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After withdrawing its products from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) registry, Apple has faced a considerable amount of criticism, most recently from San Francisco’s Department of Environment, which said the city will no longer be able to purchase Apple products.
Now, the company has responded, claiming that its own environmental standards are, in many cases, stricter than EPEAT’s.
“Apple takes a comprehensive approach to measuring our environmental impact and all of our products meet the strictest energy efficiency standards backed by the US government, Energy Star 5.2. We also lead the industry by reporting each product’s greenhouse gas emissions on our website, and Apple products are superior in other important environmental areas not measured by EPEAT, such as removal of toxic materials,” Apple representative Kristin Huguet told The Loop.
Since EPEAT doesn’t measure smartphones or tablets, which are among Apple’s most important products, it’s understandable that Apple would prefer to focus on other environmental protection standards instead, such as Energy Star. Still, many new Apple products, including the Retina MacBook Pro, are hard to take apart and repair (both important criteria for meeting EPEAT’s standards), which ultimately has an impact on the environment.
What do you think? Are you less likely to buy an Apple product now that the company has withdrawn from EPEAT? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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This move by Apple has not effect me ever so slightly.
Oh San Francisco, How about Apple leaves your City, stops having its trade shows there, putting its stores on your streets, stops adding its value to your Cities brand image, stops adding a massive daily tax allowance into your account, and all and all forsakes you? Maybe your corrupt government and police force are not to their taste. The way you treat the poor, maybe that is a bit rough for them. The way you chase down the homeless in the park, maybe that flies in the face of what they think is good and proper behavior for a City to do to their citizens. My God San Francisco bureaucrats, grow up and stop acting like a bunch of teenagers! If Steve were still alive, I guarantee you would have thought twice before pulling a stupid stunt like this. He would have eaten you for lunch!
Well said.
Apple have become everything they stood against.
In what way?
Just because they have withdrawn from EPEAT doesn’t stop the stuff they were selling yesterday that had gold certification suddenly turn into toxic stuff today now they are no longer in.
Apple used to fight big corporations with their slogan “Think different”. But now they’ve become the big guy who doesn’t care what everyone thinks and do what they want cause the masses follow.
@John – As Willy says, Apple have become the behemoth. If they don’t follow programs like this then other manufacturers will follow. Generally speaking the EPEAT is a good thing and shunning it is not. As the article rightly states many of Apple’s products are hard to take apart and repair. This is purely for financial reasons and along with forcing users into the cloud and ramming (crap) software down our throats (like itunes) I have had enough. As a former fanboi, I declare myself out.
Sent from my iPad3
@Martin – Why contribute to a service that is outdated in their studies and doesn’t take into account current improvements or special case examples? Energy saving, especially.
Apples products are not easily repairable by the user, or easily dismantled by recyclers. First, we have an Galaxy SIII explode in someones car, and an iphone burst into flames on a comercial flight. These are becoming devices not for the hobbyists to fiddle or attempt to repair. They have a lot more power in a smaller package and any issue belongs to Apples image. Second, Apple has always worked towards a closed system even since the AppleII when they limited the ports that hackers could have used to hook external devices too. Apple also will pay you for your device to be dismantled and recycled (the special case example).
I will say that I have taken every Apple device of mine apart (except my MacBookAir, MacBook Pro SSD, AppleTV) to replace a broken part or a simple upgrade. To make these machines more compact, you have to eliminate the bulky connector and excess parts that make these more modular. If a hobbyist wants to fiddle with a computer, buy an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi (just ordered mine). I also have two old iPhone 3Gs’ sitting on my desk in pieces getting a refresh as an iPod remote for home controls.
agree
I totally agree.
I don’t think so.
I don’t think they do not listen, I think they set a better standard. This is not right to see the green thing by the book. “Cannot easy to dissemble could apply to the industry in general, but Apple have huge chain of support in every city, which nobody has. The self-dissambled rule is not applicable if you think of the intention of that rule.
What do you mean by this decision is for financial reasons? Design reason may be. But more so, you should see the good reason for it.
Think about it, what if the entire metal case of the laptop is the battery, which the battery technology is going towards, So because of EPEAT, that kind of design cannot be done?
I actually sport Apple on this. I don’t think they’re being arrogant, I see they’re changing the rules, especially their products in fact have much higher standard in terms of recycle and toxic ratings.
I completely agree, they are the NEW Sony if they don’t get their shit together.
Why should I care about the environment? What did it ever do for me? My Macbook, on the other hand, well that’s all I need to survive.
see how stupid long term apple users turn into………..
Wow. Some people really don’t understand sarcasm.
emh, ask your MacBook to provide you with produce, oxygen, water and air.. Then you can say that the environment never did anything to you.. Good job, iSheep..
We all should be little concerned about the environment around us, that is our moral responsibility. Somewhat surprised by Apple’s move, not expected by such a tech giant to overlook this ‘Green computing’ factor. Hope they rethink about this.
- Lisa
http://www.HireaMobileAppDeveloper.com
No.
This is a simple case of box ticking. To meet the EPEAT standards Apple has to tick all their boxes which don’t fit with their current design standards/innovation. As long as Apple continue to design and develop products with environmental impact in mind why should they have to tick a box they says their products have to be easily repaired by unskilled/untrained personnel?
Sometimes black/white standards aren’t the way forward, you should assess the overall impact and measures taken to minimise that impact.
“unskilled/untrained personnel”? We are not talking about teenagers playing on your computer. And also what makes you think Apple knows better than EPEA about what’s green? They make shiny phones.
Totally agreed.
What do you think? Are you less likely to buy an Apple product now that the company has withdrawn from EPEAT?
No, not at all. EPEAT’s requirement for consumer disassembly, independent of other environmental factors is, in my opinion, wrong-headed and old 20th century thinking. If the product had little to no toxic components and those components weren’t recognizable by the consumer, having the consumer disposition the disassembled product is meaningless. Most consumers either resell or trash the whole thing at one time, anyhow. Only the geeks swap in subassys and components and thats a dwindling minority in the computer/phone/tablet appliance market. And, if the appliance life is extended because the design is more difficult to disassemble, e.g.,more rugged, waterproof, and/or prevents whimsical R&R of components, the resultant toxic footprint would be reduced. If the device lasted 3 times longer it would have a 1/3 footprint. It appears that the EPEAT’s rules don’t give credit where credit is due. In my opinion, EPEAT needs to rethink its schema. A better methodology would be to require all manufacturers of all appliances, whether they be computers, phones, tablets, dishwashers, refrigerators, etc., to take full life cycle responsibility for the product in a manner similar to the German requirements. By doing this, the manufacture can not sluff off poor design and resulting environmental costs onto other entities such as the taxpayer. They would have to incorporate environmental cost tradeoffs into their parametric design models. It’s called concurrent engineering. Apple is doing this type of design engineering, today. EPEAT needs to pull itself into the 21st century and promulgate state-of-the-art solutions to environmental challenges. Just my opinion.
Oh please you have no idea what you are talking about. “And, if the appliance life is extended because the design is more difficult to disassemble, e.g.,more rugged, waterproof, and/or prevents whimsical R&R of components, the resultant toxic footprint would be reduced.” Show me. Throw your iphone in a bath tub and see if it still runs. Apple just wants you unable to upgrade your hardware and purchase the next mac for… what is it, 3000 dollars?
Actually, my 2011 MBA was a cool $1k, has been dropped a couple times and still ticks (actually flies, best Windows machine I have ever used) nicely. I also had my previous MBP for five years (currently found a new owner, my dad) and outlasted two (almost three) of my friends Dells (wich are sub environmentally friendly). They might be shinny, and cost more, but its worth it to me when I use them more than 60hrs a week. If I am paying for it by the hr, my cost per hour is only 37 cents for a more efficient, better looking, more environmentally friendly computer in age and in parts.
i only have two things to say to you, dear my lovely fanboy,
the first is, although there are not many (or even non existence) toxic materials in apple products, but it is still difficult to recycle. In case you are wondering, the EPEAT rating of disassembly is for recycling, the harder it is to disassemble, the more energy and resources needed to do so, hence it is less environmentally friendly.
second thing is, being hard to disassemble does not mean more rugged/waterproof/etc. Tell me how many times the iPhone/iPad/MacBook can survive a drop, or water submersion? and while ruggedness can extend the life of a device, this thing doesn’t exist in Apple products. Mostly, iOS devices only have 1 year product cycle, look at how long the queue when the next iPhone comes. Almost all of them upgraded, no matter what. And Apple comes up with new device in one year cycle. MacBooks have slightly better life cycle of around 2-3 years, but compare that to normal PCs, when the cycle is around 3-4 years, with a better environmental ratings.
And again, isn’t it better to have more agencies approve your products? Or has Apple been so arrogant that they think they don’t need ratings and approvals any more?
This is great, since instead of spending money on (arguably useless to both nature and the end-user) “green” certification, Apple can allocate more resources to actually creating great products.
Therefore I wholeheartedly support this. I mean, EPEAT, what’s that. Sounds like FGSFDS to me. Why in the nine hells would someone care.
Its ok for apple to leave this EPEAT and doesn’t care about environment. But think of other companies. If a company like Apple doesn’t care for this standards. why will other companies even care about environmental standards. It good that apple is innovating stuff. what about e recycling. we can see the ifixit ratings for ipad and other apple products. If EPEAT gave ratings to IPhones and other apple products, they can’t even qualify. Think of environment…Good San Francisco stood up against Apple products. More states should join.
Kudos to Apple. I got no problem with it.
Apple quited epeat because all their products are just bad for the environment.
There is just no excuse for it.puting a diferent stiker on the bix doesnt take away that the products are bad for the environment.
When a computer go’s to its last resting place,people there disasamble it for recycling but the ipad,iphone and the new apple computers are 1 piece of glued togheter materials.when burning them,they release toxic fumes,it doesnt matter if at the building proces of the product,that there are no toxic materials used.hell burrning a retina display,battery and the whole combo will resault into a toxic reaction..
And why isnt my email a valid email???
tablets and iphones rarely end up in buring facilities, if only by mistake. They go to oversees to get refurbished and come back to sell as new on ebay or amazon. I know, cause I was in this business.
You need to do some homework before making such a comment.
San Francisco would…
“We’d rather focus on growing pension obligations that we can’t afford”
Um, people you do realize the easy to disassemble part is so they at the recycling centers can easily take apart electronics for recycling and not for it to be easy on technicians or home users to take apart right?
You mind need to be able to break things down and separate the individual parts as they require different techniques to recycle.
Also, we all need to do our utmost to help the environment as you can’t say 4 billion plus entities on a planet don’t affect its environment. Since they were in compliance before, and could easily spend just a touch more on design (since that is what Apple’s number 1 concern always is, how they differentiate themselves, and how they justify charging consumers extra money for anyways it really would be easy enough for such a huge well off company to do I just see this as yet another corner they want to shave off since Steve Jobs died it just goes to show how much influence he had and the environmental concerns he cared about and how those he worked with just didn’t learn from him how he made the company so profitable. It’s a shame really, too big to fail, but not too big to lose market share and relevancy just as IBM did.
Back to my point, all they needed to do was spend a bit more (which they can obviously afford) and all this would be a non issue and the forecasts loss of millions could be forecast gains without having to rev up the PR machine and spend all this time and money explaining a bad decision which is probably choosing more than the small design changes would have cost.
Even though easy to disassemble is meant for recycling I am sure Apple sees it as easier for customers to get in and modify their equipment and a paranoid decision made to stop users from maybe look inside of a device they paid good money for and hiring the environment in the process seems pretty stupid in my eyes.
it’s not letting me like your comment for some reason but I like it and agree
There is no reason to believe this would not have happened if Steve Jobs were still alive. That is 100% your assumption.
If Apple released a new product that was really popular people would say that Steve’s legacy lives on and he had the product on the roadmap before he passed. Since it is unpopular, it is because he died and the company is going in a completely different direction.
He resigned from his position less than a year ago.. I tend to think that the wheels were already in motion to make this laptop into the difficult to deconstruct product it is today, when he did so. That is my assumption though.
We should either give him credit/blame for all of the products being churned out by Apple or none of them at this point. Even if Apple came out with a product and said it was Steve’s “one last thing” before he left, I’m not sure I would believe them. I see Apple as a company that lies and cheats to get ahead and believe they would happily ride the coat tails of a dead man with a great legacy to make more money, even if it were dishonest.
Innovation does not follow politically correct guidelines set by ‘activists” who have NO responsibility for either making money OR innovating. They can shove it, and i’m embarrassed by my city, which already wasn’t buying Apple products despite the fact they were designed here, and are innovative. Fuck bullshit politics and so on. It’s not like SF’s pc crap ever did anything. These assholes didn’t even ban plastic bags despite the please of the wife-beating sheriff!
obviously they have no responsibility for money making, since they are environmental pro activists, unlike the money-oriented Apple.
And if you think that they are not responsible for innovations, think again.
Apple could have use its huge pile of cash to innovate and make the new MacBook Pro better, slimmer, longer-lasting, but at the same time environmentally friendly and meets EPEAT standards. But look, it just goes the easy way by disregarding it.
Many companies created products that are more energy efficient, easier to recycle, more durable and have longer lifespans, and they still can meet the requirements. You innovate to create a more environmentally products!
Plastic bags will not be banned simply because it is easier to recycle than to recycle the MacBook Pro. And if you say that it is toxic, well, aluminium can be toxic as well if you swallow it. But unless you are dumb enough to swallow it, then you should shut your mouth, because I’m 100% sure that you are still using plastic products and plastic bags at some points of your life.
If you say that babies can swallow plastic and get choked, then they can also swallow your iPod Nano and get choked to death. it is the parents responsibility not to leave any potentially harmful objects within the reach of the baby.
your argument is invalid to a large extend and I can see that you are a iFan. Nothing wrong for being an iFan, it’s only wrong when you defend the wrong.
oh, PCs can do what Macs can do, and more, and better. It just doesn’t have that shiny eye-candies, the only thing Apple device can actually be good at.
I am not less likely to buy a mac. However, it seems that if they wanted government agencies who solely rely on the EPEAT registry, then they would change and be back on the registry. It seems that Apple is moving away from being available to corporate purchases and back towards consumers. This also has an effect on their sales because ultimately what people use at their office or place of work are more likely to buy that kind of computer, hence, why Windows is used almost everywhere in places of work, as well as why most people own windows.
No matter what we do it will still wont matter as long as third world countries and china have no regard for the environment
that’s pessimistic. small parts still matter, my friend. In that case, I can just litter everywhere, and everyone else could just do about the same thing.
Why the world has changed from “let’s show them how to do it the correct way” to “who cares?! if they don’t do it, so do I” mentality?
I love my Apple products. They are clean, simple and reliable. The only problems arise from my own incompetence. Of course I am going to continue buying Apple products, they have made my life and organisation needs so much simpler to manage.
I have no problem if people want to buy Apple products. If they have the money and design is that important to them, why shouldn’t they? People buy more expensive cars for the same reason all the time and no one is complaining.
I don’t really accept that Macs are somehow able to help people organize their lives so much more efficiently than a PC can though. So far, none of my Mac buddies have shown me anything that thier Mac is able to do that is even remotely difficult to do on a PC. The same products are generally available for the PC that are on the Mac and very often there are better alternatives for the PC.
Additionally, I don’t have to have special adapters for my PC because they refuse to embed ports that are extremely popular on their products, so I carry less parts around in my laptop bag.
The only thing a Mac (actually OSX) does marginally better than Windows is making things idiot-proof.
Simply put, there are fewer ways to f___ things up by accident because less control is given and less information presented to the user by default. Windows allows for more flexibility by default, at the cost of potentially seeming more confusing to basic users by presenting more options.
The OSX interface is often considered more appealing because both OSX and its applications put greater focus on UI consistency and attractive graphical elements.
e.g.
- folder colors or CoverFlow in Finder;
- Excel 2008 using formatting “palettes” — assumedly to make it less scary to the Photoshop crowd? — and making one-click beautifying functions (preformatted sheet layouts, chart styles, SmartArt and WordArt) literally front and center by putting them in an unhideable bar right across the middle of Excel window… while making a critical functional element like the formula bar a separate window that really doesn’t play nicely when using other windows or applications simultaneously.
Functionally, Macs are in no way superior. As you say, there’s really nothing a Mac can do that a PC can’t. Indeed, there are many things I can achieve on a PC using common, free, and open source software that I can’t do on OSX — or at least not without parting with $40+ for a very approximate equivalent. Fortunately I have Win7 running in Parallels on my office iMac to help get around some of those functionality hitches.
It’s a non-issue. When I am done with my MacBook Pro which is nearly 3 years old I will be using Apple’s recycle program and they will handle it responsibly. I will not be tossing the laptop into the recycle bin. Who does that? The EPEAT standard seems to be out of date.
When I need my dish washer repaired I hire a professional. It still has a solid environmental rating.
exactly.
“Are you less likely to buy an Apple product now that the company has withdrawn from EPEAT?”
No specifically because of the withdrawal, no.
But the root cause of the withdrawal — locking down of hardware, inability to upgrade, deliberate use of proprietary tech/connectors, forcing consumers to remain within their ecosystem — is one of several reasons I won’t buy Apple products.
An industry heavyweight policing itself, what could possibly go wrong with that? Remember when the financial institutions did a bang up job of that a few years ago? Apple is touting a false equivalency: some of our products produce better than expected results so that means the average of our products is good. That’s spin folks.
Good for Apple. I don’t think majority of these companies believe in the scam called “protecting the environment”. They are all doing it to not get too much negative PR. Since most news outlets are cook fringe liberals, they set the story narrative, and we the people only respond to their ideological template. Consumers don’t care at all about “green” mantra either. Consumers only care whether the product they are buying ( a car or cellphone) works, is efficient, and doesn’t break.
I have to say that it was a courageous move on the part of Apple. Although they state their products produce very little green house gases, I know they don’t believe in factitious global warming.
people wants efficient products so they can save on bills, which in turn, can reduce power consumptions. So in a way, customers do care for the environment.
and if things break, it will cost them resources and money. But if it is easier to repair, it will have better impact on environment since it will use less resources to repair.
no matter what, it is everyone’s responsibility to play a part for the environment.
But, all I can see is that, if other company decided to walk out of this, Apple fan will say that they are not responsible and should follow Apple for being environmentally friendly. But now, if Apple is the one opting out, they will defend Apple by saying that most customers don’t care about environmental, and all these environmental ratings are just for PR and the agencies are not pro-innovations.
I can’t believe how Apple fans think nowadays. Blinded by the shiny retina display, huh?
Spin spin spin. This is what a good PR department does.
Not surprised one bit.
Apple is the worst of all companies. Spread the word!
Not one bit…
I could care less whether or not Apple’s products are environmentally friendly.