Apple leads the Fortune 500 on climate, announcing an incredible 93% of the company – offices, data centers, retail stores in 23 countries – run entirely on renewable energy.
In the US, Apple signed one of the largest corporate solar buys, signing a 25-year power purchase agreement with First Solar’s 130 megawatt California Flats Solar Project last year.
In China, for example, Apple’s 40-megawatt solar project powers all offices and retail stores, and in Singapore, Apple installed solar systems on 800 rooftops.
Still, Apple has a long way to go be’s total environmental footprint is much, much bigger than the buildings it owns. Facilities make up just 1 percent of Apple’s overall carbon footprint, according to the electronics giant’s latest sustainability report.
To start addressing supply-chain emissions, Apple announced an initiative last fall to install more than 2 gigawatts of new clean energy in partnership with its suppliers in China. As part of the same initiative, iPhone manufacturer Foxconn will construct 400 megawatts of solar by 2018. These are ambitious targets, but Jackson’s update on Monday may offer some assurance that Apple is committed to reaching its goals.
Renewable energy isn’t Apple’s only environmental focus. Jackson announced yesterday that 99 percent of the company’s packaging comes from paper that has been recycled or is from "sustainably managed forests." This is important as the company moves to all-paper packaging, she said.
Jackson also introduced Liam, Apple’s iPhone-dissecting robot that can take apart a discarded cell phone every 11 seconds to recover valuable metals, including cobalt, lithium, gold, silver and platinum.
In 2014, e-waste represented $52 billion of potentially reusable resources, according to a United Nations University report. However, less than one-sixth is believed to have been properly recycled or made available for reuse.
"We need more R&D if we are going to realize the idea of a circular economy in electronics," Jackson said in an interview with Reuters.
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