Environment

Greenpeace has described Apple as the most environmentally friendly tech company in the world for the third year running, thanks to its high use of renewable energy and the leadership role it takes in encouraging its supply chain to follow its own example.

Apple retains its leadership spot for the third year in a row among platform operators. Both Apple and Google continue to lead the sector in matching their growth with an equivalent or larger supply of renewable energy, and both companies continue to use their influence to push governments as well as their utility and IT sector vendors to increase access to renewable energy for their operations.

Apple scored 83% in Greenpeace’s clean energy index, and was awarded grade A in four out of five additional categories …

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Zero Waste means nothing sent to landfill sites

Apple has announced that all 14 of its final assembly plants in China are now zero-waste compliant, meaning that none of the waste is sent to landfill. Waste products are instead recycled, re-used, composted or burned to generate energy.

Typically, paper and cardboard are sent to paper mills for recycling, glass & metal is melted for re-use, plastic is recycled into packaging materials and food is composted …

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Apple’s ninth annual Environmental Responsibility Report summarises the company’s work on its three environmental priorities of renewable energy, safer materials & processes and conserving resources. As part of the third of those, the company revealed that its recycling program last year recovered 89 million pounds of materials – Business Insider noting that this included a cool $40M worth of gold.

Gold is commonly used in circuit boards because it has low electrical resistance and, unlike copper, doesn’t corrode. In most applications, a thin layer of gold covers a thicker layer of copper – which was a second valuable material recovered by Apple …

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As part of Apple’s Renew program, where the company is encouraging people to recycle their old devices to help the environment, Apple has posted some exclusive environmental wallpaper to download on its website. The URL (apple.com/thanks) is given out on cards in Apple Stores to people who recycle their old device in store, as a small gesture of appreciation.

However, the URL is open to anyone to visit and download some cute, exclusive, iOS 9 wallpaper that isn’t included in the default list of iOS wallpaper …

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Update: Galway Independent (via Business Insider) reports that a hearing date has now been set, for Tuesday 24th May. The venue has not yet been confirmed.

Apple’s plan to build one of the world’s largest data centers in Ireland hit a stumbling block earlier this month when local residents filed objections. The planning body, An Bord Pleanála, said that it would be pushing back its decision from February to May in order to consider those objections.

Business Insider reports that An Bord Pleanála has now written to Apple’s consulting engineers, asking them to address five concerns …

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In this week’s episode of The Logic Pros, we will be taking a user-friendly look at Logic’s mysterious and powerful MIDI Environment. Along with what seems like a countless number of possibilities, tools, MIDI FX mods and more, the Environment has an interesting little item known as Touch Tracks that can do some pretty amazing things once it’s set up properly:
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Apple has announced that it will power all of its operations in Singapore from solar energy, the first company in the city-state to do so. The scheme will also provide electricity to around 9,000 public-owned homes.

CNET reports that Apple is partnering with local clean energy provide Sunseap.

The Cupertino consumer electronics giant has partnered with Singapore’s largest clean energy provider, Sunseap Group, who will provide power to Apple’s 2,500-person corporate campus and retail store. Energy will be obtained from solar panels laid on the rooftops of 800 buildings.

Retail head Angela Ahrendts also confirmed to The Strait Times earlier reports that it is opening its first Apple Store in Singapore, with hiring underway …

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The Paulson Institute today announced that Apple CEO Tim Cook is joining its CEO Council for Sustainable Urbanization, run in conjunction with the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. The Council for Sustainable Urbanization was initially formed nearly a year ago and includes 17 CEOs from various companies around the world.

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Greenpeace today released an update to its “Clicking Clean: A Guide to Building the Green Internet” report, showing that Apple continues to lead among tech companies when it comes to renewable energy efforts. The report notes that Apple has been “most aggressive” with its renewable energy projects including a number of new initiatives and continuing to maintain “its claim of a 100% renewably powered cloud for another year.”
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As part of Apple’s push for a greener environment, the company has changed up its physical signage outside Apple Stores around the world to celebrate Earth Day. The updated logos are mostly the same but the leaf section is tinted green. The celebration can be seen at Apple Stores worldwide.

Apple has also put the Apple logo with the green adornments in some places online, such as on its YouTube account. Apple’s homepage is currently dominated by its environmental initiatives for the occasion, with the launch of Apple Watch relegated to one of the smaller summary panels.

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Through a press release and a post on Medium by Apple VP Lisa Jackson, Apple and The Conservation Fund have today announced a ‘breakthrough’ arrangement for sustainability. The deal involves Apple purchasing 36,000 acres of forest land in the eastern United States.

Apple will use the paper from the forests for sustainable product packaging with guarantees to ensure that “forests stay forests” and harvested timber is done so in a sustainable way.

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Apple has announced that it will be spending €1.7B ($1.92B) on two new European data centers, each of which will be among the largest in the world at 166,000 square metres (1.8M square feet)–three times larger than the company’s North Carolina facility.

One will be in Ireland, the other in Denmark, with each set to begin operations in 2017. Apple says that the facilities will provide online services across Europe, including the iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Apple Maps and Siri.

We are grateful for Apple’s continued success in Europe and proud that our investment supports communities across the continent,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “This significant new investment represents Apple’s biggest project in Europe to date.”

As with all of Apple’s data centers around the world, the new centres will be powered entirely by clean, renewable energy … 
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As we shared this morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook today participated in the Climate Week NYC environment-focused conference to speak on behalf of Apple and the company’s efforts on preserving the planet. During his interview, Cook stated that Apple’s new headquarters will be what he thinks is the greenest building on the planet:

“We’re building a new headquarters that will, I think, be the greenest building on the planet. It’ll be a center for innovation, and it’s something clearly our employees want and we want.

Cook’s comments came in the context of discussing Apple’s efforts to monitor the environmental impact of the supply chain behind Apple’s products, not just Apple-operated facilities and improving the carbon footprint of other facilities. Cook echoed past comments by saying that Apple will focus on the supply chain “in a major way.”
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Climate Week NYC is an annual conference about environmental sustainability. For 2014, there is a particular focus on lowering carbon emission across business, government and individuals. Apple CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to speak at the event, for the first time, at 12 PM EST. The livestream for the event is embedded below.

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Apple’s eighth annual Supplier Responsibility Progress Report highlights the progress made on reducing child labor and enforcing working hour limits, and shows a significant increase in the environmental standards Apple’s suppliers are expected to meet.

The number of cases of underage workers fell from 106 last year to 11 this year. Compliance with Apple’s requirement of a maximum working week of 60 hours hit 95 percent, with 97 percent meeting the requirement of at least one day off a week. Apple reported that the average working week of a supply chain employee was less than 50 hours … 
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Apple today published a report on its website detailing the “Economic and Fiscal Impacts Generated by Apple in Cupertino – Current Facilities and Apple Campus 2.” 

Apple notes that the report, which details a number of topics from job creation to construction of its new spaceship campus, was put together by Keyser Marston Associates, Inc. (KMA) for the City of Cupertino under contract with Apple Inc.

With net annual sales in excess of $156 billion, 16,000 employees currently based in the Cupertino area, and annual purchases from local Silicon Valley-based businesses of $4.6 billion, Apple is a cornerstone of the Silicon Valley economy and of the fiscal resources of the City of Cupertino.

Much of the report focuses on the economic impacts and future contributions of Apple’s currently under construction Apple Campus 2. In the report, Apple details how its new campus will “add an estimated 7,400 new high-quality jobs,” increase revenues for the local economy, and enhance tax revenues for the city and surrounding areas. Apple says it will support 24,000 jobs in Cupertino alone when the campus is ready in 2016.

It also detailed investments being made in public improvements surrounding its new campus including infrastructure and utility improvements and its transportation program:
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