Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Bad Apple, Apple
Apple to address environmental policies?
The Greenpeace activists behind GreenMyApple.org claim that Apple may begin taking steps to address several of the company's environmental issues, despite their denial of said concerns because of a disagreement with Greenpeace's ratings and criteria. In particular, Greenpeace is concerned with Apple's use of several hazardous chemicals in its products which can have adverse effects on the environment and people's health once the equipment is disassembled. Other manufacturers have already begun to ditch some of these same toxic chemicals, and Greenpeace claims Steve Jobs recently met with a Social Responsibility Fund investor to discuss some of these environmental matters. Apple has not yet responded to this claim of meeting with Greenpeace, but they did issue a statement to a new report, which ranks Apple lower than HP, Dell, Nokia, and Sony for its global policies and practices on eliminating dangerous chemicals and on taking responsibility for products once they are thrown away by consumers. ``We disagree with Greenpeace's rating and the criteria they chose. Apple has a strong environmental track record and has led the industry in restricting and banning toxic substances such as mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, as well as many BFRs (brominated flame retardants)." Despite the arguments, let's hope Apple can come to terms with stronger and more effective policies in this delicate day and age of increasing environmental concerns.
[via MacNN]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kendall Tawes said 4:53PM on 2-14-2007
Frankly I think Apple could do with a better recycling programme. Even though I may never use it as I have kept every Apple product I ever bought but if a hard-drive I had died or a laptop became thoroughly thrashed I would love it if I could just dump it at an Apple store and have them deal with it. I think that would be a wonderful programme that actually my Appeal to some switchers especially if you could dump a busted PC and get a slight discount on a New Mac. Apple please do everything I just said. It would be wonderful.
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James Snyder said 6:56PM on 2-14-2007
I think the "Other manufacturers have already begun to ditch some of these same toxic chemicals" comment is a little misleading. Apple has been RoHS compliant for a while now, before other manufacturers. They may fall behind on some of their other policies, including recycling of old hardware, but the original Greenpeace report is rather biased against Apple, where they gave way more points for companies setting roadmaps and goals and having cruddy performance than they did for companies already doing pretty well.
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donmckenzie said 6:59PM on 2-14-2007
@kendall: Apple already offers all of what you just asked... other than you can't dump it at the apple store, but they will pay for free fedax shipping of your old PC or Mac to be recycled by them. They don't offer a discount of your Mac but if you recycle an old ipod at a retail store you can get 10% off a new one. Seriously! I don't think it is something the advertise but it is all one there website at:
http://www.apple.com/environment/recycling/
It stems from a legal requirement of doing business in Germany that you are required to take back any product you sell for recycling. So this program was in effect in germany since 1994 and moved stateside ~2001. So it is not new either.
I imagine they don't advertise it heavily since it just cost them money when you use the program.
Yay apple evangelism.
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Austin said 7:18PM on 2-14-2007
Doesn't anybody find it strange that ["Inconvenient Truth" director] Al Gore is a prominent member of Apple's board of directors? He repeatedly shows off his slick Powerbook in the movie, making me wonder about the purity of his film's message.
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Austin said 7:19PM on 2-14-2007
Oh and I have no beef with global warming; I just think it's odd that he's advertising his company's products in a serious movie like that.
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Erichd said 6:03AM on 2-15-2007
Austin,
It is odd -- I was thinking a similar thing, but more on how odd it is that Steve Jobs name-drops a lot of Liberal/Democrat names in his iPhone presentation, before announcing the exclusive partnership with Cingular - one of the more heinously Facist/Repblican companies in business today.
Also worth noting is Jobs' seat on the board of ABc/Disney, and that company's rather troublesome use of radio ad money, and its persecution of a blogger, Spocko's Brain, that dared shed light on the vile things being encouraged on a "Disney" radio station.
Don't get started on "Path to 9/11"
Or, honestly, it could be:
1) Gore's seat on Apple's board has helped to change its stance regarding GLobal Warming and toxic pollution.
2) Jobs' seat on ABC/Disney has moderated that company's persecution of bloggers and other independent media.
This isn't the place for discourse on Corporate governance, but in a very short form: the best way to change the policy of any company is to buy a large number of shares in that company, and/or hold a seat on the board.
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Brian said 4:04PM on 2-15-2007
James, re Greenpeace report being biased: the bias, if any, was toward GLOBAL best practice, not just US. Apple's recycling programme in the US, for example, isn't available anywhere else. Dell's, for one, is global.
You can be RoHS compliant and still have PVC in your products (which Apple does, and other manufacturers are phasing out). PVC is a major hazard for the kids who scavenge from Chinese and Indian scrapyards -- they cook the components to draw off the solder, which means they're breathing dioxins from PVC burning all day, every day. Not pretty.
So while Apple can truthfully say they're meeting US law, they can and ought to do better than that. I mean, c'mon. Apple and treehuggers really ought to get along just fine.
--b
(Full disclosure: while this comment is personal, I work for Greenpeace)
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