How Green Is Apple: Cleaning the

Supply Chain
Like most electronics manufacturers, Apple doesn't actuallly make its own products.
That can make it hard to assess the environmental impact of its production
processes.


Reliability and Service: Technology's Most (and Least) Reliable Brands

Apple Looking to Design Its Own Chips


Why Apple's 11-Inch MacBook Air Is TSA-Approved
 Apple’s IPad Play a Perfect Fit for Discount Retailers


Security Firm: Apple Has More Security Holes Than Microsoft

1


Apple iPhone 4 vs. The Rest of the Smartphone Pack

In the case of notebooks, for example, Apple--like Dell, HP, and virtually every
other computer vendor, confusingly dubbed Original Equipment Manufacturers
(OEMs)--designs its systems but then outsources the assembly to contract
manufacturers, also known as original design manufacturers (ODMs). While most of
these ODMs have headquarters in Taiwan, their factories are usually in mainland
China, where labor costs are lower and environmental standards are lax.

According to research analyst David Daoud of IDC (an analytical firm owned by
Macworld parent company IDG), 95 percent of all laptops are manufactured in
China, and 85 percent of those are produced by a handful of companies you've
likely never heard of, including Quanta, Compal, Wistron, and Inventec. Most of the
companies that supply these ODMs with their raw materials and components are
also based in Asia.

Apple's Supplier Code of Conduct requires that its partners use environmentally
responsible manufacturing processes. But how do Apple and other OEMs really
know that contract manufacturers and their suppliers meet such requirements? How
does an OEM know, for example, that the internal cables in its laptops are truly free
of PVC, or that there's no arsenic in the display glass?

Apple says it audits all of its suppliers, and that this information is made public on
its Web site. The company's 16-page Supplier Responsibility 2009 Progress Report
(PDF), published in February, summarizes those auditing efforts. For instance,
Apple representatives physically inspect manufacturing facilities, talk with senior
management, and even conduct confidential interviews with "randomly selected
employees from the line."
According to Greenpeace electronics and e-waste expert Casey Harrell, companies
understand the potential for negative PR if they lie about their environmental
policies. He confirms that both OEMs and contract manufacturers typically spot-
check parts and processes along their supply chains, to make sure everything are in
order. Global agencies like the European Union and Greenpeace do their own spot-
checks, too, but not very many. "It's a very expensive process for us to take apart
a computer and do extensive testing on it," Harrell says.

So on this count, we have to--and, apparently, can--trust Apple.

Toxic Content

2
As for the toxic content of its products, observers say Apple's claims that it's
cleaned up its act are also believable. Those claims are included in individual
reports for each of its products.

For example, according to the report on the 17-inch MacBook Pro (PDF), that
notebook is free of BFRs, which are often added to plastics used in electronics and
other products. BFRs, which can harm hormone and immune systems, pose the
greatest risk when electronic devices containing them are produced or destroyed.
That's a problem when open piles of e-waste are burned--a common practice in
Asia and Africa. Recent studies, including one by the Australian government, found
BFRs in the dust that collects on DVD players, stereos, and other home electronic
devices.

The MacBook Pro is also free of PVCs. When created or burned, PVC releases
dioxins, which can cause cancer and can damage immune and reproductive
systems. And since PVC is often mixed with toxic chemicals that can evaporate, or
off-gas (that's where the famous new-car smell comes from), it's a potential threat
to consumers, too.

Furthermore, Apple reports that the displays in the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and
MacBook Air are free of mercury and arsenic. Its notebooks also now use a
recyclable aluminum and glass enclosure, mercury-free LED backlights, and a
power-stingy design that uses a fraction of the power that a 60-watt light bulb
uses.

Apple has also significantly reduced the PVC and BFR content of its desktop
computers, too. And the company Apple is also making its iPods and iPhones
greener: the headphones, USB cord, and internal wiring of the iPhone 3G, for
example, are all free of PVC. And Apple has reduced the size of its packaging (much
of which is made from recycled material) across its product lines, conserving on
manufacturing and reducing packages' shipping weights. "Apple is a leader in
consumer electronics, in the phase-out of toxic PVC and brominated flame
retardants," acknowledges Harrell.

While Greenpeace is pleased with Apple's latest efforts, it's far from laudatory. In
its March 2009 Guide to Greener Electronics, the group ranked Apple 10th among
major electronics manufacturers, ahead of Dell and HP. (Those two were dinged for
no longer having stated timelines for eliminating BFRs and PVC from their
products.)

Yet Apple earned just 4.7 points out of a possible 10--dramatically lower than
competitors Samsung and Nokia. That low score was largely due to Apple's
reluctance to open up more about the environmental impact of its overall corporate
operations. "They could elevate their score quite easily with just a couple of fixes,"
says Greenpeace's Harrell. "They could do a greenhouse-gas inventory of their
supply chain, which they probably have done. But they haven't talked about it."

3
That tight-lipped attitude doesn't sit well with other watchdog groups like Ceres, a
coalition of environmentalists and investors that urges companies to adopt greener
practices. In a 2008 report rating technology companies' climate-change strategies
(PDF), Ceres gave Apple a score of 28 on a 100-point scale. By comparison, Dell
earned a 77; HP, a 62.

The Ceres report acknowledged Apple's efforts to remove toxic chemicals from its
products, but knocked the company for not releasing more details about its "carbon
footprint," the amount of greenhouse gases that it generates in regular operations.
The companies that scored higher in the study "choose to make public an overall
emissions footprint for their operation," says research analyst Megan Good, one of
the report's authors, "and Apple hasn't done that." In addition, Apple hadn't set up
a specific executive committee or a task force to address climate issues, which
many of those other companies have done.

Apple counters that it does indeed break down its emissions by facility (PDF), and
that other reports available on its environmental page detail the company's energy
and water usage, as well as its transportation, waste, and recycling programs. It
also documents greenhouse-gas emissions created at each stage of its products'
lifecycles, including manufacturing, transportation, consumer usage, and recycling.
We contacted Ceres again, to see it had reexamined Apple's policies since it
published its 2008 report; the group says it had not.