An Even Greener Apple: Innovate!
by Justin Thomas, Virginia 
on 05. 3.07
I wanted to give you my take on the Greening of Apple. (Our last take on the news about Apple seemed to concentrate on Steve Job's zen-like writing style). Here's the thing: Apple has an image as an innovative company. It's also a very high-profile American company. So Apple needs to take some heat on green issues — more heat than other electronics manufacturers. The company has to be innovative on the green front, or at least address those issues more throughly. That's why it was refreshing to see Steve Jobs taking green issues seriously with his recent "A Greener Apple" letter. I liked his pledge to eliminate arsenic and mercury in displays, by switching over to LED backlight technology for Mac displays, and using arsenic-free glass in those displays. The expansion of the recycling program was also welcome. There are many other steps Apple could make to be an innovative green company. How about tree-free paper for all printed materials, moving over to 100% renewable power, or designing Apple stores and offices to be green buildings? Make Apple a meta-green company!
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The only thing that I don't like 100% is that it's clear it's more of a PR stunt that anything. Laptop manufacturers are slowly moving to the LED backlight technology anyway as it's the natural progression in screen technlogy, but making an announcement saying you're doing it for "green" reasons is a little too much marketing for my taste. Sony and Fujitsu already have laptops with this technology. But I do agree that Apple, being a company that is so "big" due to their mass marketing needs to be held to a higher degree of scrutiny when it comes to becoming green.
Stop cherry-picking which companies should be held accountable and attack this whole industry. Every electronics company is guilty of selling us electronics that are hard to recycle and bad for the planet (and have short lives due to ever advancing technology) . Why not Dell? why not alieanware? why JUST apple?? its time all these companies felt the heat, not just one. so what if apple has "cool" designs- so companies with "bad" designs can linger in the background and keep pushing their products that are badly designed AND bad for the environment???? come on people...stop following the broken-down Green Peace band wagon and start demanding ALL electronic companies go green.
Why should Apple be held to a higher standard? They're not the market leader in any computing field.
They're getting smeared for the same reasons every MP3 player is an "iPod killer": sensationalist attention grabbing. When you put "Apple" in the header for a story, it gets attention. Seriously, would anyway have given a second look to Green My Dell? No. Greenpeace has launched an intentional and very public Apple smear campaign to draw broader media attention to the environmental impacts of computing regardless of the impact it could have on Apple and irrespective of the fact that Apple is no more guilty and is in fact LESS guilty than many other manufacturers. Apple isn't even in the top 3 computer companies by volume and yet they're the big enemy. If Apple didn't make ANY effort they'd still polute less than Dell and HP simply by comparison of the volume of product moved. And if you figure in the longer average lifespan of Macs vs PCs it favors Apple even more.
This was never about greening Apple, it was always about riding on Apple's coattails to push an agenda in classic "ends justify the means" Greenpeace style.
Considering how all the major makers got stung last year by lithium battery flame ups, major changes in technology have to be made in a circumspect manner. When a big company that buys in big volume makes a public announcement of a change in direction, it triggers a "me too" effect among the competitors. That's a good thing.
Yea, how about that new monstrosity of a store they are building on W. 14th street? Any LEED stuff going on with that? NO. Any mention of any kind of renewable/alternative energy aspects? NO. Hell maybe just another "green" (weed covered) roof? NO.
And it will be open 24 hours. Wonderful.
Steve, you are a big loser, you just don't realize it yet. Richard Branson should take you out back to the wood pile.
PR you say?
That's funny, considering the truly big PC manufacturing companies have a bigger impact on the environment based on sheer volume alone, yet we haven't seen any letters from their CEO s describing their green efforts. Why pick on Apple?
The whole point of it was that, as Jobs had stated, there wasn't enough marketing by Apple outlining their efforts. Now, at least they have to be held accountable by what they have publicly stated.
Would people prefer they kept quiet and not do anything?
Kudos to them.
Small steps.
Why does apple have to take the brunt of the green nagging? Aren't HP or Dell high profile enough to have to explain their actions, or aren't they popular enough with the 20-somethings who are actually concerned about all this?
I can't remember seeing this here. Don't you think it's important to discuss this matter?
This greener Apple it's just a reaction. I would like to see some action too.
Rolkins, this is not just about their laptops - they make dekstop screens as well, where the incentive to use LED is not nearly as big (for laptops it means better energy efficiency and by that longer battery time).
Nice blog post. Better than the last one! :P
If Apple truly cared about the environment they would make the iPod user repairable. Numerous iPods have been thrown away, and replaced with a newer model, simply due to the battery failing.
By adding a simple battery door thousands of iPods could be saved from the trash bin.
But this would harm profits on the reselling of iPods, so it is not done. This is a good example of Green Washing, which has become so popular lately.
Sorry James. The Apple nuts here will demand you produce specific references to that statement or they will accuse you of simply making things up. Of course they will refuse to do the simple Google search necessary for that proof as they are not actually interested in the truth.
Fanaticism is despicable in all its forms.
Just FYI - iPods are user repairable. I've taken apart 2nd and 3rd Gens. Once you pop it open, the major components are plug in. If thats not true on the newer models, or the small models, I apologize. Then again, the smaller models have flash memory, which 'usually' doesn't fail.