Lisa Jackson talks climate change, Apple’s lofty mining goal, and more in new interview

In celebration of Earth Day, Apple executive Lisa Jackson this week sat down with John Gruber for an in-depth interview. Airing as part of Gruber’s “The Talk Show” podcast, the interview discussed a variety of environmental topics, especially relating to Apple’s own efforts…

In the interview, Jackson and Gruber talked about the overall effects of climate change, as well as Apple’s efforts to combat it. Jackson spoke on Apple’s new goal of creating a closed loop supply chain and to stop mining from the earth all together, producing all of its products from recycled materials.

Jackson also offered some interesting data relating to Apple’s carbon footprint. She explained that Apple’s carbon footprint during 2016 was 29.5 million metric tons. This includes a wide array of things, such as mining, product transportation, and packaging. Apple also factors in the electricity that its customers use when calculating its carbon footprint.

The Apple executive explained that manufacturing has the largest impact on carbon footprint at the moment, but that Apple is working to change that by working one-on-one with manufacturers. In the past year, 3 new suppliers have committed to transforming to 100 percent renewable energy. This makes for a total of seven Apple suppliers on the path towards 100 percent renewable energy, something Jackson thinks Apple has greatly impacted with its efforts.

Even though we don’t own mines or have a relationship with mining companies, we estimate the extraction and processing of the alumina, all the way through a product use. We actually include in our carbon footprint the electricity that you use as an Apple customer, because you wouldn’t use that electricity if it wasn’t for Apple. All the way through recycling.

Apple has been celebrating Earth Day all week. The company released its 2017 Environment Responsibility Report, announcing its lofty promise to stop mining the earth and build all of its products from recycled materials. Apple also released a series of comical Earth Day videos, which Jackson talked some about during her interview with Gruber.

The full sit-down interview between Jackson and Gruber is available to listen to here. It’s a pretty fascinating discussion and one to definitely check out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNzCrRmrtvE