3 ms·

Apple’s first ‘carbon neutral’ products are a red herring

27 points by mikece 3y ago

seydor 3y ago
I m just surprised that they said that leather is unsustainable.
- RandallBrown 3y ago
  > A company might make a single product less carbon-intensive, for example. But if it winds up selling more of that product than it used to, it might end up pumping out as much or even more greenhouse gas emissions than it used to. But if it's carbon neutral, it doesn't really matter does it? The increased greenhouse gas emissions are offset by some carbon capture.
  - kitkat_new 3y ago
    greenhouse gas emissions are not the only thing that needs to be looked at regarding sustainability
    - dundarious 3y ago
      It's the existential issue of our time. It absolutely deserves primacy. If you have a significant secondary issue, you should mention.
      - kitkat_new 3y ago
        > It's the existential issue of our time. It absolutely deserves primacy. it's still not the only one, even if it does > If you have a significant secondary issue, you should mention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries
        dundarious 3y ago
        Primacy means it's the most significant issue. Of course it's not the only one. Prioritization matters to a huge degree, and climate change deserves prime position. Of course that are other resource constraint issues, but resolving the energy crisis resolves a large number of such issues, which again further reinforces the primacy of dealing with climate change. I can't think of a single resource crisis that could justify even approaching the priority of climate change, and just gesturing at every single resource limit on the planet doesn't convince me to change my thoughts on priority.
        kitkat_new 3y ago
        you are arguing against a straw man. I say you can't just ignore everything besides co2 emissions. You argue for co2 emissions being the most important thing
        dundarious 3y ago
        That's a pretty fair summary except I'd add it's the most important by a huge margin across many dimensions. There's definitely significant daylight between what we've written, but a lot of agreement too.
      - porkbeer 3y ago
        Pollution beoynd simple carbon is a bigger issue with zero doubt. Id rather a 10degree hotter planet where you can stilk drink the water.
        dundarious 3y ago
        Climate change deserves to be the prime issue because we're accelerating towards very bad, very wide-ranging effects, that will eventually be irreversible (on the time scale of human civilization). That's not true to anywhere near the same degree for any other global environmental issue. The primary way we might "soon" ruin a lot of our drinking water is through climate change, and even change that's far less significant than your 10 degrees remark.
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    > But if it's carbon neutral, it doesn't really matter does it? An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure. By not generating the carbon emissions in the first place, you then have to have a bunch of rigamarole cleaning it up.
  - 0x457 3y ago
    I hate carbon neutrality as marketing. It all means is that they got some carbon credits to offset their carbon emissions. Oil companies could change literally nothing in their production pipelines and claim there are carbon-neutral by acquiring those credits somewhere and/or planting some trees (and lobbying to increase how many carbon credits are given for that)
- spiralpolitik 3y ago
  Cattle are the No. 1 agricultural source of greenhouse gases worldwide. It's also causing water issues in regards to the Colorado River as the majority of the water is used for cattle feed. If you look at it from that perspective then using leather is unsustainable given our current projected path.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - rimliu 3y ago
    Luckily enough, Colorado River is not worldwide. And luckily enough the world is not USA, so you can stop projecting whatever practices USA has to be worldwide.
Scene_Cast2 3y ago
I'm curious about people's take on leather from a sustainability, climate, and a morality (animal product) point of views. On one hand, cattle production is not great on the above points. On the other hand, I heard that leather is a by-product of the meat industry - i.e. the cattle would be raised either way.
- yazaddaruvala 3y ago
  > On the other hand, I heard that leather is a by-product of the meat industry - i.e. the cattle would be raised either way. Sure, but still seem worth it! Right now the by-product generates additional profit per animal. If we all stop using leather, the by-product becomes a liability and they need to do something else with it that costs them money. All of this means to retain their initial profit per animal, the cost is transferred to the meat consumer. Which in turn might help drive sustainability through lower meat consumption.
  - vages 3y ago
    You actually changed my opinion in this.
  - jjtheblunt 3y ago
    ditto : well said, opinion changed. and thank you.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  Here's my take on Apple's leather goods from a purely practical, selfish point of view: I've been using their leather cases for years. I think the newer versions are lower quality than the old ones. I wouldn't buy another one now even if they kept making them. All of the good reasons you mentioned aside, if Apple's not going to make their leather goods top-quality, then it's better to drop the line altogether.
  - garblegarble 3y ago
    Exactly this - I think leathergoods are worthwhile because they last (and quality leather should last a very long time - and in that time you'll have run through several plastic versions of the product, and shed a vast amount of microplastics into the environment in the process) but Apple's simply don't anymore. Their leather loop watch bands were a key example - they laminated very thin layers of leather together with other materials, and the resulting product just fell apart after a year's use.
jjtheblunt 3y ago
> Apple announced that its Watch Series 9 marks its first carbon-neutral product. But focusing on the watch distracts from the bigger picture of the company’s climate impact. Well what a tautological pointless observation. Apple themselves expressly explained exactly this, and laid out an objective to address the rest by 2030. Journalism seems kinda swirling the drain with diminishing value add to public knowledge, all for eyeballs and clickbait to get them.
ru552 3y ago
Is 'carbon neutral' still a talking point? I thought we had moved on to being 'water positive'.
adasdasdas 3y ago
> It’s just that the supposed sustainability of any single product doesn’t necessarily tell us how much progress the company is making overall toward its climate goals. This is literally a non-article
daft_pink 3y ago
And also, they claim 95% less pollution by flying their products instead of shipping them by boat. Do they really expect us to believe they were flying all these devices? The whole thing is an exercise in how to lie with statistics. Also, I always buy a leather case for my iPhone. Now I’m just going to order one from Bellroy or Nomad instead of buying fake leather. It’s like Apple Watch bands I never buy from Apple. If you don’t provide the product I want, I just buy it somewhere else.
- hindsightbias 3y ago
  iPhones and iPads were always air freight. All that just-in-time stuff. Covid, supply chain, port issues probably made conversion to sea freight untenable until recently.
- lurking_swe 3y ago
  yes, most of it is transported by air. this has been known for a long time. from a quick google search: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-11/the-iphone-s-secret-flights-from-china-to-your-local-apple-store https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-11/the-iphon... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/iphone-china-apple-stores.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/iphone-china-a... https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/15/iphone-deliveries-from-china/ https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/15/iphone-deliveries-from-...
- cosmotic 3y ago
  Buy a customized Apple computer,trackong shows it ships from China and arrives in a couple days. That's definitely not a boat.
  - daft_pink 3y ago
    Is your customized computer going to take a month or two to arrive now though?
- plorkyeran 3y ago
  Every mac I've bought in the last ~15 years has had <24 hour delivery from China, so either they're flying it, have some magical teleporter, or are completely lying in their order tracking for no clear reason.
doctoboggan 3y ago
Apple has a long history of first implementing new tech in the watch lineup before expanding it to the iPhone. So the fact that they are doing it here for their carbon neutral efforts is not surprising.
qwertyuiop_ 3y ago
How much carbon did they burn to fly in the actresses and a movie production crew for “Mother Earth “ not to mention the marketing trips in organizing this fantasy production
DueDilligence 3y ago
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27 points by mikece 3y ago

seydor 3y ago

I m just surprised that they said that leather is unsustainable.

RandallBrown 3y ago
> A company might make a single product less carbon-intensive, for example. But if it winds up selling more of that product than it used to, it might end up pumping out as much or even more greenhouse gas emissions than it used to. But if it's carbon neutral, it doesn't really matter does it? The increased greenhouse gas emissions are offset by some carbon capture.
- kitkat_new 3y ago
  greenhouse gas emissions are not the only thing that needs to be looked at regarding sustainability
  - dundarious 3y ago
    It's the existential issue of our time. It absolutely deserves primacy. If you have a significant secondary issue, you should mention.
    - kitkat_new 3y ago
      > It's the existential issue of our time. It absolutely deserves primacy. it's still not the only one, even if it does > If you have a significant secondary issue, you should mention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries
      - dundarious 3y ago
        Primacy means it's the most significant issue. Of course it's not the only one. Prioritization matters to a huge degree, and climate change deserves prime position. Of course that are other resource constraint issues, but resolving the energy crisis resolves a large number of such issues, which again further reinforces the primacy of dealing with climate change. I can't think of a single resource crisis that could justify even approaching the priority of climate change, and just gesturing at every single resource limit on the planet doesn't convince me to change my thoughts on priority.
        kitkat_new 3y ago
        you are arguing against a straw man. I say you can't just ignore everything besides co2 emissions. You argue for co2 emissions being the most important thing
        dundarious 3y ago
        That's a pretty fair summary except I'd add it's the most important by a huge margin across many dimensions. There's definitely significant daylight between what we've written, but a lot of agreement too.
    - porkbeer 3y ago
      Pollution beoynd simple carbon is a bigger issue with zero doubt. Id rather a 10degree hotter planet where you can stilk drink the water.
      - dundarious 3y ago
        Climate change deserves to be the prime issue because we're accelerating towards very bad, very wide-ranging effects, that will eventually be irreversible (on the time scale of human civilization). That's not true to anywhere near the same degree for any other global environmental issue. The primary way we might "soon" ruin a lot of our drinking water is through climate change, and even change that's far less significant than your 10 degrees remark.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > But if it's carbon neutral, it doesn't really matter does it? An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure. By not generating the carbon emissions in the first place, you then have to have a bunch of rigamarole cleaning it up.
- 0x457 3y ago
  I hate carbon neutrality as marketing. It all means is that they got some carbon credits to offset their carbon emissions. Oil companies could change literally nothing in their production pipelines and claim there are carbon-neutral by acquiring those credits somewhere and/or planting some trees (and lobbying to increase how many carbon credits are given for that)
spiralpolitik 3y ago
Cattle are the No. 1 agricultural source of greenhouse gases worldwide. It's also causing water issues in regards to the Colorado River as the majority of the water is used for cattle feed. If you look at it from that perspective then using leather is unsustainable given our current projected path.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- rimliu 3y ago
  Luckily enough, Colorado River is not worldwide. And luckily enough the world is not USA, so you can stop projecting whatever practices USA has to be worldwide.

Scene_Cast2 3y ago

I'm curious about people's take on leather from a sustainability, climate, and a morality (animal product) point of views. On one hand, cattle production is not great on the above points. On the other hand, I heard that leather is a by-product of the meat industry - i.e. the cattle would be raised either way.

yazaddaruvala 3y ago
> On the other hand, I heard that leather is a by-product of the meat industry - i.e. the cattle would be raised either way. Sure, but still seem worth it! Right now the by-product generates additional profit per animal. If we all stop using leather, the by-product becomes a liability and they need to do something else with it that costs them money. All of this means to retain their initial profit per animal, the cost is transferred to the meat consumer. Which in turn might help drive sustainability through lower meat consumption.
- vages 3y ago
  You actually changed my opinion in this.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  ditto : well said, opinion changed. and thank you.
kstrauser 3y ago
Here's my take on Apple's leather goods from a purely practical, selfish point of view: I've been using their leather cases for years. I think the newer versions are lower quality than the old ones. I wouldn't buy another one now even if they kept making them. All of the good reasons you mentioned aside, if Apple's not going to make their leather goods top-quality, then it's better to drop the line altogether.
- garblegarble 3y ago
  Exactly this - I think leathergoods are worthwhile because they last (and quality leather should last a very long time - and in that time you'll have run through several plastic versions of the product, and shed a vast amount of microplastics into the environment in the process) but Apple's simply don't anymore. Their leather loop watch bands were a key example - they laminated very thin layers of leather together with other materials, and the resulting product just fell apart after a year's use.

jjtheblunt 3y ago

> Apple announced that its Watch Series 9 marks its first carbon-neutral product. But focusing on the watch distracts from the bigger picture of the company’s climate impact. Well what a tautological pointless observation. Apple themselves expressly explained exactly this, and laid out an objective to address the rest by 2030. Journalism seems kinda swirling the drain with diminishing value add to public knowledge, all for eyeballs and clickbait to get them.

ru552 3y ago

Is 'carbon neutral' still a talking point? I thought we had moved on to being 'water positive'.

adasdasdas 3y ago

> It’s just that the supposed sustainability of any single product doesn’t necessarily tell us how much progress the company is making overall toward its climate goals. This is literally a non-article

daft_pink 3y ago

And also, they claim 95% less pollution by flying their products instead of shipping them by boat. Do they really expect us to believe they were flying all these devices? The whole thing is an exercise in how to lie with statistics. Also, I always buy a leather case for my iPhone. Now I’m just going to order one from Bellroy or Nomad instead of buying fake leather. It’s like Apple Watch bands I never buy from Apple. If you don’t provide the product I want, I just buy it somewhere else.

hindsightbias 3y ago
iPhones and iPads were always air freight. All that just-in-time stuff. Covid, supply chain, port issues probably made conversion to sea freight untenable until recently.
lurking_swe 3y ago
yes, most of it is transported by air. this has been known for a long time. from a quick google search: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-11/the-iphone-s-secret-flights-from-china-to-your-local-apple-store https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-11/the-iphon... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/iphone-china-apple-stores.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/iphone-china-a... https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/15/iphone-deliveries-from-china/ https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/15/iphone-deliveries-from-...
cosmotic 3y ago
Buy a customized Apple computer,trackong shows it ships from China and arrives in a couple days. That's definitely not a boat.
- daft_pink 3y ago
  Is your customized computer going to take a month or two to arrive now though?
plorkyeran 3y ago
Every mac I've bought in the last ~15 years has had <24 hour delivery from China, so either they're flying it, have some magical teleporter, or are completely lying in their order tracking for no clear reason.

doctoboggan 3y ago

Apple has a long history of first implementing new tech in the watch lineup before expanding it to the iPhone. So the fact that they are doing it here for their carbon neutral efforts is not surprising.

qwertyuiop_ 3y ago

How much carbon did they burn to fly in the actresses and a movie production crew for “Mother Earth “ not to mention the marketing trips in organizing this fantasy production

DueDilligence 3y ago

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