At Apple’s last special event, after introducing the new iPods, Steve Jobs added this:
"We've got some new packagings for the new nano as well. And it's 52% less volume. This turns out to be an environmentally great thing. Because it dramatically reduces the amount of fossile fuels we have to spend to move these things around the planet."
Isn’t that odd?
I mean, I have been religiously watching Uncle Steve’s speeches for at least two years now, and I believe this is the first time he’s been mentioning the environment in one of his one man shows. More than that, he actually seemed pretty proud about Apple’s contribution to the environment.
Well… yeah… I could be almost happy about it… If only Apple was really concerned about the environment! But so far, all I heard is “look we’re saving a lot of money on shipping costs and that will help us be cheaper than the Zune”.
But there’s another reason for Jobs showing his environment friendly side. (Check out their updated environment page on Apple’s site).
The real reason is Greenpeace! They came out with a report on how environment friendly consumer electronics manufacturers actually are. And guess what? Apple is close to the last! :(
Greenpeaces reproaches against Apple mostly include:
- Overuse of toxic chemicals (brominated flame retardants, polyvinyl chloride) which make recylcing hazardous.
- No timeline to phase these chemicals out.
- Recylcing program limited to the US or where Apple is legally compelled to.
- Products designed to have a short life span.
Of course, Apple prefers to focus on packaging size, energy efficiency (which the all the competition does equally), the fact that flat panels weight less than CRTs (hello!?) and other environment friendly side effects to their marketing strategy.
Ironically, there’s this other computer maker Apple likes to make fun of. That company with the computers where the Intel processor is limited to “dull and repetitive tasks”. That company called Dell. Well, ironically, Dell is ranking very well: number 2 on the environment scale! (#1 being Nokia)
"It is disappointing to see Apple ranking so low in the overall guide. They are meant to be world leaders in design and marketing, they should also be world leaders in environmental innovation." --Greenpeace
Back to Steve’s speech: Masquerading a small economic decision into a big environmental one. Is that all a company like Apple can do? If they really cared, I don’t think so. This definitely looks like a cheap reaction to Greenpeace’s report.
Also, the old packaging was cardboard. The new one is thick plastic. Has anyone heard Steve say that the plastic one recycles better than the cardboard one? Wouldn’t that have been conveniently appropriate to mention? (if it was true…)
Don’t get me wrong: I love my Mac, I love my iPod, I love the way Steve amazes us all the time. But I’d really really like him to amaze us in a “greener” way… ;) Come on Apple, you can do better than that! Let’s go for some real environmental innovation & progress!