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The Greening of Apple: Is It Important To You? By Charles Moore (TheAppleBlog)
sensible approach because based on his research into the matter, in Enderle’s view Apple’s Submitted at 10/28/2009 11:00:01 AM customers mostly don’t care. Is Apple is putting a lot of that an accurate assessment, or e m p h a s i s o n i t s “ g r e e n ” exaggeratedly jaundiced? After initiatives lately. But is it the real all, environmentalist poster boy deal? Al Gore sits on Apple’s board of For example, Apple’s new directors. energy efficiency page says that Enderle claims that Apple tried because 53 percent of Apple’s to ignore green computing greenhouse gas emissions are a entirely until the eco-activist result of the power its products organization Greenpeace began consume, it’s designing these r e l e n t l e s s l y s l a g g i n g t h e products to be as energy efficient company as an environmental as possible employing three f o o t - d r a g g e r a n d l a g g a r d . strategies to reduce energy A d d r e s s i n g Apple’s consumption: more efficient E n v i r o n m e n t a l F o o t p r i n t power supplies, components that Apple’s website highlights require less power, and power several key areas in which it’s management software. Every addressing its environmental new Mac is claimed to meet the footprint, citing engineering strict low-power requirements of innovations such as the unibody the Energy Star specification. MacBooks, whose light, fully H o w e v e r , t h e o p e r a t i v e recyclable housing is sculpted questions are how much does from a single billet of aluminum, “green computing” matter to and the lightness of the current c o n s u m e r s , a n d w h e t h e r iMacs which contain less than 20 corporate marketing of “green” pounds of materials. IT devices amounts to more Apple also claims to be at the image-spinning than substance. industry forefront in eliminating Only the Bare Minimum? toxic chemicals, such as arsenic, S o m e c r i t i c s , s u c h a s brominated flame retardants MacNewsWorld’s Rob Enderle (BFRs), mercury, phthalates, and accuse Apple of doing the “barest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from minimum necessary” to justify its its products. “green” claims — indeed less Cupertino has reduced than its major competitors, but packaging bulk, and, somewhat viewed pragmatically that’s a questionably in my view, bundles
because they must be able to operate on battery power, they’re engineered for energy efficiency. However, even Apple’s mass market desktops have very decent energy consumption profiles f e w e r p e r i p h e r a l s w i t h i t s these days, with iMacs reportedly systems, which arguably has using about as much energy as a some minimal environmental 60-watt lightbulb, and Mac minis benefit, but also saves Apple a substantially less than that. How f a i r b i t o f m o n e y w h i l e Much Does the Average Macd i m i n i s h i n g v a l u e t o t h e buyer Care? consumer of what is a premium- But how much does the average priced product. Diminishing Mac-buyer care? I’ve been Value f o r M i n i m a l almost exclusively a laptop user E n v i r o n m e n t a l B e n e f i t for the past 13 years, but even For example, the new WallStreet back when I used desktops, I PowerBook I bought in 1999 almost always shut them down if came with video, Ethernet, and I would be away from the modem cables and a decent hard keyboard for a half-hour or more. copy manual. To connect the My observation was that most unibody MacBook I bought this people were inclined to just leave year to an external monitor I need their computers up and running one of several varieties of Mini all day, and even in many DisplayPort adapters, have to instances all night as well. supply my own Ethernet cable, My inference, not only in the was obliged to buy a USB context of personal computers modem, and documentation and other IT devices, is that a m o u n t e d t o a q u i c k s t a r t while people like to think of p a m p h l e t . E n v i r o n m e n t a l themselves as being “green” and sensibilities notwithstanding, I environmentally conscientious, don’t perceive this as progress. their resolve tends to flag quickly Apple’s claims of cleaning up its when reducing their personal environmental footprint act do environmental footprint begins to have substance in terms of involve more than minimal operational energy consumption. i n c o n v e n i e n c e a n d / o r One reason using laptops has significantly increased cost, so long appealed to me is that that for many a commitment to “greenness” is heavier on
politically correct rhetoric and feel-good exercises that let one imagine they’re “doing something” virtuous to save the planet with empty symbolic gestures rather than substantive behavior changes, like, say, taking fewer showers or washing clothes less often, or shutting off (or sleeping) their computer when not using it. A Pew Research study found the average North American’s definition of what constitutes “necessity” these days includes a car (91 percent), washer (90 percent), dryer (83 percent), home air conditioning (83 percent), microwave (68 percent), TV (64 percent), car air conditioning (59 percent), and home computers (51 percent). Substantial minorities also included cell phone (49 percent), dishwasher (35 percent), cable or satellite TV (33 percent), and high-speed Internet (29 percent), and a few even considered a flat screen TV (5 percent) and an iPod (3 percent) “necessities.” Am I being overly cynical? How much do Apple’s and the other computer-makers’ green efforts impact your buying intentions and user behavior?