Apple will be entirely carbon neutral by 2030, company announces

'It looks to a pretty urgent future that we need to consider from the standpoint of our planet and our people,' Apple environment head Lisa Jackson tells The Independent

Apple will become entirely carbon neutral by 2030, it has said.

The commitment will require that the carbon footprint of every Apple product sold – from the iPhone to future projects – is net zero within the next 10 years.

Apple is already carbon neutral in its corporate operations, but has historically faced criticism over the environmental impact of the devices and products that it makes. As part of the new commitment, it will now have to ensure those products are carbon neutral through their entire lifecycle, meaning that everything from its suppliers to the people who buy its devices will be part of the new plan.

As such, the commitment will mean that Apple will factor both the energy used by suppliers to create the materials for its products as well as the power used to charge them by its customers into its calculations of its environmental impact.

To do so, Apple will reduce emissions by 75 per cent while working on new carbon removal solutions for the remaining 25 per cent, it said. That will be done through a variety of new projects, from using new processes in the building of its products to the creation of robots that tear them apart at the end of their life, as well as investment into initiatives not immediately related to its work.

Apple also said that it would fund an “Impact Accelerator” that will invest in minority-owned businesses as part of its recently announced racial equity and justice initiative. Announcing the plan, Lisa Jackson, Apple’s environment head, said that “systemic racism and climate change are not separate issues, and they will not abide separate solutions”.

The company is the latest technology firm to address the environmental impact of its work and the broader threat of climate change with a major commitment to carbon neutrality. Microsoft, for instance, has committed to be carbon negative by 2030, and by 2050 it hopes to have removed all of the carbon it has put into the environment since it was founded.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that carbon neutrality will be required by 2050, and a range of companies and countries including the UK have signed up to such a commitment. That plan has however led to criticism that the deadline is “too slow to address catastrophic climate change” and that work will need to be done much more quickly.

Ms Jackson told The Independent that Apple had released its plan and made the commitment as a way of urging the world to “look forward and rebuild” amid the difficulties posed by everything from the coronavirus outbreak to racism. “It looks to a pretty urgent future that we need to consider from the standpoint of our planet and our people,” she said.

“We wanted to put it out there to show our customers that we’re taking this incredibly seriously, and doing everything we can to address this. What we know is that we can’t afford to look away; we have to face this problem head-on.

“We can’t use this moment as a reason to put challenges and pressing issues on the back burner. It’s also a moment – as a black American – it’s time we’re focusing on justice, and climate is a justice issue.”

Apple’s 10-year plan will require a number of changes, many of which are already in place. They include committing to use as much low-carbon and recycled material as possible in its products, to lower energy use in its supply chain, to ensure that it still uses entirely renewable energy in its operations, and to invest in ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere.

That latter pledge will be particularly important, Ms Jackson said. “We’ll focus on those reductions first, but for that remaining 25 per cent, there’s just not sufficient pathways to reduction today”, she said, pointing to issues like the carbon resulting from the long-haul flights that carry its products between countries.

As such, Apple will look to invest in nature-based solutions that remove carbon from the atmosphere but also provide a return, it said. Both Ms Jackson and Apple chief executive Tim Cook stressed that its change could help drive “economic growth” as well as helping address climate change.

“Businesses have a profound opportunity to help build a more sustainable future, one born of our common concern for the planet we share,” Mr Cook said in a statement.

“The innovations powering our environmental journey are not only good for the planet – they’ve helped us make our products more energy efficient and bring new sources of clean energy online around the world. Climate action can be the foundation for a new era of innovative potential, job creation, and durable economic growth. With our commitment to carbon neutrality, we hope to be a ripple in the pond that creates a much larger change.”

The commitment to carbon neutrality from the very beginning to the very end of the process will also mean that Apple will factor the carbon impact of its customers’ behaviour into the process. As such, the plan includes encouraging customers to charge their phones using renewable energy, as well as disposing of their products in sustainable ways.

The company has already introduced a host of initiatives to help with that work, including a robot that tears down old iPhones so that their materials can be used in new ones. But the plan requires the continuing cooperation of Apple’s customers, Ms Jackson said.

“The first practical thing is that this plan is built heavily on the idea of the circular economy. There’s two ways we address the circular economy: one is by building devices that are designed to be extremely durable, but at the end of their life we need consumers to bring them back,” she said, pointing to initiatives like Apple’s trade-in programme, which allows people to get credit towards new devices by bringing back their old ones, which are sent off to be recycled.

“The second thing is to use their voices with policymakers and governments,” Ms Jackson said. “We’re going to work around the world in places where it’s hard for our suppliers to access clean energy. We also need our customers to switch to clean energy; part of our carbon footprint is customers’ charging of their devices.”