel vision focus on toxins and recycling, Apple promised more coverage of the company’s energy use and carbon footprint impacts in coming reports. We are looking forward to these reports – no use worrying about toxins and recycling if energy use is further hastening climate change.
Go Apple. Steve Jobs, thanks for listening. You’re my hero again.
Read more: A GREENER APPLE: Steve Jobs Steps Up | Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building
The origional post on Inhabtiat that got picked up in a Greenpeace campaign, when Greenpeace sent a physical book made from Apple’s products to ask for changes, and this mini op-ed formed the basis of the last page of the book asking for change:
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GREEN MY APPLE, GREEN MY FUTURE
Take a poll on any city street, and you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t admire Apple’s clean, innovative product design. In the past 5 years, with the success of the iPod and power PCs, Mac has come to dominate the high-end consumer electronic space, with their clean, minimalist aesthetic. With such a prestigious design-driven brand, one would think that Apple would be leading the way in the green design revolution. Sadly, this is not the case – Apple is actually lagging behind companies like Dell and HP – and because of this, Greenpeace has spearheaded a creative campaign to green Apple.
Greenpeace launched their Green My Apple Campaign in September of 2006, with the claim that Apple products contain unsafe levels of PVC and BFR, toxins known to release carcinogenic dioxins when incinerated. While other companies have responded to Greenpeace’s demand for total transparency in chemical policy reporting, Apple has remained opaque.
In response to Greenpeace’s latest low rating of Apple in its Guide to Green Electronics, Apple spokesperson Sherly Seitz responded: “Apple has a strong environmental track record and has led the industry in restricting and banning toxic substances such as mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, as well as many BFRs,” or brominated flame retardants.
But Apple’s does not publish information about which BFRs remain in their products, or a plan for phasing out PVCs. Which means, they no longer lead the industry, since other manufacturers have set timelines or have phased out these toxins completely. Why does Apple remain silent about its specific environmental plans? Since Apple won’t tell us why, we can only speculate.
One possible reason is that Apple is secretive, carefully planning the launch of each new product, sequestering small design teams to crack the iPod and the upcoming iPhone. Driven by creative CEO Steve Jobs, the company does not design by focus group or committees, but by prototyping their way to an interconnected, brilliantly designed iconic vision. The idea of cowering to a pesky environmental group, and disclosing the material-level reality of their products, is not the way Apple likes to operate.
Our call to Apple goes beyond Greenpeace’s attack. Apple stands for ingenuity. Macs are the power tool for the creative class. Steve Jobs is a business hero, an example of how to thrive in an age of globalization, media fragmentation, and rapid technological change. iTunes alone was a brilliant, green-by-default business model that instantly impacted the production of polluting CDs and DVDs.
Apple, we know you can point the way. Leapfrog your current position to lead the design and tech industry in this next wave of the green business revolution. We’re keeping the faith.
+ Green My Apple
Finally, we’d like to commend Greenpeace for launching such a fun and web savvy campaign. Its not often that environmental activism gets so creative and interactive. A big part of Greenpeace’s push involves calling onMac users to submit self-created T-shirts, advertisements and videos to promote the Green My Apple campaign. We encourage all of you who aren’t already entering OUR T-SHIRT CONTEST, to submit some stuff to the Green My Apple campaign. ….