Apple

Apple won praise for its latest efforts to rid its products of harmful chemicals in a new report released Tuesday from environmental organizations ChemSec and Clean Production Action.

While Greenpeace downplayed Apple's environmental advances in its latest report, ChemSec and Clean Production Action's report, "Greening Consumer Electronics: Moving Away from Bromine and Chlorine," highlights Apple's efforts as one of seven companies who have come up with solutions negating the use of harmful chemicals. Apple was the only computer maker to make the list.

"Apple established an innovative program that restricts the use of nearly all bromine and chlorine compounds across all their product lines," the report says of Apple. "As such, Apple now offers a wide range of PVC and BFR free consumer products including iPhones and iPods, as well as computers that are free of BFRs and most uses of PVC."

Apple recently unveiled a major overhaul of its environmental Web site, allowing users to see exactly what it is doing to help the environment. Not only does it show the individual products, Apple calculates the impact of its products from mining the materials and use to recycling.

Apple's environmental Web site is broken down into several categories, including Life Cycle Impact, Product Usage Impact, and Product Environmental Reports. There is also a section for Apple to post its own updates.

While Apple was the only computer manufacturer to make the list, the report praised six other companies for their environmental efforts, too.

With its products 99.9 percent free of brominated flame retardants (BFRs), Sony Ericsson will have no PVC components in its products by the end of 2009, according to the report. ChemSec and Clean Production Action praised the company for "not only removing substances of concern from their products but also taking on the complicated task of establishing full chemical inventories for all their product lines."

Hard drive manufacturer, Seagate, eliminated chlorine- and bromine-based chemistries from its disk drives, and Netherlands-based DSM Engineering Plastics is one of the first to offer engineering plastics that are free of bromine and chlorine.

Nan Ya and Indium were added to the list for their efforts to produce bromine- and chlorine-free components for printed circuit boards, while maintaining the reliability of the products.

Semiconductor manufacturer Silicon Storage Technology was among the first company to provide bromine-free chips to companies like Apple.

Apple on Monday resigned its membership to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protest over the organization's environmental policy, according to a report on the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the chamber at odds with us in this effort," Catherine Novelli, Apple vice president of worldwide government affairs, wrote to in a letter to chamber President Thomas Donohue.

With its resignation, Apple becomes the fourth company to leave the Chamber of Commerce in the last several weeks, according to the Washington Post. The others--Pacific Gas and Electric, PNM Resources, and Exelon--have all been power companies.

Apple on Thursday updated its Web site with a new section on how its products are impacting the environment.

Apple has made public information in several categories including Life Cycle Impact, Product Usage Impact, and Product Environmental Reports. The company also created a section dedicated to its own environmental updates.

Taking a look at the power management section will give you an idea of how extensive the information is that Apple provided. According to Apple, Mac OS X even regulates the processor in between keystrokes, saving power.

"Designing green products includes considering the environmental impact of the materials used to make them," reads Apple's Web site. "From the glass, plastic, and metal in our products to the paper and ink in our packaging, our goal is to continue leading the industry in reducing or eliminating environmentally harmful substances."

To show how things like packaging can affect the environment, Apple compares the 2006 13-inch MacBook to that of the 2009 13-inch MacBook Pro. The end result: "By reducing our packaging over 40 percent between 2006 and 2009, we ship 50 percent more boxes in each airline shipping container. That saves one 747 flight for every 32,000 units we ship," according to Apple.

The Web site features a lot more information including emissions per hour of product use, recycling efforts, and what the company has done to reduce energy in its facilities.

Apple touted its new MacBooks unveiled on Tuesday as the "industry's greenest notebooks," and on reduction of toxic chemicals they may be. But environmental groups point to greenhouse gas emissions and recycling as areas where more needs to be done.

The notebooks do seem to lead the industry in the elimination of toxic chemicals by having a Mercury-free LCD display, arsenic-free display glass, Polyvinyl chloride (PVC)-free internal cables and components, and being free of brominated flame retardant (BFR), according to the Apple news release.

"This is greener than what Apple has been putting out," said Casey Harrell, toxics campaigner for Greenpeace International. "It's welcome news and it is also in line with their commitment to phase out all PVC and BFRs from all their products by the end of the year."

But Harrell wondered why only the internal cables were PVC free and noted that Sony's Vaio has had PVC-free internal cables since last year.

"The elimination of BFR in the notebooks is definitely a bar raiser for the industry," he said. Other notebook makers have made similar commitments on PVC and BFR and "are making baby steps," he added.

In its "2008 Environmental Update" released Tuesday and signed by Chief Executive Steve Jobs, the company says it is removing all forms of bromine and chlorine from the product line, not just PVC and BFTs, and is in the final stages of certifying PVC-free power cables.

Along with the latest release, the pledges to remove Mercury from displays and arsenic from display glass, the release of an arsenic- and Mercury-free MacBook Air, BFR- and PVC-free iPods, and Mercury-free iPhone 3G display, "Apple's new product designs are on track to meet our 2008 year-end goal," the Update said.

Another criteria for green-ness is recyclability. The newest MacBooks also have a "highly" recyclable aluminum and glass enclosure.

"Sounds like Apple has made some significant steps since we first looked at their iPod several years ago" and its non-replaceable battery, said Sheila Davis, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. "It will be interesting to see how recyclable it is. Are they willing to have a more aggressive takeback program?"

Apple says its takeback programs are expanding, with its recycling volume growing 57 percent in 2007, and the recycling rate reaching 18.4 percent of sales, according to the Environmental Update. Apple provides takeback options for customers in 95 percent of the countries where its products are sold; offers free recycling of any manufacturer's computer or monitor if it is replaced with an Apple product, takes back any make or model of cell phone and does not ship waste from its U.S. recycling program outside North America and processes products in the country or region in which they are collected, Apple's recycling Web page says.

With Al Gore being on Apple's board you'd expect the company to take the lead on policies affecting the climate crisis. But that isn't necessarily the case, according to Wood Turner, director of Climate Counts, a nonprofit that ranks companies based on their commitment to addressing climate change. The group gave Apple low marks for corporate climate leadership earlier this year.

The progress on reducing toxics "is heartening and demonstrates that Apple is on the right track," he said. "But we'd like to see that same commitment to addressing global climate change." Apple should set goals and targets to reduce the ecological impact caused by the production and distribution of its products, he added.

Apple is now offering environmental reports for its products that provide details on all ecological aspects, including measurement of emissions produced at each stage of a product's lifecycle. For instance, a pie chart for the new MacBook shows that manufacture of the product accounts for half of the total 460 kg of greenhouse gas emissions. But no goals are listed.

The MacBook has new efficient packaging using corrugate cardboard made from 25 percent recycled material. And the notebooks also meet Energy Star 4.0, EPEAT Gold and Restriction of Hazardous Substances environmental standards.

Standards and percentages aside, Apple has done an excellent job marketing itself as a leader in green practices. A report released last week shows that nearly one-third of Internet users view Apple as the most environmentally friendly brand, compared with Dell at 21 percent and Hewlett-Packard at 15 percent.

That's quite a shift from 2005 when Apple's recycling and other environmental policies prompted protests outside the company's annual meeting.

A Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics Report released in September ranked Apple 13th, with a point score of 4.1 out of 10. Dragging Apple down was its recycling rate, but that rate has nearly doubled since 2006.

"There are many people in the environmental movement who have been highly critical of Apple. They have complained that Apple has not been as progressive with its environmental movement as it has been with its marketing," said Bruce Olszewski, an environmental studies professor at San Jose State University who runs a recycling information center. "So this is really a positive step Apple has taken."

For complete coverage of the Apple notebook news, see "Apple polishes up its MacBook line."