“Executives say that consumers’ use of Apple products accounts for 53% of the company’s total 10.2 million tons of carbon emissions annually. That’s more than the 38% that occurs as the products are manufactured in Asia or the 3% that comes from Apple’s own operations,” Burrows reports. “‘A lot of companies publish how green their building is, but it doesn’t matter if you’re shipping millions of power-hungry products with toxic chemicals in them,’ says CEO Steve Jobs in an interview. ‘It’s like asking a cigarette company how green their office is.'”
Burrows reports, “Apple’s total carbon figure is an eye-opener. HP and Dell put their carbon emissions at 8.4 million tons and 471,000 tons respectively, though both are larger than Apple in terms of revenue. Their numbers exclude product use and at least some manufacturing, though. The companies have said that including those factors would boost their carbon totals severalfold.”
“Jobs and Apple have been working on their effort for several years,” Burrows reports. “They brought in the consultant Fraunhofer Institute to help crunch data and hired chemists to eliminate toxins… ‘This could completely change how companies are evaluated,’ says Alexandra McPherson, project director with Clean Production Action, an environmental group.”
Apple says “it’s time for companies, in tech and elsewhere, to examine their environmental impact as broadly as possible. For tech companies, that should include the energy-gobbling products they sell. ‘We’re not being intellectually honest with ourselves if we don’t deal with the products that we make,’ says Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer,” Burrows reports.
Full article here.
Apple’s statement:
With a complete life cycle analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, Apple sets a new standard of full environmental disclosure. We’re the only company in our industry that considers the environmental footprint of every product we make. And we’re the only company to add up all our greenhouse gas emissions and tell you how they are distributed across — and beyond — a product’s lifespan.
Our life cycle analysis accounts for all emissions associated with our products. That includes raw material extraction, manufacturing, packaging, transportation, a three- or four-year period of use,* and recycling. In the course of this analysis, we determined that less than 5 percent of our emissions come from our worldwide facilities. In other words, more than 95 percent of Apple’s total greenhouse gas emissions come from the products we make.
That’s why we’ve taken the innovative approach of reporting emissions data alongside detailed information about our products’ energy efficiency and materials composition. You’ll find this information in our Product Environmental Reports. These reports help educate our customers about how Apple products affect their own environmental footprint. They also allow customers to track Apple’s progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions with each new product.
Learn more at Apple.com here.
MacDailyNews Take: Green is the new black.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
Completely silly. This is Apple kowtowing to nothing more than a religious movement. The government will of course be collecting the offering.
Buy a Mac and destroy the planet. Look likes the environmental nutjobs will have to resort to typewriters and smoke signals now to preserve their moral superiority.
Measuring one’s carbon footprint is not religion. It’s science.
Taking responsibility for one that footprint is morality, not kowtowing, no matter the size of the footprint.
Riiiight. And climate change is a myth, and CO2 levels aren’t rising, and glaciers aren’t melting, and huge chunks of ice aren’t breaking off Antarctica, and we can all just keep buying and driving and building as much as we want forever and ever. What do scientists know, anyway? Let’s trust Exxon instead.
Good for Apple.
The “riiight” comment was directed to theloniousMac, of course.
Too bad Apple can’t reduce the effects of increases in solar energy on global warming.
Windows is the biggest power hog. When I run Windows XP in bootcamp on my MacBook pro, the entire system runs hot and battery life is reduced. This is just with simple tasks such as word processing and web surfing. Someone should do a side by side comparison on the same machine of doing the exact same tasks and see how much more energy is wasted by an inefficient OS like Windows and an efficient one like OSX. Then you could calculate how much less CO2 would be released each year if everyone switched to Mac.
This is the Apple I like to see – forward thinking, responsible, excelling at everything they do.
Apple has had a comprehensive Environmental site up for over a decade. Long before anyone else.
They just never honked their horn loud enough. Or for that matter, nobody cared enough to really look at it.
Just like this one, in a few months to come.
Interesting… in the latest newsweek… Apple was rated somewhere around 133, while HP was rated number 1, Dell number 2, and MSFT 31. I have no idea how these numbers were derived…
With all these green revelations is the man behind the curtain really being seen?
” HP and Dell… though both are larger than Apple in terms of revenue.” What about in terms of revenue?
@EvangelizeWithRespect
I will never say that humans are not responsible for pollution problems on mother Earth. However, glaciers have expanded and contracted for millions and millions of years. Remember the ice age? Remember the little ice age? This is a much larger question than you bring about with CO2 levels. Keep up the good fight.
Man-made global warming a myth perpetuated by nonscientists and neo-aminists.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/departments/book-review-the-satanic-gases-clearing-the-air-about-global-warming-by-patrick-j-michaels-and-robert-c-balling/
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1995/95GL03093.shtml
http://blog.acton.org/uploads/frcpanelhandout.pdf
http://www.freedomszone.com/aggregator.php?id=17593
Good for Apple, and good for us.
One thing the science-denying nutjobs never seem to grasp: it really doesn’t matter whether Climate Change is man-made or not. Because if we are
– more energy efficient and
– use less resources creating even more advanced technology
– while maintaining a high standard of living,
we and the planet will be much better off than today.
The science deniers are the luddites here. Go Steve!
@ Hooray: smoke signals from millions of people wouldn’t make lowering CO2 emissions any easier.
FAIL.
This is a evil plan orchestrated by apple…. and a very good one.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> others companies trying to lower their emissions footprint, is a collateral benefit.
They have become the leader in almost every market they enter. So now they are in the most important tech markets. Apple do, monkeys try to do…..
Apple does not care about other companies doing the same, they care to get fun watching them how they gone crazy every time apple make an announcement…
“climate change is a myth, and CO2 levels aren’t rising, and glaciers aren’t melting, and huge chunks of ice aren’t breaking off Antarctica”
My thoughts exactly
‘It’s like asking a cigarette company how green their office is.’
Cigarettes are very good for the environment. They kill polluters.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
It’s not climate change, it’s global warming.
You do not get to change your terms in mid discussion. You do not get to change it to something that would indeed be self-fulfilling. The climate has always changed and will always change. That you won’t even tell us what it’s going to change to (by use of a self-fulfilling term like “climate change”) only serves to prove you don’t know what the fuck your religion of climate change even believes in.
Global cooling is an equally valid outcome of climate change as global warming is.
If you want to live in a mud hut for your religion – fine. Just leave the rest of us alone.
If you really had true faith in your religion that we need to stop “producing” carbo, you’d advocate nuclear power – whose “waste” is infintitessimally smaller than anything we are doing now. (and could go in a hole in any number of states like Colorado (where I live) Utah, Nevada, new Mexico, or any of the millions of acres of desert where no one and nothing lives)
But you don’t. So fsck off.
How amazingly funny to listen to those who claim there are also plenty of legitimate scientists who dispute global warming/climate change arguments. This is quite silly and is extremely easy to discredit. Just follow the money. Who provides support (and stands to benefit) from discrediting the climate change findings? Literally EVERY single scientist that came up with a work that disputes the overwhelming majority of mainstream science has been generously sponsored by Big Oil, Energy and other heavy industry lobbies.
On the other side, you have thousands and thousands of independent researchers, sponsored by comparatively trivial amounts of money. Who exactly stands to benefit from more expensive energy, less energy consumption, less CO2 emissions, less general polution (other than human population in general, and other living things)? Which particular industry, or group would benefit financially from efforts to control climate change?
When in doubt, follow the money. It ALWAYS points to the culprit, and in this case, there is no doubt.
…”If you really had true faith in your religion that we need to stop “producing” carbo, you’d advocate nuclear power”
Re-framing the argument — the most effective way of deflecting an attack.
The two are completely separate issues. There is no dispute to what you’re saying that nuclear is much cleaner and “greener” source of energy than most others (with the possible exception of hydro, but that’s a different argument). But that argument (use nuclear) has nothing to do with reducing toxic waste, limiting use of fossile (non-renewable) energy sources, reducing auto emissions, dramatically raising emission standards, developing electric cars, etc, etc, etc.
The debate over safety and security of use of nuclear energy is entirely separate; it may be somewhat related to the global warming debate, but it is NOT the same.
Religion is a system of thought, narratives and rules that encompasses a belief in a higher power. Global warming, as it has been researched today, is a scientific fact. You need to get your terms straight (do some googling).
Sounds like a waste of time to me.
@ Hooray: smoke signals from millions of people wouldn’t make lowering CO2 emissions any easier.
There you have it, folks. Proof positive that the man-made global warming fanatics are as intelligent as rocks. These self-deluded wretches are completely out of touch with reality.
Maybe we could all use tin cans with string or drums. Would that make you more comfortable?
Your comment are one of the few reasons I come back to the MDN/Glen Beck show.
Thanks for posting!
The climate is changing. It has zero to do with humans and everything to do with the sun. You commie-drones are being used and duped into giving up your freedom in the name of Maobama and saving the planet. How are you idiots going to stop the continents from shifting? We have a much bigger threat of getting hit by an asteroid. The climate is always changing and it is not caused by humans.
Plenty here to keep you nut job libs busy. I want a point by point response from you drones!
http://www.heritage.org/LeadershipForAmerica/energy-and-environment.cfm