October 21, 2008

Apple Releases Environmental Reports For MacBook, iMac, iPhone and iPods

Apple recently released what it touts as the industry’s greenest laptop. Now, in its Environmental Performance 2008 reporting, it’s also providing environmental reports on eight of its newest products including the MacBook series, iMac, iPhone and iPods. Each report lists the product’s GHG emissions, energy efficiency, material, packaging, restricted substances and how its recycled.

Take the iPhone (PDF) for example, Apple reported that it emits a total of 55 kilograms of greenhouse gases (49 percent of emissions resulting from customer use, 45 percent from production, 5 percent from transporting the product and 1 percent from recycling it).

Here’s a list of the GHG emissions for the remaining seven products (links to PDF):

MacBook Air – 340 kilograms
MacBook – 460 kilograms
MacBook Pro – 560 kilograms
iMac (20-inch) – 1070 kilograms
iMac (24-inch) – 1500 kilograms
iPod nano – 15 kilograms
iPod touch – 30 kilograms

The company says its takeback programs are expanding; recycling volume grew 57 percent in 2007, and the recycling rate reached 18.4 percent of sales.

Recent research showed that one-third of adult Internet users think of Apple as the most eco-friendly consumer technology brand, compared with Dell at 21 percent and HP at 15 percent.

But according to Greenpeace’s recent Guide to Green Electronics, Apple scored 4.1 on a 10-point scale, in 13th place behind Sony, Toshiba, Dell, Acer, HP, and Panasonic.

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