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Here is a cynical take: Cobalt shortage. "Battery technology and recycling alone will not save the electric mobility transition from future cobalt shortages" h
by tacynicaltake9 4y ago
Here is a cynical take: Cobalt shortage.
"Battery technology and recycling alone will not save the electric mobility transition from future cobalt shortages" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29022-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29022-z
Nothing drives a corporation to recycle and reuse more than the shortage of raw materials.
- why_only_15 4y agowhy is this bad? if there's a shortage it sounds actively good because that means more cobalt for other people.
- tacynicaltake9 4y agoCynical take: Greenwashing. They don't mention cobalt shortage at all. Making it sound like the environment is their primary goal.
- bilbo0s 4y agoMeh. None of this matters really. If I get someone to do the right thing, for the wrong reasons, then score one for me!
- froggertoaster 4y ago"Greenwashing" - never heard that term. Gonna use that one!
- troymc 4y agoI looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary (via my local public library). greenwash verb, transitive. (a) To mislead (the public) or counter (public or media concerns) by falsely representing a person, company, product, etc., as being environmentally responsible; (b) to misrepresent (a company, its operations, etc.) as environmentally responsible. The earliest source the OED found was in 1989, in The Daily Telegraph (London).
- jkestner 4y agoThere’s also pinkwashing, for nominal support of the LGBTQ community or breast cancer awareness (sometimes literally just putting pink on a product). But in either case it is superficial.
- aksss 4y agoA finer point - it’s mere marketing attempting to influence consumer buying decisions with platitudes that distract from pure capability evaluations or other considerations. Which obviously works on getting a lot of people over the purchasing hurdle.
- s3p 4y agoStill doesn't matter. Results are results.
- Taywee 4y agoI'm a cynic at heart, but I'm also a pragmatist. Somebody doing the right things for the wrong reasons is still doing the right things. I care about effects more than motivations.
- digging 4y agoI'm with you on this. They're misrepresenting themselves in a way that even may encourage others to make similar moves. The real problem with secret economic motivations is when they either prevent or undermine meaningful effort. But Apple is enacting meaningful effort here. It's good.
- alex_sf 4y agoIf everyone was dedicated to greenwashing, would that be better or worse than the current situation?
- meepmorp 4y agoMaybe the environment is actually their primary goal. Your cynical take necessarily invents a hidden motive, uncharitable to attribute to Apple.
- jutrewag 4y agoThat’s the opposite of greenwashing since it’s having a tangible benefit on the environment.
- kube-system 4y agoThe primary goal of any public for-profit company is to make money, by design. Any other goals roll up to that no matter their secondary motivations.
- kevincox 4y agoAlso by announcing it loudly now they are probably helping recyclers to get funding and start increasing production. Of course 2025 isn't very far away so it is probably only a small impact.