From time to time, Apple likes to remind the world how much a company is at least in its public face concerned with the environment and always willing to develop initiatives to make its products and operations more environmentally friendly. This time, Ma decided to turn her attention to an aspect that, many times, in our desire to get our hands on new products, we forget: packaging.
In a report (PDF) shared today, called Apple’s Paper and Packaging Strategy (Apple's Packaging and Paper Strategy), the company talks a little about the evolution it has put into creating its packaging for its products, sharing data on the decrease in the use of non-biodegradable materials.
In one of the first topics of the document, Apple addresses its three priorities to guide its efforts in the packaging area:
- Reduce the impact on climate change by using renewable energy sources and prioritizing energy efficiency in products and facilities;
- Conserve precious resources by using materials efficiently, using more recyclable and / or renewable materials in the products and recovering these materials at the end of the products' life cycle;
- Identify, develop and use safer materials in products and processes.
On an interesting point, the company specifically talks about the evolution of iPhone packaging, Apple's best-selling product and, therefore, the one that produces the most garbage with packaging. While the iPhone 6s case used two stacked plastic trays (one to position the device itself and one for accessories), the iPhone 7 casing had a design change that allowed all components to be positioned with just one piece, decreasing the use of material. In addition, the material used has changed from plastic to a biodegradable fiber.
Considering this change, that of the part involving the EarPods (which stopped being plastic and changed to cardboard) and the fiber that surrounds the boxes, Apple managed to significantly evolve its use of materials in just one generation of iPhone, as shown in the graph below:
Then, the document further details Apple's efforts to maintain sustainable forests for material exploration in two countries: in the United States, for example, this initiative is linked to the The Conservation Fund, as we have detailed in this post. J in China, Ma entered into a partnership with WWF (World Wildlife Fund, one of the largest environmental NGOs in the world) to develop local sustainability techniques.
Everything is very beautiful, but there is still room for improvement and Apple itself recognizes this, stating that it continues to seek solutions to make its packaging even more efficient and less harmful to the environment. As long as the company doesn't give us iPhones in bakery bags, I give my full and complete support to that; the planet and future generations, of course, are grateful.
via 9to5Mac
