Apple Releases New Environmental Progress Report for Fiscal Year 2015 [atualizado 3x: “MacOS”?]

Earth Day, established on April 22, 1970 by an American senator, has the main objective of spreading and strengthening environmental awareness to preserve our beloved planet.

Following in the footsteps of last year, Apple chose a date close to that important day to announce its Environmental Progress Report (PDF) annual report and update your Environmental responsibility, both with the purpose of updating consumers and suppliers with Ma's most recent progress with regard to measures for preserving the environment and reducing toxic materials and the use of non-renewable energy.

Below, we list the main points of the document and the new page, referring to progress made in fiscal year 2015:

  • In 2015, 93% of the energy used by Apple came from renewable sources. The focus will continue to march at 100%, although they have not established a forecast for such an achievement.
  • In Singapore, a network of solar panels spread over more than 800 buildings is generating all the energy required by Ma's 32 megawatt local facilities!
  • In China, more 80-megawatt solar panels are generating energy to offset that spent on producing the products.
  • In 2015, 38,400,000 metric tons of carbon were emitted by Apple, 77% of them in the manufacture of products.
  • Apple's servers run 100% on renewable energy, yes, you can talk to Siri and make calls on FaceTime without fault. In that sense, at least.
  • More than 99% of the paper used in packaging is recycled or sustainable.
  • According to Apple, no residue from the production of iPhones or Apple Watches will end up in rubbish or the like.
  • With the program Apple Renew, consumers have an easier and more environmentally friendly way to dispose of their old Apple devices. Ma herself takes care to dispose of them in the least aggressive way possible and robot Liam should help a lot in this.
  • Apple is increasingly striving to eliminate toxic elements from its products has already done this with merchants and arsenic, for example. The company also now publishes a document with the compositions of all the materials used in each product it manufactures.

These are all, without a doubt, important progress in the eternal search for a more sustainable method of production and consumption. We are still far from this ideal, without a doubt, but seeing that one of the largest companies in the world is dedicated to this comforting.

(via Apple World Today)

Update by Rafael Fischmann · 04/14/2016 s 23:17

THE 9to5Mac found an Apple slip on a question / answer page within the new Environmental Responsibility website:

Reference to

As you can see, Apple referred to its desktop operating system as "MacOS" another indication that adds to what the found it last month (although this time it has a more "M", which would be a little strange considering the other three: iOS, watchOS and tvOS).

Apple quickly corrected the page, which now correctly references “OS X”. But it is quite possible that this change of name in the system will happen this year, even

Update II · 04/15/2016 s 09:40

Some more interesting information:

  • Ma's report estimates the amount of material recovered from the dismantling of discarded products in 2015, and the numbers are impressive: there are more than 27,000 tons (!) Of materials, including 10,000 tons of steel, 5,000 glass, 2 thousand aluminum and, amazingly, a ton of gold. That means $ 40 million more in Apple's coffers, just for products thrown away.
  • Interestingly, Apple also includes in the report an own estimate of the life expectancy of its products: according to her, Macs and Apple TVs have an average useful life of 4 years, while iDevices and Apple Watches last, on average, 3 years.

(via Business Insider, The Register)

Update III · 4/20/2016 s 18:12

Apparently, this story of the $ 40 million in gold recovered from iGadgets not exactly what it looks like. Regarding the Motherboard, the writer Jason Koebler harshly criticizes the way the subject of recovered / recycled materials was approached in different news channels around the world.

According to Koebler, it is nowhere near the truth that Apple has recovered all that gold money from its products; in reality, what happens is that Ma pays recycling cooperatives to recycle electronic waste to comply with the laws of each American state. Laws vary, but are always based on the indication that x% of the net weight sold from electronics must be recycled, or else not market share the company in question.

That is, in the end, of all that material disclosed by Apple as recycled in the report, a very small part must come from iGadgets. It makes sense, considering that Ma recovers a very small percentage of the discarded devices through its own recycling program. In addition, we are talking about modern, state-of-the-art devices, which serve much more being reused and sold as reconditioned (refurbished) in emerging countries. Anyway, ball out of Apple does not make this very clear in your report.

(via iFixit)