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Apple is a very profitable company, with the largest market cap in the U.S. Its cost of computing a carbon footprint as a fraction of its revenues is probably m

Apple is a very profitable company, with the largest market cap in the U.S. Its cost of computing a carbon footprint as a fraction of its revenues is probably much lower than for most other companies. It is common for companies and professional groups to endorse legislation that will hamper competitors.

stalfosknight 3y ago
It's not just that it is a small percentage of their market cap. You're completely leaving out all of the effort and resources they commit to being environmentally responsible¹. 1. https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  That’s just corporate greenwashing BS. Apple should put their money making hardware: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch on a 3 year product release cycle (since barely anything changes year to year). They should make their products repairable. They should not be asking employees to RTO. Once they do those then I’ll believe the corporate marketing slideshow.
  - stalfosknight 3y ago
    Angry cynicism doesn’t refute any of my points which I have backed up with a citation.
    - jraph 3y ago
      We can't really make use of this citation because it's marketing, not objective scientific data. This page was done by a marketing team who want to sell you a nice story and a nice picture, not by scientists who are seeking some kind of truth. This web page that says Apple is environmentally friendly weighs more than 20 MB. edit: I just read it, there isn't anything about screen, battery and chipset / CPU production and material sourcing. In short, the big part of what is an actual issue with computer hardware and the environment.
      - stalfosknight 3y ago
        It's a legal document containing the public written statements of a publicly owned corporation including a PDF report with actual data and figures. If you're so sure it's a bunch of "marketing" lies then sue them for false advertising and get that easy win.
        jraph 3y ago
        I didn't say they are lying. But it's very easy to cherry pick and arrange the looks of things. The kind of stuff you avoid when you are actually seeking truth. Look, I'm not going to convince you at this point. You are also absolutely not going to convince me that this page should be trusted. Let me just suggest you that if you are going to take marketing material at face value, be my guest, but I suspect you are in for some fun rides. And good luck convincing people with (arguments coming from) marketing material too. I suspect this won't work with many people seeking more robust stuff. See my other comment on actual elements that show that Apple is not that geared toward being environmentally friendly. These elements need to be addressed before I start changing my mind on this.
- jraph 3y ago
  They could start by not forcing shops and recycler to shred perfectly good hardware [1-5]. They could continue by not making you want to buy shiny new devices each year, growing crazy hype for their annual event, and instead they could base their communication on the idea that you should avoid buying unnecessary stuff, and keep your hardware as long as possible. Then, they could let us install third party OSes on perfectly good hardware they decided to stop supporting. Or at least let us install an up to date (third party) browser on this hardware. Yes, the iPad 2 is stuck in 2015 for instance. I'd very much like to be able to install some lightweight linux distro on the one I got which was left unused in a drawer so it can be useful again and do something else than displaying PDFs. Then, they could stop gluing all the things together and not force you to change the whole motherboard if one key from their fragile keyboard died, and make their hardware at least somewhat repairable. They could stop handing you out a new device when something minor broke on yours. So far from environmentally-friendly. It's like they haven't even begun trying, actually. It's almost as if it were against their bottom line. They wish it weren't like this not too hard. It's not like they are lacking the money, they are the richest company in the world. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphon... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-geep-iphone-recycle-shred/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-g... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-geep-iphone-recycle-shred/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-g...
kergonath 3y ago
Sure. It is still unambiguously a good thing in principle. There will probably be attempts at watering down the proposal or leave loopholes for greenwashing. But the simple fact that these things get discussed and that major companies move to the right direction is a form of progress in itself.
tenacious_tuna 3y ago
part of that cost likely comes from the information being hard to obtain, but if EVERY company was required to publish that information it'd be much easier for any other company to do it too, no? for example, right now a given company has no idea how much carbon their electricity/building/deliveries/whatever cost, so they'd have to figure that out themselves... but if everyone knew that from the ground up, that'd be a lot easier for any other company to produce. there could also be network effects if those reports had to be public, because common vendors' data could be re-used. e.g. UPS knows that their carbon costs for delivering packages are X KG of carbon per KgKm of package-travel, or something, so then everyone can use that factor in their own maths. It'd be incredible effort still, but I see the value. So much "climate damage" now is just classed as economic externalities simply because we don't have a good way to quantify it reliably. Requiring companies to know and disclose that would go a long way to addressing that, and enabling strategic policy response.
sophacles 3y ago
They don't want to hamper competitors... it's right there in the letter: Apple has invested considerably in measuring and modeling to get a reasonably correct value. The part that they didn't put in the letter: Now they want to make a law to sell that methodology and model. iFootprint will presumably be announced at the wwdc just before the law takes effect.

stalfosknight 3y ago

It's not just that it is a small percentage of their market cap. You're completely leaving out all of the effort and resources they commit to being environmentally responsible¹. 1. https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/

lotsoweiners 3y ago
That’s just corporate greenwashing BS. Apple should put their money making hardware: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch on a 3 year product release cycle (since barely anything changes year to year). They should make their products repairable. They should not be asking employees to RTO. Once they do those then I’ll believe the corporate marketing slideshow.
- stalfosknight 3y ago
  Angry cynicism doesn’t refute any of my points which I have backed up with a citation.
  - jraph 3y ago
    We can't really make use of this citation because it's marketing, not objective scientific data. This page was done by a marketing team who want to sell you a nice story and a nice picture, not by scientists who are seeking some kind of truth. This web page that says Apple is environmentally friendly weighs more than 20 MB. edit: I just read it, there isn't anything about screen, battery and chipset / CPU production and material sourcing. In short, the big part of what is an actual issue with computer hardware and the environment.
    - stalfosknight 3y ago
      It's a legal document containing the public written statements of a publicly owned corporation including a PDF report with actual data and figures. If you're so sure it's a bunch of "marketing" lies then sue them for false advertising and get that easy win.
      - jraph 3y ago
        I didn't say they are lying. But it's very easy to cherry pick and arrange the looks of things. The kind of stuff you avoid when you are actually seeking truth. Look, I'm not going to convince you at this point. You are also absolutely not going to convince me that this page should be trusted. Let me just suggest you that if you are going to take marketing material at face value, be my guest, but I suspect you are in for some fun rides. And good luck convincing people with (arguments coming from) marketing material too. I suspect this won't work with many people seeking more robust stuff. See my other comment on actual elements that show that Apple is not that geared toward being environmentally friendly. These elements need to be addressed before I start changing my mind on this.
jraph 3y ago
They could start by not forcing shops and recycler to shred perfectly good hardware [1-5]. They could continue by not making you want to buy shiny new devices each year, growing crazy hype for their annual event, and instead they could base their communication on the idea that you should avoid buying unnecessary stuff, and keep your hardware as long as possible. Then, they could let us install third party OSes on perfectly good hardware they decided to stop supporting. Or at least let us install an up to date (third party) browser on this hardware. Yes, the iPad 2 is stuck in 2015 for instance. I'd very much like to be able to install some lightweight linux distro on the one I got which was left unused in a drawer so it can be useful again and do something else than displaying PDFs. Then, they could stop gluing all the things together and not force you to change the whole motherboard if one key from their fragile keyboard died, and make their hardware at least somewhat repairable. They could stop handing you out a new device when something minor broke on yours. So far from environmentally-friendly. It's like they haven't even begun trying, actually. It's almost as if it were against their bottom line. They wish it weren't like this not too hard. It's not like they are lacking the money, they are the richest company in the world. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphon... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-geep-iphone-recycle-shred/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-g... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-geep-iphone-recycle-shred/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-g...

kergonath 3y ago

Sure. It is still unambiguously a good thing in principle. There will probably be attempts at watering down the proposal or leave loopholes for greenwashing. But the simple fact that these things get discussed and that major companies move to the right direction is a form of progress in itself.

tenacious_tuna 3y ago

part of that cost likely comes from the information being hard to obtain, but if EVERY company was required to publish that information it'd be much easier for any other company to do it too, no? for example, right now a given company has no idea how much carbon their electricity/building/deliveries/whatever cost, so they'd have to figure that out themselves... but if everyone knew that from the ground up, that'd be a lot easier for any other company to produce. there could also be network effects if those reports had to be public, because common vendors' data could be re-used. e.g. UPS knows that their carbon costs for delivering packages are X KG of carbon per KgKm of package-travel, or something, so then everyone can use that factor in their own maths. It'd be incredible effort still, but I see the value. So much "climate damage" now is just classed as economic externalities simply because we don't have a good way to quantify it reliably. Requiring companies to know and disclose that would go a long way to addressing that, and enabling strategic policy response.

sophacles 3y ago

They don't want to hamper competitors... it's right there in the letter: Apple has invested considerably in measuring and modeling to get a reasonably correct value. The part that they didn't put in the letter: Now they want to make a law to sell that methodology and model. iFootprint will presumably be announced at the wwdc just before the law takes effect.