Apple Commits to being Carbon Neutral by 2030

To quote the late Carl Sagan:

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit? Yes. Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. ... To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve, and cherish, the pale blue dot; the only home we've ever known.

It is true, no matter how much Science Fiction and the actions of some may provide us the hope of being able to settle and colonize another planet, it is still a long, long ways away. It is not likely that we will be able to colonize another planet in my lifetime, or within the next 100 years.

In order to be able to be able to colonize another world, we need to take care of this one. Apple is doing its part to help protect the one planet that we have. Apple has already been carbon neutral with its global corporate operations, but this goes well beyond that.

Apple is hoping to be carbon neutral not just for global operations, but also for manufacturing, its supply chain partners, and even all of the products it sells. This is a big task, but it should go a long way to helping the planet. From the press release, here is Apple's ten year roadmap:

Apple’s Climate Roadmap

Apple’s 10-year roadmap will lower emissions with a series of innovative actions, including:Low carbon product design: Apple will continue to increase the use of low carbon and recycled materials in its products, innovate in product recycling, and design products to be as energy efficient as possible.

• Apple’s latest recycling innovation — a robot the company is calling “Dave” — disassembles the Taptic Engine from iPhone to better recover key materials such as rare earth magnets and tungsten while also enabling recovery of steel, the next step following its line of “Daisy” iPhone disassembly robots.

• The company’s Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas, which is focused on innovative electronics recycling technology, is now partnering with Carnegie Mellon University to further develop engineering solutions.

• All iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch devices released in the past year are made with recycled content, including 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in the iPhone Taptic Engine — a first for Apple and for any smartphone.

• Apple decreased its carbon footprint by 4.3 million metric tons in 2019 through design and recycled content innovations in its products. Over the past 11 years, Apple has reduced the average energy needed for product use by 73 percent.

This is just part of their overall strategy. This is a big undertaking and one that I hope they are able to achieve. There are many that claim that being carbon neutral, or even just moving to be more green is not fiscally possible. I disagree with them. Will it be free? No, but nothing is free. This video starring Bill Nye is still accurate, and we all need to do better to help the environment.

We only have one planet, and we must take care of it in order to be able to have not only our species, but many other species, survive. It is good to see companies doing their part to help save our planet, since it is the only one we have.

Source: Apple.com