Apple calls on global supply chain to decarbonize by 2030

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/10/apple-calls-on-global-supply-chain-to-decarbonize-by-2030/

by mfiguiere • 4 years ago

86 87 4 years ago

stormbrew• 4 years ago

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.

harikb2• 4 years ago

Do you mean packaging or shipping?

While packaging is on the heavy side, I always find alternate uses for those apple boxes :)

Jyaif• 4 years ago

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.

alphabetting• 4 years ago

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

macintux• 4 years ago

And very low cost implies low carbon emissions.

Given how terrible we are at incorporating externalities into costs, I'm very skeptical.

kieranmaine3• 4 years ago

Their 2022 Environment Impact Progress report (https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Pr...) includes scopes 3 emissions which covers emissions from shipping (see page 84).

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."

lizardactivist• 4 years ago

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.

adamwk• 4 years ago

Are you talking about AirPods? Everyone I know (myself included) keeps theirs longer than most people keep phones

CivBase• 4 years ago

Most pairs of cheap earbuds I own are older than the AirPods have been around.

amelius• 4 years ago

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.

esskay4• 4 years ago

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.

smoldesu• 4 years ago

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.

bamboozled• 4 years ago

Too little too late.

it_citizen2• 4 years ago

In your opinion, is Apple part of the most ethical large tech companies? Which other company do you put up there?

(And yes, I know the bar is probably pretty low)

cercatrova• 4 years ago

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.

esskay4• 4 years ago

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.

it_citizen2• 4 years ago

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..

ben_w2• 4 years ago

I would say yes; the other big names on my list would be Netflix, Google, Microsoft, and Tesla/SpaceX.

And yes, that's despite the controversies; none of them seem to me to be actively evil, merely giants who tread incautiously.

1-6• 4 years ago

When future earnings become problematic, shift the topic to clean energy initiatives to artificially limit production.

ben_w2• 4 years ago

They've been saying this kind of thing since before they were a mere single trillion dollar market capitalisation. (Currently $2.4 trillion, IIRC).

gjsman-1000• 4 years ago

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.

mensetmanusman• 4 years ago

This is easier to say when you design how things should be built versus actually building things, but it is a great goal.

Apple could do so much more for the environment, but it would hurt their profits.

esskay4• 4 years ago

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.

akudha• 4 years ago

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

kieranmaine3• 4 years ago

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.

For scope definitions see https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/what-a...

Edit: Corrected yearly emissions

djwatson24• 4 years ago

This is great, thanks! Fyi I think you have the numbers for the years reversed

summerlight• 4 years ago

Fiscal Year 2017: 23,200,000 Fiscal Year 2021: 27,500,000

I think the numbers are swapped? Anyway, they've made a good progress.

carrotcarrot2• 4 years ago

"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.

darawk• 4 years ago

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.

roflyear3• 4 years ago

It's not true at all, emissions are trending down globally thank God even tho many countries really don't give a fuck

j_walter• 4 years ago

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.

Still...good to see it's dropping.

devwastaken• 4 years ago

"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.

renewiltord• 4 years ago

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.

paganel3• 4 years ago

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.

kiliantics2• 4 years ago

I think the same approach applies -- organised labour through direct action and mutual aid

FredPret2• 4 years ago

Greedy capitalists + carbon tax = less carbon

* assuming you can implement a carbon tax on all carbon actually emitted

paganel3• 4 years ago

carbon tax

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.

ephbit4• 4 years ago

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.

wongarsu• 4 years ago

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

ephbit4• 4 years ago

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.

epistasis3• 4 years ago

Under their accounting scheme, how could it be possible to shift emissions to other sectors?

If you figure that out, you should definitely share the specifics, as it would be a major flaw.

But if you don't have a specific way this could happen, then I suspect you are falling prey to the fallacy that decarbonization is impossible.

ephbit4• 4 years ago

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"

https://youtu.be/MBVmnKuBocc?t=2400

shrubble• 4 years ago

Obsoleted Apple products are not unlocked and become e-waste. You can't repurpose an iPad 1 , as far as I know.

How much of their scoring takes into account the generation of e-waste?

jjtheblunt• 4 years ago

Citation for those claims?

harikb2• 4 years ago

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.

ganoushoreilly• 4 years ago

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).

Clent• 4 years ago

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."

eropple• 4 years ago

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?

heavyset_go2• 4 years ago

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.

bilsbie• 4 years ago

Is carbon the best goal for them? How are they doing on clean air and water?

mbgerring• 4 years ago

Everyone in this thread getting grouchy and accusing Apple of hypocrisy already has a full-time job working on climate change, right?

Right?

https://climatebase.org

ok_dad• 4 years ago

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.

roflyear3• 4 years ago

I can shame who I want. Until you go vegan or part time vegan and adjust your lifestyle you're not serious about climate change.

carrotcarrot2• 4 years ago

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.

carstenhag2• 4 years ago

But we want Macs. We want iPhones. We have the tech which is a large part of the solution, then invest in it.

(yes, the European taxonomy is not great. Different countries, different opinions, better some conclusion than none I guess...)

klipklop3• 4 years ago

I was curious, but this website asks for your email to even look at the job listings.

heavyset_go2• 4 years ago

This is a good example of the tu quoque fallacy[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

kiliantics2• 4 years ago

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:

https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/the-myth-of-...

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.

sremani• 4 years ago

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.

Congrats!

klipklop3• 4 years ago

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.

carstenhag2• 4 years ago

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.

kieranmaine3• 4 years ago

Do they just pretend that the emissions from their likely hundreds of parts suppliers don't count?

Their 2022 Environment Impact Progress report (https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Pr...) includes scopes 3 emissions which covers emissions from suppliers (see page 84).

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.

notacop313373• 4 years ago

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.

ericraio• 4 years ago

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?

notacop313373• 4 years ago

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.

seb1204• 4 years ago

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...

tgsovlerkhgsel• 4 years ago

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).

notacop313373• 4 years ago

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.

raydiatian• 4 years ago

Say what you will about Apple, at least they are calling for deadlines that are <15 years away. This is concrete, no pun intended.

reiichiroh• 4 years ago

Rich of them while they are churning out billions of disposable earbuds.

Apple calls on global supply chain to decarbonize by 2030

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