Environment

Apple is highlighting some of the iPhone’s key differentiators with a new webpage and several fun animations posted on YouTube. The page is currently live on Apple’s German website, and will likely roll out to other countries soon.

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The Environmental Law Institute has today announced that Apple’s VP of environment, policy and social initiatives, Lisa Jackson, has won its distinguished 2018 Environmental Achievement Award.

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Aluminum is Apple’s go-to material for making many of its products sleek and durable, and now the company is taking serious steps to ensure using its favorite metal is also good for the planet.

Two major aluminum producers are announcing a “joint venture to commercialize patented technology that eliminates direct greenhouse gas emissions from the traditional smelting process,” and Apple played a key role in getting to this step.

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Apple prides itself on being environmentally focused and is continuously working to reduce its environmental footprint. According to Apple’s 2018 Environment Responsibility Report released today, the company is focusing on climate change, resources, and safer materials.

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In celebration of Earth Day this coming Sunday, Apple will be hosting two special Today at Apple sessions at their Union Square store in downtown San Francisco.

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Apple yesterday announced a really impressive achievement: its entire global operations are now 100% powered by renewable energy. That encompasses everything from retail stores and local offices through data centers to its Apple Park campus.

Unlike many companies, Apple doesn’t cheat by buying offsets.

“You could go out and buy carbon credits and offsets–nope,” says Jackson firmly. “You could go out and wait for other people to do projects and say ‘Can I have some of that please? How much will you charge me for some of your clean energy?’ No.”

Last time it updated us, the figure was 96%. When you don’t cheat, getting there with that last few percent is a far bigger achievement than it might sound, and I think Apple deserves every credit for this …

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[Update: Apple has shared a press release on its environmental progress and hitting 100% renewable energy.]

Apple has finally hit its goal of running its own operations off 100% renewable energy. All Apple facilities, from Apple Park to its data centers to worldwide fleet of Apple retail stores, are now solely powered by green energy. Last year, it was close at 96%, but now it’s finally hit the magic 100 number.

This figure does not include Apple’s third-party suppliers or manufacturers, although the company is convincing many of those to switch to 100% renewable sources too …

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Apple is speaking out against the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to repeal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters reports. In a new filing, Apple cites “increased investment uncertainty” for the company and its supplier partners if the Clean Power Plan is reversed.

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Apple is proud of its environmental credentials, and publishes an annual Environmental Responsibility Report to describe its goals and the actions taken to achieve them. But the company has now gone further, and published a specific environmental report on the upcoming iPhone X.

The four-page report details everything from the breakdown of materials used to produce both the phone and its packaging, through to the greenhouse gas emissions involved in every stage from production to eventual recycling …

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A Greenpeace campaign to highlight the environmental impact of planned obsolescence has slated iPads and MacBooks for their poor repairability scores, but praises the iPhone 7.

It follows a separate report earlier this year in which Greenpeace labelled Apple the most environmentally friendly tech company in the world …

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In celebration of Earth Day, Apple executive Lisa Jackson this week sat down with John Gruber for an in-depth interview. Airing as part of Gruber’s “The Talk Show” podcast, the interview discussed a variety of environmental topics, especially relating to Apple’s own efforts…

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Apple’s commitment to environmental sustainability is well established, but the company is going one step further in its new Danish data center. In addition to powering the center entirely from renewable energy, the company is capturing the waste heat generated and feeding it into a district heating system, to warm local homes …

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Just like Apple itself is doing, many app developers are celebrating Earth Day with new apps and promotions. After Ice is a new app that uses augmented reality to simulate the effects of climate change around the world…

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Apple has published a new series of videos in celebration of Earth Day that both highlight the company’s green energy efforts and explain some of the science behind clean energy today. The video series includes comical illustrations and narrations from Apple execs including VP Lisa Jackson.

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There’s an acronym widely used for setting goals: SMART. There are a few different versions of this floating around, but one common one is that objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Apple’s stated commitment to stop mining the earth and build all products from recycled materials would seem to fail on two of these criteria.

It isn’t currently achievable. It simply isn’t realistic today for Apple to obtain all of the materials it requires in the quantities it needs at a viable price without mining some of them, and there’s no saying when it might become so.

It’s also not time-bound. Apple has given no indication of when it might reach its goal. Anyone can claim almost anything will be achieved – however far-fetched – without specifying a timeframe.

But while Apple’s objective isn’t SMART, that doesn’t make it either meaningless or useless …

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Despite the recent change of president in the United States, Apple is maintaining its environmental pledge made to the previous administration, Bloomberg reports. Apple joined other companies including Google and Microsoft in signing a statement backing renewable energy efforts.

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Apple has long been committed to using renewable energy for its own operations, and in 2015 extended that goal to its suppliers, starting with China. In its 2016 supplier responsibility report, the company said that its energy efficiency program had reduced carbon emissions by more than 13,800 metric tons.

Today, Apple has announced that the program has reached Japan, with component supplier Ibiden pledging to power all of its Apple manufacturing with 100 percent renewable energy …

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Greenpeace has described Apple as the most environmentally friendly tech company in the world for the third year running, thanks to its high use of renewable energy and the leadership role it takes in encouraging its supply chain to follow its own example.

Apple retains its leadership spot for the third year in a row among platform operators. Both Apple and Google continue to lead the sector in matching their growth with an equivalent or larger supply of renewable energy, and both companies continue to use their influence to push governments as well as their utility and IT sector vendors to increase access to renewable energy for their operations.

Apple scored 83% in Greenpeace’s clean energy index, and was awarded grade A in four out of five additional categories …

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Zero Waste means nothing sent to landfill sites

Apple has announced that all 14 of its final assembly plants in China are now zero-waste compliant, meaning that none of the waste is sent to landfill. Waste products are instead recycled, re-used, composted or burned to generate energy.

Typically, paper and cardboard are sent to paper mills for recycling, glass & metal is melted for re-use, plastic is recycled into packaging materials and food is composted …

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