People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has named Apple “PETA’s 2023 Company of the Year” for dropping leather for “FineWoven” junk.
PETA:
PETA’s 2023 Company of the Year is the apple of our eye! Apple Inc. clearly recognizes that today’s conscious consumers want to support sustainable brands—in the past five years, global searches for sustainable goods have increased by 71%, and surveys indicate that a vast majority of shoppers care about the environmental impact of the products they buy. As the largest company in the world, Apple Inc. is meeting consumers’ demands and setting a tremendous example for other top companies by ditching leather as part of its goal to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Because animals’ skin is one of the most profitable coproducts of the meat industry, purchasing leather directly contributes to the slaughter of countless individuals. Worldwide, the meat and leather industries kill more than a billion cows, sheep, and other animals for their skins every year…
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in September
There is no leather farming industry. (Cattle hides typically represent less than 2% of the total value of a U.S. beef animal.) Beef farming will continue regardless of demand for leather. In the U.S. alone, there are some 33 million cattle hides left over from cattle farming every year. Left over cattle hides not recycled for leather instead go to landfill or are otherwise destroyed as waste. Ending the use of leather use would significantly increase landfill and greenhouse gas emissions. The burning or disposal in U.S. landfills of 33 million unused hides would generate more than 750,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions every year – and fill all current U.S. landfill sites within four years. Globally, some 300 million hides would be wasted with 6.6 million tons of surplus emissions every year.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
[I]t hasn’t been the smoothest transition. Apple’s alternative to leather — the material it calls FineWoven — has been a dud.
FineWoven cases feel odd to the touch, scratch easily and are quick to get dirty. Some third-party retailers have dropped them altogether, and even Apple told its staffers to frequently swap out display units (so they don’t look scuffed up)…
[T]he company completely stumbled with its leather replacement and should start over. Despite the shoddiness of the product, Apple can smile knowing FineWoven cases probably bring higher margins than the leather versions they replaced (the company didn’t reduce the price from $59).
MacDailyNews Take: If we used iPhone cases, they would be leather. We’d simply switch from Apple to a quality third-party case make who still offers real leather.
From Apple’s FineWoven iPhone cases are trash (September 25, 2023):
If you’re going to hide your new iPhone in a case in order to try to get $20-$40 extra by minimizing scratches for trade-in or resale, get a real leather case from a third-party maker.
A lesson Apple seems to have missed in this, er, case: If it ain’t broke, don’t “fix” it.
At Apple’s next shareholders meeting, someone should ask CEO Tim Cook how much this “FineWoven” virtue-signaling debacle cost the company in iPhone accessory sales vs. previous years when the company sold real leather cases. — MacDailyNews, September 25, 2023
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