EmailDear EarthTalk: Apple just put out a big PR campaign about its
sustainability initiatives. Has the company made real progress in this
regard or is this just more corporate “greenwashing?” And how are the
other big tech companies addressing their carbon footprints? — Billy
A., Oakland, CA
Long criticized for its lack of commitment to sustainability—from
supporting the dangerous mining of precious resources and exploiting
factory workers to powering its data centers with energy derived from
coal and not taking back products for recycling — Apple has really
worked on turning things around over the past couple of years. Indeed,
just this past month the company announced that 94 percent of its
corporate facilities and 100 percent of its data centers now operate
on power from renewable sources.
Environmentalists first took notice that serious change was afoot at
Apple in May 2013 when the company brought in former Obama
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson to
head its corporate environmental initiative. Since then, the company
has unveiled plans showing how its new corporate headquarters —
currently under construction in Cupertino, California—will use 30
percent less energy than an equivalent conventional building while
playing host to some 7,000 carbon-sequestering trees. Apple also
reports that it has decreased the material required to produce its
iPhones, iPads, iPods and Macs. A new iPad Air, for instance, uses a
third less material overall by weight than the original iPad. And all
of the company’s retail stores will now take back any Apple products
for free recycling — U.S. and U.K. consumers can even earn gift cards
for turning in old iPhones, iPads and computers.
Of course, Apple still has work to do. The nonprofit Friends of the
Earth has been on the company’s case to agree to a plan that will
reign in the human and environmental toll of destructive tin mining in
Indonesia and elsewhere. Tin is a major component of the solder in
smart phones and other electronics and the popularity of such items
has pushed miners to extremes and is linked to the destruction of
tropical rainforests, coral reefs and commercial fisheries. Apple sent
a team of investigators to the Indonesian islands responsible for
producing some 30 percent of the world’s commercially available tin,
but the company has yet to commit to any changes in the way it sources
this increasingly valuable raw material.
As for other tech/Internet companies, Greenpeace has been assessing
and tracking environmental performance of the big players for more
than a decade. “The Internet we love, and the companies that run it
are at a crossroads in terms of where their energy comes from,”
reports the group. “Many of these companies have already chosen the
road to a green internet and a sustainable future.” Some of the best
performers besides Apple include Facebook, Google, Salesforce,
Rackspace and Box, each of which has committed to 100 percent
renewable energy.
Greenpeace isn’t as bullish on Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Amazon,
each of which relies heavily on coal-fired power sources for their
data centers and other operations, but still says. “If Amazon and
others want to stay innovative and relevant, it’s high time they made
the switch to the abundant, sustainable, renewable energy of today.”
Concerned consumers can sign Greenpeace’s online #ClickClean petition
asking these big players to step up and commit to renewable energy and
environmentally responsible operations.
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Dear EarthTalk: If “cap and trade” has worked so well in Europe for
reducing greenhouse gas emissions there, why haven’t we tried
something similar here in the U.S.? — Sandra M., Bern, NC
“Cap-and-trade,” whereby big polluters must pay to emit greenhouse
gases against a capped total amount that is reduced over time — has
been in effect across the European Union (EU) since 2005. This
so-called Emissions Trading System (ETS) requires 11,000 of the
largest electric and industrial facilities in 28 European countries to
participate. Some 45 percent of Europe’s total greenhouse gas
emissions are regulated under the system. Proponents say the ETS has
succeeded in keeping greenhouse gas emissions in check and making
Europe a global leader on climate. The EU reports that, by 2020,
emissions from sectors covered by ETS will be 21 percent lower than
they were in 2005 and 43 percent lower by 2030.
But critics argue that Europe’s reduced emissions may be more due to
the global recession than the ETS, and that the cheap availability of
allowances has made it easier for companies to pay to burn coal than
to switch to cleaner natural gas or invest more in carbon mitigation
technologies. Early in 2014 the EU tightened up its system by cutting
the number of new allowances it plans to issue over the next three
years by a third while simultaneously creating a “market reserve” to
absorb extra allowances as needed.
Meanwhile, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Kazakhstan and South
Korea have each set up their own national cap-and-trade programs to
varying degrees of success, while regional versions have popped up
within Japan, Canada and the U.S.
As to the U.S., whether or not to establish a nationwide cap-and-trade
system here has been a hot topic of discussion in Congress. It last
came up for a vote in 2010, but never found enough bi-partisan support
to become the law of the land. But in lieu of any federal system, two
U.S. regions have undertaken their own attempts at ratcheting down
greenhouse gas emissions through market mechanisms:
In 2009, 10 Northeastern states came together to create the Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade system with the goal
of reducing regional carbon emissions from the power sector 10 percent
from 2009 levels by 2018. Lower emissions than expected over the first
five years of the program — thanks to many utilities switching over to
cleaner burning and increasingly cheaper natural gas as well as less
overall economic output due to the recession — led RGGI to lower its
overall annual cap from 165 million to 91 million tons in 2014, with a
2.5 percent reduction every year thereafter until 2020. Analysts
expect this rejiggering will drive the price of polluting five times
higher than it has been and thus force utilities across the region to
seek cleaner, greener alternatives to coal as an electricity
feedstock.
The other major U.S. cap-and-trade player is California, which
launched its own ETS in 2013 with a cap set initially at two percent
below 2012 emission levels. The cap will then be reduced three percent
a year from 2015-2020. Some 600 facilities are big enough polluters to
qualify for participation in the system, which will cover around 85
percent of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Given that
California in and of itself is the 12th largest economy in the world,
its forward-thinking commitment to cap-and-trade gives hope everywhere
to fans of marshalling market forces to bring about environmental
change.
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