HERBIE GOES BANANAS A GR EENER APP LE Sustainability Roadmap June 6, 2011 Apple vastly underperforms Dell, HP, and IBM on Sustainability performance. “Apple has yet to make any serious investments in clean energy, or use its brand to promote the cause of environmental stewardship.” renewableenergyworld.com, January 2011 Apple is already a leader in innovation and engineering, and we are applying these same talents to become an environmental leader. Based on our tangible actions and results over time, hopefully our customers, employees, shareholders and professional colleagues will all feel proud ofour ongoing efforts to become a greener Apple. -Steve Jobs
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Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)is a thermoplastic poly-mer. It is the third most
widely produced plasticbecause it is cheap,durable, and easy toassemble. AlthoughPVC has some positiveattributes, it has thepotential to emit toxins that other forms of plas- tic do not. In the elec- tronics industry it ismainly used as an insu-lator and coating forelectrical cables.
The manufacturing of PVC uses the raw mate-
rial Vinyl Chloride (VC).
VC is an odorless gas
that has been linked to
neurological disorders
and cancer of the liver.
PVC manufacturing is a
major contributor to air
emissions of VC. In
addition to being highly
toxic, the VC emissions
can cause explosions in
manufacturing facilities
similar to the Formosa
Plastics plant.
PVC is not necessary in
electronics. A number
of companies are phas-
ing it out of their prod-
uct mix by using other
non toxic plastic com-
pounds. Apple has not
set a date to remove
PVC from its products.
Major new product lines
like the iPod nano and
MacBook still contain
PVC.
Brominated Flame Re- tardants (BFRs) arecommonly used in elec- tronics to reduce theflammability of theproduct. The manufac- turing of BFR syntheti-cally uses raw materials
that are known to be toxic and resistant todegrading.
There are several sub-stitutes for BFRs inelectronics that provide the same fire safetyusing organic com-pounds. It has alsobeen argued that prod-uct redesign can reduceor eliminate the needfor fire retardants. Sev-eral electronics compa-nies are already using these alternatives.
Apple has begun to
phase out BFRs and
PVCs but has not com-
pletely eliminated them
in their product lines.
This has put them be-
hind other competing
electronic companies in
the race to become the
leader in sustainability.
The impact of lower
energy requirementswill result in less green-
house emissions at
power plants.
In 2008, the MacBook
computer was the first
to become energy star
compliant. All computer
models were eventually
According to the IAWT
96% of the US popula- tion has an active cellphone. This means thatmuch of the energy us-age of Apple’s products
is in the hands of theend consumer.
Apple helps by ensuring
that product designs
are energy efficient.
rated energy star com-
pliant. However, follow-ing a recent change in
energy star standards,
Apple has not released
how their products are
scoring. Therefore,
Greenpeace has scored
Apple at only “partially
good” on energy effi-
ciency.
M A N U F A C T U R I N G — 4 5 % O F C A R B O N F O O T P R I N T
P R O D U C T U S E — 4 6 % O F C A R B O N F O O T P R I N T
However, the worldwidedistribution network hasa significant impact ongreenhouse emissions.Apple has reduced
packaging size by 53%over the past 5 years therefore decreasing carbon footprint.
T R A N S P O R T A T I O N — 5 % O F C A R B O N F O O T P R I N T
Very little information isavailable on Apple’s
supply chain because itis an important piece of competitive success.
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OUT OF CONTROL Five workersdied, two were seriously in- jured, a nearby community wasevacuated, and fires burned fordays following a vinyl chlorideexplosion at the Formosa Plas-tics plant in Illiopolis, Ill., inApril.
the environment in-cludes finding the mostefficient ways to reuseor recycle electronicequipment, including computers and displaysfrom the manufacturer.
When Apple productsare recycled with Apple,some parts are reusedand other parts can bebroken down and repur-
posed. Apple canachieve up to 90% re-use rate (by weight) of
the original product.
Apple encourages recy-cling by supplying gift
cards to customers who
recycle their old com-
puters.
In addition if you want
to recycle your old non-
Apple computer Apple
will help you do that for
only $30 and also help
you recycle your Mac
battery for free.
Apple meets or exceeds
all hazardous waste
disposal requirements
and keeps waste in the
region where it was col-
lected and does not
dispose of hazardous
waste in solid-waste
landfills. Apple de-
mands strict require-
ments with its contrac-
tors and enforces all
safety and health laws
and does not use prison
labor.
chip (used in the i-pad, i
-touch and many oth-ers) is designed to deliv-
er power while maximiz-
ing battery life. Mac
operating systems are
designed to balance
tasks to keep a comput-
er from over working
and automatically enter
sleep mode. It even
The 3 keys to product
energy efficiency is effi-cient power supply,
components that re-
quire less power and
power management
software. Apple focus-
es on manipulating all
three keys to ensure
sustainable products.
For example, the A4
regulates power be-
tween key strokes tosave energy.
Every computer that
apple makes exceeds
Energy Star specifica-
tions and has earned an
EPEAT Gold rating.
R E C Y C L I N G — 1 % O F C A R B O N F O O T P R I N T
E N E R G Y E F F I C I E N C Y
Apple offers public
transportation incen-
tives and up to 800
employees use their
free biodiesel commut-
er coaches. This is esti-
mated to eliminate the
use of 1,559 cars and
10,292,000 kgs of
CO2e emissions per
year.
F A C I L I T I E S – 3 % O F C A R B O N F O O T P R I N T
The Austin, Sacramen- to, and Cork facilitiesare powered 100% byrenewable energy elimi-nating 19,200,000 kgsof CO2e emissions.This is achieved by high tech controls and moni- toring devices, high-
Apple currently calculates this recycling rate by adding the total weight they recycle in a year and then dviding that number by the total weight of the products they sold seven years earlier. Apple currently has 70% recycling rate. This number will continue to grow if Apple continues to migrate its products to alumnum casings.
Currently 97% of Apple’s Carbon emissions come
from their products. This included manufacturing,customer use, & even the emissions used to recy-cle their products. Thus the focus has to continue to be on the manufacturing of products. Appleneeds reduce their 9.6 million tons of greenhousegas emissions by 50% by 2020
Apple has been ahead of the curve with removing toxic substances such as arsenic, brominatedflame retardants (BFRs), mercury, phthalates, andpolyvinyl chloride (PVC) from the environment. Tobe completely successful, Apple needs to stayahead of the curve and shout out successes from the rooftop.While Apple has completely removed BFR’s from
all its products there is still a need to completelyremove PVC from ALL products.
1 0 0 % R E C Y C L I N G R A T E B Y 2 0 2 0
P R O D U C T I O N — R E D U C E C A R B O N F O O T P R I N T
Once again Apple is the industry leader in this are-na, but that doesn’t mean things can’t improve.
Typical laptop batteries only have 200-300 batter-ies recharges. Apple’s Macbook Pro can be re-
charged 1000 times, which is head and shouldersabove the competition. Apple’s goal for 2020 is to
produce the first battery that can be recharged anunlimited amount of times. With Apple’s current
capabilities they are well on their way of achieving this goal.
While Apple clearly has “call outs” on the website
in regards to current sustainable efforts, there isstill opportunity to do a better job of marketing success to customers.There are two large demographic groups, the babyboomers & their children, the millennial genera- tion (18 – 29), that would love to hear the Appleproducts they are buying are also industry leaderswhen it comes to sustainability.Millennials are one of the most highly educated
demographics when it comes to understanding the
importance of ecological and environmental condi- tions, and they glean most of their informationfrom the web (79%). When it comes to the greenmovement, there are seemingly limitless opportu-
nities for brands to engage with consumers on aninteractive level in real time using digital media.In a survey, 64% of millennials 18 to 29 said theywould be willing to pay more for a product if theyknew some of their investment was going towardan environmental cause or an environmentallyconscious company.