On July 21, 2020, Apple set a deadline: net zero across its whole business, supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030. The company said the target was 20 years sooner than IPCC targets. Apple was already carbon neutral for its global corporate operations that day. The new commitment meant each Apple device sold would have a net zero climate impact.
“Businesses have a profound opportunity to help build a more sustainable future, one born of our common concern for the planet we share,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Climate action can be the foundation for a new era of innovative potential, job creation, and durable economic growth.”
The 2020 Environmental Progress Report laid out the route. Apple would cut emissions by 75 percent by 2030 and use carbon removal for the remaining 25 percent. Cook said the company hoped to be “a ripple in the pond that creates a much larger change.”
Recycled materials and the robots
Apple said every iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch released in the previous year contained recycled material. The iPhone Taptic Engine included 100 percent recycled rare earth elements. Apple called this a first for the company and for any smartphone. In 2019, design and recycled content cut Apple’s carbon footprint by 4.3 million metric tons. Over 11 years, the company reduced average product energy use by 73 percent.
Its recycling robots had names. A robot called Dave disassembled the Taptic Engine from used iPhones to recover rare earth magnets and tungsten while also enabling steel recovery. That machine followed the earlier line of Daisy iPhone disassembly robots. Apple’s Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas, partnered with Carnegie Mellon University on electronics recycling technology.
Suppliers and renewable energy
Apple said it remained at 100 percent renewable energy for its own operations. Over 70 suppliers had committed to use 100 percent renewable energy for Apple production, equal to nearly 8 gigawatts. Once completed, those commitments would avoid over 14.3 million metric tons of CO2e annually. That is the same as taking more than 3 million cars off the road each year.
A first-of-its-kind investment fund with 10 suppliers in China was putting nearly $300 million into projects totaling 1 gigawatt of renewable power. The US-China Green Fund was investing $100 million in energy efficiency projects for suppliers. In 2019, 92 facilities in Apple’s Supplier Energy Efficiency Program avoided over 779,000 annualized metric tons of supply chain emissions. The company also spent on upgrades covering over 6.4 million square feet of buildings, cutting electricity needs by nearly one-fifth and saving $27 million.
Apple’s new and completed projects in Arizona, Oregon, and Illinois brought corporate renewable capacity to over 1 GW, enough to power more than 150,000 homes a year. Over 80 percent of the renewable energy Apple sourced for its facilities came from projects Apple created. Since 2014, all Apple data centers have run on 100 percent renewable energy. New solar arrays were planned for Scandinavia, with two projects in the Philippines and Thailand.
Aluminum, gases, and forests
Apple backed a direct carbon-free aluminum smelting process with two suppliers. The first batch of that low carbon aluminum was already in production for the 16-inch MacBook Pro. In 2019, Apple and its suppliers cut fluorinated gas emissions by more than 242,000 metric tons. The company also supported a method that releases oxygen instead of greenhouse gases during smelting.
Apple announced a carbon solutions fund with Conservation International to protect and restore forests and natural ecosystems. With The Conservation Fund, the World Wildlife Fund, and Conservation International, Apple had protected or improved the management of more than 1 million acres of forests and natural climate solutions in China, the US, Colombia, and Kenya. In Colombia, a 27,000-acre mangrove forest was being preserved. Mangroves can store up to 10 times more carbon than forests on land.
“We’re proud of our environmental journey and the ambitious roadmap we have set for the future,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives. “Systemic racism and climate change are not separate issues, and they will not abide separate solutions.”
