Apple and environment
Apple accounts for greenhouse gas emissions produced from manufacturing, shipping, and using its products to recycling at the end of a product’s life.
Material use
Apple designs smaller, thinner, lighter products.
MacBook Pro features a revolutionary unibody design, which replaces dozens of individual parts with a single piece of recyclable aluminum.
And today’s 20-inch iMac uses 55 percent less material than its first-generation, 15-inch predecessor.
That’s a material savings of 10,000 metric tons — the equivalent of 7200 Toyota Priuses — for every one million iMac computers sold.
Toxic substance removal
Designing green products includes considering the environmental impact of the materials used to make them.
From the glass, plastic, and metal in the products to the paper and ink in the packaging, Apple's goal is to continue leading the industry in reducing or eliminating environmentally harmful substances.
The greatest environmental challenge facing the industry today is the presence of arsenic, brominated flame retardants (BFRs), mercury, phthalates, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in products.
In keeping with its philosophy over the last decade, Apple is not waiting for legislation to ban these substances.
Not only is every Mac, iPod, and iPhone free of PVC2 and BFRs, Apple is also qualifying thousands of components to be free of elemental bromine and chlorine, putting itself years ahead of anyone in the industry.
In addition, all MacBook Pro models feature displays with mercury-free backlighting and arsenic-free glass.
Responsible manufacturing
Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in its supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible.
From the moment you plug in an Apple product and start using it, you make an impact on the environment.
That’s why Apple designs its products to be as efficient as possible.
Energy use
The energy a product consumes when you plug it in and use it contributes significantly to the environmental footprint of the company that made it.
It also contributes significantly to your environmental footprint.
That’s why Apple designs products to be energy efficient.
In fact, every new Mac meets the strict low-power requirements of the ENERGY STAR specification.
Lower power consumption reduces energy bills and lessens the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
Power management
There are three ways to reduce a product’s energy consumption:
- use more efficient power supplies,
- use components that require less power, and
- use power management software.
Because Apple makes both the hardware and the software for its systems, the company is able to use all three of these methods.
Apple custom-designs highly efficient power supplies to reduce the amount of power wasted when bringing electricity from the wall to the computer.
And unlike a lot of Windows-based PC systems, Mac systems use energy-efficient hardware components that work hand in hand with the operating system to conserve power.
Mac OS X spins down hard drives, activating sleep mode on already energy-efficient LED displays.
And it balances tasks across both central processors and graphics processors.
Mac OS X never misses a power-saving opportunity, no matter how small.
It even regulates the processor between keystrokes, reducing power between every letter being typed.
That’s just one of many ways Apple manages small amounts of power that add up to big savings.
Mac mini is a great example of Apple’s energy-efficient design philosophy.
It uses less than 14 watts of power at idle — that’s something no other desktop computer can do.
ENERGY STAR qualification
Every single computer in the product line is ENERGY STAR compliant.
Apple is the only company in the industry that can make this claim. Mac desktops and portables even met the latest efficiency requirements of the ENERGY STAR Version 5.0 Specification for Computers before its July 2009 effective date.
ENERGY STAR 5.0 sets significantly higher efficiency limits for power supplies and aggressive limits for the computer’s typical annual power consumption.
Not only do energy-efficient designs save energy, they also lessen the single biggest product contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Longer-lasting products
Apple designs products that last.
The built-in battery in MacBook Pro is a perfect example.
Other notebook batteries can be charged only 200 to 300 times.
The MacBook Pro battery can be charged up to 1000 times.
And because this battery lasts up to five years, MacBook Pro uses just one battery in about the same time a typical notebook uses three.
That saves consumers money, produces less waste, and increases the computer's lifespan.
Highly recyclable products
When a Mac finally reaches the end of its long life, the raw materials used to create it can be reused in other products.
Apple products are made of high-quality materials such as aluminum, polycarbonate, and glass, making them extremely valuable to recyclers.
Apple recycling programs
If you live in the U.S., Apple offers a free recycling program for old computers and displays with the purchase of any new Mac.
A free iPod recycling program conducted through Apple Retail Stores offers environmentally friendly disposal and 10 percent off the purchase of a new iPod.
And a free online recycling program takes back all iPod models as well as mobile phones — regardless of manufacturer.
The EPEAT Gold standard
Every Apple computer sold in the U.S. has earned the highest rating of EPEAT Gold.
The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT, evaluates the environmental impact of a product based on how recyclable it is, how much energy it uses, and how it’s designed and manufactured.
Few products achieve EPEAT Gold status — and no other company has achieved it across an entire product line.