This is what Apple boss Tim Cook says about climate protection and greenwashing

According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the negative consequences of global warming also pose major challenges for companies.

“You don’t just have to look at the droughts, the forest fires and the heat this summer,” Cook said in a recent interview in Thisted in the Danish region of North Jutland. The American group operates a solar park there together with a Danish partner, from which electricity is supplied to Apple’s European data center in Viborg.

“All of these events are a constant reminder of the importance of climate protection,” Cook said. It is therefore in the best interests of shareholders that companies address climate change.

The Apple boss emphasized that his company’s environmental policy is not a marketing measure or so-called greenwashing, that is, an attempt to give itself an environmentally friendly and responsible image to the public without a sufficient basis for it.

What exactly does Apple do?

Plastic must disappear from packaging

According to Apple, its offices, stores and production facilities have been carbon neutral since 2020.

The iPhone manufacturer has also committed to being completely climate neutral by 2030. This commitment covers not only Apple’s operations, but also the entire supply chain and environmental footprint of Apple products. The electricity consumption of the devices themselves is also included in the calculation.

Cook highlighted that the area of ​​solar panels used by Apple in North Jutland is an example of his company’s climate protection activities.

Apple’s data center, which opened in 2020, is located directly next to a large ‘power grid node’ that is powered, among other things, from the Thisted solar park, it is said. Because the node is also connected to green energy from Norway and Sweden, the data center does not require the usual emergency power supply from large diesel generators. When the sun is not shining on the solar panels in Thisted, hydropower from the Scandinavian neighbors is used and, in case of emergency, electricity from Germany.

What do independent experts say?

In the latest survey of the climate pledges of major companies by the think tank New Climate Institute and the environmental organization Carbon Market Watch, Apple achieved the best marks behind the Danish shipping company Maersk, well ahead of companies such as Amazon, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Deutscher Telekom and Samsung .

However, the authors of the ‘Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2023’ (CCRM) were not able to understand all of Apple’s calculations in detail. In addition, Apple’s main partner Foxconn, which assembles the devices in its factories, performed poorly.

According to newclimate.org, Apple is one of the few of the 24 companies assessed in the CCRM that have “set and are implementing reasonably ambitious mid-term emissions reduction targets.”

And the repairability?

In the interview, Cook also addressed accusations that Apple makes it too difficult for its customers to repair products bearing the Apple logo themselves. When it comes to the ‘right to repair’, Apple has ‘already done a lot’.

But many people didn’t want to do that, Cook said. “You want to go to someone who is used to fixing things. And so we try to make the search for a service provider as easy as possible.”

Then there are the old iPhones

To increase recycling rates, Apple is relying on even more consumers to throw away their no longer used smartphones instead of forgetting them in a drawer. Tim Cook wants customers to trade in their old mobile device when they buy a new iPhone. The company credits a small amount for this.

Sources

Interview with DPA news agency

(dsc/sda/dpa)