Apple’s 2030 carbon-neutral pledge covers itself and suppliers
Apple has announced a target of becoming carbon neutral across its entire business and manufacturing supply chain by 2030. Tweet This!
The company says its devices will have had “zero climate impact” at point of sale and any company hoping to become a supplier will have to commit to “be 100% renewable for their Apple production” within 10 years.
This development follows climate-focused pledges by other technology giants.
Microsoft, for example, has promised:
- to be carbon negative by 2030
- by 2050, to have removed the same amount of carbon as it has ever emitted from the environment
Amazon has announced a 2040 target to go carbon neutral and Google has said it also intends to extend the carbon-neutral status it claims for its own operations to include its supply chain.
Rare-earths robot
Apple has also published a 10-year roadmap with some of the actions it plans to take, which include the use of a new robot, nicknamed Dave. The robot will recover materials from the vibrating Taptic Engine of devices returned for recycling.
Apple’s environment chief, Lisa Jackson, said: “Once we have the engine removed [by another robot] Daisy, Dave will disassemble the engine itself and remove the rare-earth elements and the tungsten so that they can be reprocessed and put back into supply chains.”
According to Jackson, more than 70 of the company’s existing suppliers already committed to use 100% renewable energy for work on its products by 2030.
“Some of the investment we’re making is to work with suppliers to convince their own governments to put more clean energy on the grid,” Ms Jackson added.
Other efforts announced by Apple include the following:
- increased use of recycled raw materials in its own products
- new solar-panel projects in Scandinavia, to power its own data centres
- the development of a carbon-free aluminium-smelting process as part of a collaboration with two suppliers
- investment in environmental projects, including work to restore mangrove trees and shrubs on Colombia’s coastline and woodland-grassland savannahs in Kenya
- work on eco-friendly energy projects to benefit local communities, including the installation of rooftop solar panels at a facility for disadvantaged children in the Philippines and the electrification of an off-grid fishing community in Thailand
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