Our Environment and Apple

This article talks about what Apple and other Silicon Valley businesses are doing to fight climate change. Currently President Obama’s former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lisa Jackson, works for Apple as their Vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives. Because of her work in Apple they have announced that 21 companies in Apple’s Supply chain will get all their electricity from renewable sources. According to the Washington Post article the this increase will bring the total amount of renewable energy used by the company to about 5 gigawatts. For comparable size 1 gigawatt of energy is equal to the power consumption of 7 Boeing 747 passenger planes or about 700,000 homes for a year. For other interesting power conversions checkout the Official Blog of the Navy.This also means that 40% of Apples energy consumption would be from renewable energy. Apple has achieved this by pressuring their suppliers to go green while also providing them with the tools to make the change, like the platform created by Apple to help suppliers find renewable energy sources to draw power from.

Lisa Jackson also stated that the majority of the suppliers that Apple got to switch to renewable energy where based in China. This is important because it shows other international companies that they should look at their supply chain and make sure that they are environmentally conscious even if they are located in a foreign country that has lax environmental laws. Even though Apple has shown the world they are trying to help the climate, many critics still point to the amount of electronic waste that Apple creates each year. Phone chargers and charging ports or “bricks” create a substantial amount of waste each year. I think that the critics may have a point because Apple creates new products each year and frequently makes older products obsolete. Lisa Jackson said that Apple was working on their charger problems which is probably on of the larger areas of waste that they create. But she stated that Apple had more pressing priorities like getting all the components of iPhones, MacBooks and other products made 100% from recycled materials. She stressed that this causes the most adverse effects to the climate because of the aluminum mining and smelting which creates excessive amounts of carbon emissions.

Today, many companies are taking an active role in combating climate change. This article says that corporations have begun to increase their environmental efforts after Donald Trump left the Paris Accords. For example, right now Google is working with leaders to identify large sources of Carbon pollution. Other Silicon Valley companies like Lyft have also started to create programs that are more environmentally and ethically conscious. Climate change is a problem that we will all soon face and, it is comforting to know that other companies are being socially responsible and are actively trying to reduce their carbon footprint without government intervention.

Questions:                                                                                                                                     1. Do you think that Apple should be criticized for the amount of “e-waste” they create each year, or should other environmentally conscious actions minimize the criticisms they receive?                        2. Should companies be responsible for setting their own environmental policies or should the government set the policies ensure that each company lessen their carbon footprint?