Tim Cook defends Apple against greenwashing accusation
Apple CEO Tim Cook says greenwashing "is reprehensible" and has shown environmental journalists around the company's previously secret data center.
Apple CEO Tim Cook
It's another in a series of Tim Cook's post-iPhone 15 launch interviews, but it was rather more substantive than when he was asked which color phone he'd got. This time, media company Brut. (spelt with a period and unrelated to the aftershave), pressed Cook on the environment, starting with buyers don't really need a new iPhone every year.
"I think having an iPhone every year for those people that want it is a great thing," said Cook. "And what we do is we allow people to trade in their phone... and so we then resell that phone if it's still working."
"And if it's not working, we've got ways of disassembling it," he continued, "and taking the materials to make a new iPhone out of."
The interview took place at an Apple data center in Denmark. It's reportedly the first time that Apple has welcomed journalists to the site, where it has previously avoided commenting on the data center.
"We are a very secretive company with our products," said Cook, actually pulling his hands and arms in toward his chest to emphasize the point. "So we want to keep our products to ourselves until they're ready to announce and then announce those to the world and describe those."
"[However, the] environment," he continued. "[It] is different with our initiatives like the environment. We want to be very open because we want to be copied."
Gesturing at the rows of solar panels on the ground surrounding the data center, he said that "we want people to be able to look at this field that we're in today and say 'I can do that too.'"
"We want to be the ripple in the pond that other people can look at and copy," said Cook, "and [that] makes much more effect from an environmental point of view."
Carbon neurtrality through alleged greenwashing
Brut's interviewer criticized Cook's repeated use of the term "carbon neutral," saying that it was close to meaningless. But Cook defended it, saying that in Apple's case it meant taking action, rather than attempting to "greenwash" by deceptively using cheaper ways of offsetting carbon usage.
"I'd invite anybody to look at how we're defining it on our website because what we're doing is doing the hard work to lower our footprint dramatically," he said, "and then whatever is left over after doing all of these actions we offset with with high-quality offsets like managed forests and managed grasslands that pull carbon from the atmosphere."
"But what our objective is to eliminate as much as possible prior to doing that," he continued.
"Greenwashing is reprehensible," said Cook. "And so what if you think about what we're doing, we're doing the work and then saying what we're doing."
"And you're standing in part of the work today [in this field of solar panels], so there's a real proof point," he continued. "The fact that there's 30 percent recycled material on the watch, that's a proof point."
"All of these things are actions that we've taken and they all add up to now a carbon neutral Watch [in certain configurations]," said Cook. " And by 2030, a carbon neutral products across the board."
Cook would not be drawn on the future of the iPhone -- except to say that it will be carbon neutral. He did, though, say that Apple's long-standing ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030 is 20 years ahead of the Paris Accords.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Nihilism is a key disinformation tactic when trying to undermine whole concepts like mitigation of climate change. By casting doubt on actual, meaningful actions being taken to reduce the carbon footprint of a large industry, it not only creates room for competitors to save costs by doing nothing, it undermines the goal of carbon neutrality itself. If consumers can be convinced that even the supposed 'good guys' are just faking it, they can then be convinced not to use their power of consumer choice to purchase products from companies that take responsibility and internalize their environmental costs. So a disinformation campaign to claim Apple is "greenwashing" not only benefits competitors who can sell their wares for less because they externalize their environmental impact costs, it also benefits every other industry that benefits when everyone thinks that facts and opinions have equal value and everyone is lying anyway, so don't expect better. Just buy whatever's cheapest and easiest when you don't think about it.
Then, the question is functionally not different then asking why people buy another product of something every year. Apple doesn't have a new iPhone model. People wanting a new phone will still get a "new" phone. The consumerism doesn't stop. In other words, I have a set of knives I want to replace. I buy a new set a knives that haven't been updated for 20 years. Same model set being sold for 20 years. It's still the same carbon footprint. A set of knives still need to be made and put into stores for me to buy.
The point is to get to carbon neutral products, and for something like Apple, get to a close cycle system of production. Then, there will need to be incentives to get to carbon negative after all that is achieved.
The questions about carbon offsets are too generic. They need to ask Apple to prove that these carbon credits are actually pulling CO2 out of the air and putting them into the ground.
https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program
There's definitely self selection bias with 631 respondents to a poll from a tech website. That's their hobby. They aren't 10% of the market. 1% maybe. I'd put it down another order of magnitude to 0.1% of the overall market.
Search "iPhone Upgrade Program popularity makes it a big success" for the source.
Eveything I can find so far leans towards numbers greater than the 5% you're estimating. But yeah, that's not proof. You could be correct. Or not.
As far as apple goes, the real question is how many of the 1 year old phones that are traded in are resold vs going in the trash. If they are reselling them then it’s no different than a car dealer taking a trade in - Apple is getting a sale on a new phone as well as a refurbished one and broadening its customer base.
One of the advantages of iPhones is how well they age meaning a refurbished 1 year old phone still has a long life ahead of it. I know many people who buy these refurbished phones so I’m not sure why having a trade in program is viewed as a bad thing.
the bit about “no one needs a new phone every year” is grating. Certainly plenty of people go multiple years between phones. I personally go four years. But that means I’ll buy the new phone on that schedule. Someone else may be on a three year or two year or five year cycle. There’s so many people that apples going to be selling new phones every year even if no one upgraded every year. But for those who want to, since it’s a free country, you can! It’s win-win.
The overall impact may ultimately be small, but it's exactly this nihilism I mentioned up-thread that is inherent in messaging like 'Apple's move away from using leather will have no effect' that serves the interest of fossil fuels and cattle production. It's dressed up in the sheep's clothing of a cynical, anti-establishment environmentalist, but it's just this sort of eye-rolling "why bother' posture that truly serves the wolf's interests.