In a second open letter posted to the company’s Web site, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has outlined plans to create a “Greener Apple” by eliminating toxic substances from its products and increasing e-waste recycling efforts.
Historically, Apple has been considered one of the technology industry’s greenest companies, being among the first to launch computer recycling programs, eliminate waste in its packaging, reduce toxic output from manufacturing processes, commit to keeping collected e-waste in North America, and to attempt to make products in ways which have the least environmental impact, However, for the last year Apple has been a high-profile target of environmental groups, most notably Greenpeace, which has repeatedly singled out Apple as the least eco-friendly of the major technology manufacturers. Greenpeace’s evaluation of Apple’s environmental policies is based in part on the company’s lack of public commitments to eco-friendly initiatives.
In the open letter, Jobs says that Apple traditionally doesn’t talk about its plans for the future, preferring to talk about what it has actually accomplished, with the result that customers and others weren’t informed about Apple’s plans to improve its environmental profile. Jobs says that on investigating Apple’s current practices, he was “surprised” to learn the company is either ahead of most of its competitors in eco-friendly matters, or soon would be.
To that end, Jobs outlined a series of changes Apple will be implementing to make the company’s overall stance “greener.” Among them:
Apple will eliminate mercury from its display panels by converting to LED backlighting technology beginning in 2007, and eliminate fluorescent backlighting altogether when technically and economically feasible;
Apple will eliminate arsenic from the glass used in its LCD displays by the end of 2008;
Apple says its products will be free of polyvinyl chloride and brominated flame retardants by the end of 2008.
Jobs also says the company recycled 13 million pounds of e-waste in 2006, which represented 9.5 percent of the mass of all products Apple sold seven years earlier. Jobs says the percentage should grow to 13 percent in 2007, and may reach 28 percent by 2010. If that happens, Apple would be recycling a significantly larger percent of its past sales weight than HP or Dell, which currently claim to recycle about 10 percent a year and haven’t indicated any expectation of increasing that percentage. Jobs also re-iterated Apple’s commitment to keeping e-waste collected in North America in the United States, rather than shipping it overseas for processing and disposal.
Analysts and industry watchers will keep an eye on the impact of Jobs’ new open letter; the practice may mark a new direction for Apple to address its customers and the general public directly via the Internet, rather than going through traditional PR channels. The letters may also serve to solidify Jobs’ status as a media figure: the long-standing cult of personality surrounding the Apple leader has taken on new proportions with Apple’s hugely successful music business, as well as Jobs’ high-profile role within media conglomerate Disney. The open letters, in which Jobs speaks directly to the public, enhance that perception.
Jobs’ first open letter, posted to the company’s Web site, in February, discussed the use of digital rights management technology in purchases the iTunes store, saying Apple would drop DRM “in a heartbeat” of music distributors didn’t insist on it. Since then, record label EMI has announced plans to offer DRM-free music on iTunes.
