“When it comes to environmentally responsible packaging, Apple is not feeling boxed in,” Joel Makower reports for GreenBiz. “The tech giant has just announced the latest expansion of its sustainable forestry strategy, aimed at protecting or creating enough responsibly managed forests to offset its packaging footprint. Late last week, it said that the Forest Stewardship Council had certified 320,000 acres of working forest that the company supports in China, enough to cover all its product packaging.”
“In 2015, the company committed to protect responsibly managed working forests and announced a five-year partnership with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to transition up to 1 million acres of forest, across southern provinces of China, into responsible management by 2020,” Makower reports. “Two-thirds of the newly certified forest is owned and managed by Maoyuan Forestry, a private company in Central China’s Hunan province. The rest is owned and managed by state-owned Qinlian Forestry Company in Southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang region. The land includes semi-natural forests and forest plantations.”
“Apple also released the latest in its animated video series, part of an innovative and decidedly un-Apple communications strategy, highlighting its forestry strategy,” Makower reports. “The new installments build on a series the company released in April illustrating voices of real-life Apple employees engaged in sustainability initiatives.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Environment website states, “Can we use only 100% recycled and responsibly sourced paper in our packaging? We can. We’ve reached more than 99 percent so far. We’re sourcing virgin paper responsibly, protecting sustainable forests, and making iPhone 7 boxes from responsibly managed paper, bamboo, and waste sugarcane.”
Moe info here: apple.com/environment/
SEE ALSO:
Greenpeace: Apple again the world’s most environmentally friendly tech company – January 10, 2017
Greenpeace: Apple is tech’s greenest – May 15, 2015
Greenpeace: Apple leading the way in creating a greener, more sustainable internet – April 2, 2014
Greenpeace praises Apple for reducing use of conflict minerals – February 13, 2014
How come there isn’t a public outcry about all the boxes those billions of relatively disposable Android smartphones come in from companies all around the world. iPhones have a longer lifespan and a smaller global market share percentage. Apple has a 8% smartphone market share so what about the other 92% of Android smartphone manufacturers using up paper resources. Why target only Apple? Does Samsung have to meet the same requirements as Apple in terms of using recycled paper for packaging?
Sometimes you do the right thing because it is the right thing.
I don’t see that the story is targeting Apple per se, just reporting what Apple is doing. It’s a good story, in my view.
This is a voluntary program. Samsung probably does meet the minimum legal requirements, but Apple has chosen to do much more, even though it has a smaller market share.
Sometimes people (and companies) do the right thing because it is the right thing, and not because the government is making them do it.
I guess because people and media expect Android and Samsung to adhere to a lower standard, right? And when they meet that lower standard, all is well.
The answer is simple: Apple is the richest company, by far, among mobile phone makers. Apple makes the most money (revenue, profit). Apple is a massive target.
Android makers, individually, are insignificant; even lumped together, still take so much less profit, and are of practically zero consequence for humanity in any conceivable way.
What Apple does has consequences for the world. Apple will always be the target, because nobody is nearly as big.
If Apple is concerned about the environmental impact of it’s operations, it can stop shipping iPhones from China on jets. There are these things called container ships that are slower but are far more efficient.
I find it interesting that it’s called a sustainable forestry strategy since the first plants showed up about 450 million years ago, trees showing up a few million years later, so I think that the trees have a pretty good approach to being sustainable.
Now of course cutting down as many trees as possible, decimating forests only hurt species dependent on oxygen, the trees will come back once they are gone.
Apple’s approach would be better labeled sustainable humanity strategy but that might get them in trouble with their home nation, everyone knows how much they are against humanity.