Apple has announced plans to become completely carbon neutral across every aspect of its business by 2030.
The tech firm’s announcement means that every Apple device sold will have net zero climate impact within ten years.
It is already carbon neutral for its global corporate operations, but the plans now stretch across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain and product life cycle.
The company has released its 2020 Environmental Progress Report which provides details on how it will reach carbon neutrality, providing a 10-year roadmap for other companies seeking to achieve the same.
The report highlights how Apple will reduce emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 while developing innovative carbon removal solutions for the remaining 25 per cent of its comprehensive footprint.
The firm engages with governments, businesses, NGOs, and consumers around the globe to support policies that bolster environmental protections and the transition to clean energy.
Apple is also building on its recently unveiled $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative by establishing an Impact Accelerator that will focus on investing in minority-owned businesses that drive positive outcomes in its supply chain and in communities that are disproportionately affected by environmental hazards. The initiative looks at efforts addressing education, economic equality and criminal justice reform.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said: “Businesses have a profound opportunity to help build a more sustainable future, one born of our common concern for the planet we share.
“The innovations powering our environmental journey are not only good for the planet — they’ve helped us make our products more energy efficient and bring new sources of clean energy online around the world.
“Climate action can be the foundation for a new era of innovative potential, job creation, and durable economic growth. With our commitment to carbon neutrality, we hope to be a ripple in the pond that creates a much larger change.”
Apple’s 10-year roadmap includes low carbon product design, increasing energy efficiency, remaining at 100 per cent renewable energy and moving its entire supply chain to clean power.
It has also pledged to focus on process and material innovations to lower emissions and carbon removal (by investing in forests to remove carbon from the atmosphere).
Conservation International has joined forces with Apple to protect and restorea 27,000-acre mangrove forest in Colombia; mangroves can store up to 10 times more carbon than forests on land.
Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, said: “We’re proud of our environmental journey and the ambitious roadmap we have set for the future.
“Systemic racism and climate change are not separate issues, and they will not abide separate solutions. We have a generational opportunity to help build a greener and more just economy, one where we develop whole new industries in the pursuit of giving the next generation a planet worth calling home.”
