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The life cycle assessment shows that over a five year life span, production is responsible for 65% of CO2e, and usage about 25% (out of a total estimated 200kg

The life cycle assessment shows that over a five year life span, production is responsible for 65% of CO2e, and usage about 25% (out of a total estimated 200kg - roughly 86L of gasoline) using "a typical US energy mix". Component wise (during production), the largest CO2e contributor was the display at ~25%, then the mainboard at 20%, and then battery around 15%. Take aways for me are that: from a sustainability standpoint, if you're going to buy new, then it makes sense to buy the most capable model that makes sense, and try to milk it for as long as possible. Also, I never would have guessed how high the impact of display production was. Certainly makes the harvesting of screens from dead laptops seem like a good option.

MrVandemar 3y ago
> Certainly makes the harvesting of screens from dead laptops seem like a good option. Wouldn't it be awfully nice if the manufacturers made this easy to do.
steve_adams_86 3y ago
Regarding display production: I recently bought a Studio Display from Apple with the thought that it should last a very long time. It bricked itself with a software update after maybe 3 months. I realized these things depend on Apple supporting the A13 chip in order for it to remain compatible with new technologies and, absurdly, to remain secure from exploits. A monitor. I couldn’t regret my purchase much more and feel pretty stupid for not figuring this stuff out before I pulled out my credit card. To add insult to injury, the display has been getting repaired for almost 2 months and there’s still no ETA on a fix. I highly recommend looking elsewhere for a display, both for ecological reasons but also because these things likely have a software-driven expiry date, with their hardware being relatively complex and error prone compared to most displays. Also, they come with a barely usable camera. Audio is fine but it’s mind boggling how bad the camera is. What a waste.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  If you want to get rid of it, multiple months for a good-as-new product is long enough to suggest they just keep it and give you the full money back instead. Laws may be different where you live, I'm not a lawyer, but that should work
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    I suppose the laws where I am don’t work in my favour. I firmly insisted I get a refund after about 45 days, but they flatly refused and shortly after agreed to a replacement. I still don’t have that, though.
    - ncallaway 3y ago
      I would never take a vendor’s word for what the laws are. Many will simply violate the law, and see what they can get away with. Look up your local consumer protection laws, and see if their behavior is allowed. If not, write to them demanding the refund, citing to the specific consumer protection laws, and informing them that if they don’t resolve the issue your next step is to file a complaint with your state AG. Edit: to make this slightly more useful, you can search “(your state) uniform commercial code”, and you can look at this resource for a quick summary of the UCC obligation on a manufacturer: https://www.mclane.com/insights/know-the-law-uniform-commercial-code/ https://www.mclane.com/insights/know-the-law-uniform-commerc... I could see an AG complaint prompting them to complete the replacement soon.
      - steve_adams_86 3y ago
        I’m in Canada (BC), and unfortunately there is no law governing refunds for consumer goods. Apple offers if of their own volition and can implement it here as they see fit. In this case it’s within their right to insist that the unit is repaired rather than replaced.
        ncallaway 3y ago
        Ah! I'm sorry to hear that. It's surprising to me that Canada has looser consumer protection laws that the US. Best of luck with the repair or replacement then.
- vondur 3y ago
  The Studio Display has a 1 year warranty. Absolutely take it back for a new one.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    They refused to replace it for quite a while and just recently agreed to replace it, but that was a week ago. It’s been a brutal customer service experience. It got 2 new logic boards while they tried to track down the problem. At this point I still don’t know when I’ll have a working display in my possession.
    - antonvs 3y ago
      You could consider filing in small claims court.
      - steve_adams_86 3y ago
        toast0 suggested a chargeback as well; both seems like great mechanisms to encourage a refund. Thanks for the suggestion.
        kelnos 3y ago
        I would probably recommend the small-claims court first (assuming that's a thing where you live). If you issue a chargeback, Apple isn't constrained by any code of conduct, and could retaliate by deactivating your Apple ID or refusing to sell you anything in the future, or... But if you get a court order for Apple to take some specific action (like a refund), I'd think they'd be less likely to retaliate since you could presumably bring another (legal) case against them that their retaliation was shady. Then again, I don't know about laws where you live, so maybe this isn't a consideration.
    - toast0 3y ago
      Did you buy it from Apple directly, or a retailer? If from Apple, you may consider a chargeback. Or suggest that you'll do a chargeback if they don't refund you when you next check on the status of the replacement.
- kelnos 3y ago
  Ugh, that sounds awful. One option you might have would be to sell it on the used market, once you get the replacement. Certainly you won't get full price for it, but especially if Apple gives up and sends you a new-in-box replacement, you might be able to get pretty close. Then you can buy something better. Hopefully the buyer of your Studio Display will be happy with it, and you'll have denied Apple a first-hand sale, while giving (most of) the money to another manufacturer that deserves it more.
- pabs3 3y ago
  Monitor firmware has had security exploits before, so firmware updates for them seem like a good idea. https://github.com/RedBalloonShenanigans/MonitorDarkly https://github.com/RedBalloonShenanigans/MonitorDarkly https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32634467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32634467
gpm 3y ago
> out of a total estimated 200kg - roughly 86L of gasoline Five year CO2 production roughly equivalent to two tanks of gas in a honda civic. It's not nothing, but if you're looking to reduce your CO2 footprint I'm not sure this is what I'd look towards as the low hanging fruit for just about anyone who can afford their product. For instance for most people driving less, or driving smaller vehicles, would be far more effective.
- noobermin 3y ago
  I know anti-car attitudes annoy some people, but we really should drive this home(pun not intended but taken advantage of). People keep using "a tank of gas" as a fungible, graspable unit of carbon emissions while not realising reducing that very thing often has an out-sized impact on carbon emission, sometimes more than other things like reusing clothes, internet usage of this or that services or saas, and so on. Transport is by-and-large the #1 source of emissions in the US[0], the majority of which are passenger cars and trucks[1]. Reducing car dependency would be one of the largest contributors to sustainability the US (and many other nations, but likely not as much as America) could do to have an impact on climate change [0] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#transportation https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... Pulled quote from [1]: "The largest sources of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions include passenger cars, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and light-duty trucks, including sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans. These sources account for over half of the emissions from the transportation sector."
  - marcus_holmes 3y ago
    When I've pointed out to people that if they really want to be green then they should stop driving their car, I got a response along the lines of "the top ten producers of CO2 are all private companies. It's not about changing public behaviours, it's about regulating corporate behaviours". I never buy this, because corporate behaviours are driven by the market, which is driven by public behaviours. If we all stopped driving cars, the oil companies are going to stop processing so much oil. But I do understand that changing that much public behaviour is difficult (and made more difficult by this attitude/argument). So regulating the oil companies and making fuel so expensive that people can't drive their cars appears to be the only way to do this. Except that if fuel prices go up, people point out that they can't afford to drive for necessary trips. And the transport infrastructure is all based around lots of private cars. So the government has to keep fuel prices low enough to make cars usable for poor people. Which means no-one gives up their cars and the oil companies carry on processing this much oil. So I don't really understand how we're going to solve this and not cook ourselves.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
Makes a case for a robust handheld device with the capability to swap screens. For many users a phone could be enough to power a larger screen experience, certainly a tablet. Put another way, when you own all three forms at any given moment on average two CPUs and two screens are completely unutilized. Talk about wasteful.
nrp 3y ago
The report calls this out, but some of the numbers like material utilization come from direct measurements, while others are extrapolations from other LCA models. The display numbers (which were extrapolations from a report published by another display maker using a different fab generation) jumped out to us as well as being an area that needs further analysis.
ralfd 3y ago
This is a useful comparison for me to check Apples claims: https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/14-inch_MacBook_Pro_PER_Jan2023.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/14-... The M2 MacBook Pro is 240 kg CO2 with a similar split of 79% production and 20% usage.

MrVandemar 3y ago

> Certainly makes the harvesting of screens from dead laptops seem like a good option. Wouldn't it be awfully nice if the manufacturers made this easy to do.

steve_adams_86 3y ago

Regarding display production: I recently bought a Studio Display from Apple with the thought that it should last a very long time. It bricked itself with a software update after maybe 3 months. I realized these things depend on Apple supporting the A13 chip in order for it to remain compatible with new technologies and, absurdly, to remain secure from exploits. A monitor. I couldn’t regret my purchase much more and feel pretty stupid for not figuring this stuff out before I pulled out my credit card. To add insult to injury, the display has been getting repaired for almost 2 months and there’s still no ETA on a fix. I highly recommend looking elsewhere for a display, both for ecological reasons but also because these things likely have a software-driven expiry date, with their hardware being relatively complex and error prone compared to most displays. Also, they come with a barely usable camera. Audio is fine but it’s mind boggling how bad the camera is. What a waste.

lucb1e 3y ago
If you want to get rid of it, multiple months for a good-as-new product is long enough to suggest they just keep it and give you the full money back instead. Laws may be different where you live, I'm not a lawyer, but that should work
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  I suppose the laws where I am don’t work in my favour. I firmly insisted I get a refund after about 45 days, but they flatly refused and shortly after agreed to a replacement. I still don’t have that, though.
  - ncallaway 3y ago
    I would never take a vendor’s word for what the laws are. Many will simply violate the law, and see what they can get away with. Look up your local consumer protection laws, and see if their behavior is allowed. If not, write to them demanding the refund, citing to the specific consumer protection laws, and informing them that if they don’t resolve the issue your next step is to file a complaint with your state AG. Edit: to make this slightly more useful, you can search “(your state) uniform commercial code”, and you can look at this resource for a quick summary of the UCC obligation on a manufacturer: https://www.mclane.com/insights/know-the-law-uniform-commercial-code/ https://www.mclane.com/insights/know-the-law-uniform-commerc... I could see an AG complaint prompting them to complete the replacement soon.
    - steve_adams_86 3y ago
      I’m in Canada (BC), and unfortunately there is no law governing refunds for consumer goods. Apple offers if of their own volition and can implement it here as they see fit. In this case it’s within their right to insist that the unit is repaired rather than replaced.
      - ncallaway 3y ago
        Ah! I'm sorry to hear that. It's surprising to me that Canada has looser consumer protection laws that the US. Best of luck with the repair or replacement then.
vondur 3y ago
The Studio Display has a 1 year warranty. Absolutely take it back for a new one.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  They refused to replace it for quite a while and just recently agreed to replace it, but that was a week ago. It’s been a brutal customer service experience. It got 2 new logic boards while they tried to track down the problem. At this point I still don’t know when I’ll have a working display in my possession.
  - antonvs 3y ago
    You could consider filing in small claims court.
    - steve_adams_86 3y ago
      toast0 suggested a chargeback as well; both seems like great mechanisms to encourage a refund. Thanks for the suggestion.
      - kelnos 3y ago
        I would probably recommend the small-claims court first (assuming that's a thing where you live). If you issue a chargeback, Apple isn't constrained by any code of conduct, and could retaliate by deactivating your Apple ID or refusing to sell you anything in the future, or... But if you get a court order for Apple to take some specific action (like a refund), I'd think they'd be less likely to retaliate since you could presumably bring another (legal) case against them that their retaliation was shady. Then again, I don't know about laws where you live, so maybe this isn't a consideration.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Did you buy it from Apple directly, or a retailer? If from Apple, you may consider a chargeback. Or suggest that you'll do a chargeback if they don't refund you when you next check on the status of the replacement.
kelnos 3y ago
Ugh, that sounds awful. One option you might have would be to sell it on the used market, once you get the replacement. Certainly you won't get full price for it, but especially if Apple gives up and sends you a new-in-box replacement, you might be able to get pretty close. Then you can buy something better. Hopefully the buyer of your Studio Display will be happy with it, and you'll have denied Apple a first-hand sale, while giving (most of) the money to another manufacturer that deserves it more.
pabs3 3y ago
Monitor firmware has had security exploits before, so firmware updates for them seem like a good idea. https://github.com/RedBalloonShenanigans/MonitorDarkly https://github.com/RedBalloonShenanigans/MonitorDarkly https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32634467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32634467

gpm 3y ago

> out of a total estimated 200kg - roughly 86L of gasoline Five year CO2 production roughly equivalent to two tanks of gas in a honda civic. It's not nothing, but if you're looking to reduce your CO2 footprint I'm not sure this is what I'd look towards as the low hanging fruit for just about anyone who can afford their product. For instance for most people driving less, or driving smaller vehicles, would be far more effective.

noobermin 3y ago
I know anti-car attitudes annoy some people, but we really should drive this home(pun not intended but taken advantage of). People keep using "a tank of gas" as a fungible, graspable unit of carbon emissions while not realising reducing that very thing often has an out-sized impact on carbon emission, sometimes more than other things like reusing clothes, internet usage of this or that services or saas, and so on. Transport is by-and-large the #1 source of emissions in the US[0], the majority of which are passenger cars and trucks[1]. Reducing car dependency would be one of the largest contributors to sustainability the US (and many other nations, but likely not as much as America) could do to have an impact on climate change [0] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#transportation https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... Pulled quote from [1]: "The largest sources of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions include passenger cars, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and light-duty trucks, including sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans. These sources account for over half of the emissions from the transportation sector."
- marcus_holmes 3y ago
  When I've pointed out to people that if they really want to be green then they should stop driving their car, I got a response along the lines of "the top ten producers of CO2 are all private companies. It's not about changing public behaviours, it's about regulating corporate behaviours". I never buy this, because corporate behaviours are driven by the market, which is driven by public behaviours. If we all stopped driving cars, the oil companies are going to stop processing so much oil. But I do understand that changing that much public behaviour is difficult (and made more difficult by this attitude/argument). So regulating the oil companies and making fuel so expensive that people can't drive their cars appears to be the only way to do this. Except that if fuel prices go up, people point out that they can't afford to drive for necessary trips. And the transport infrastructure is all based around lots of private cars. So the government has to keep fuel prices low enough to make cars usable for poor people. Which means no-one gives up their cars and the oil companies carry on processing this much oil. So I don't really understand how we're going to solve this and not cook ourselves.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

Makes a case for a robust handheld device with the capability to swap screens. For many users a phone could be enough to power a larger screen experience, certainly a tablet. Put another way, when you own all three forms at any given moment on average two CPUs and two screens are completely unutilized. Talk about wasteful.

nrp 3y ago

The report calls this out, but some of the numbers like material utilization come from direct measurements, while others are extrapolations from other LCA models. The display numbers (which were extrapolations from a report published by another display maker using a different fab generation) jumped out to us as well as being an area that needs further analysis.

ralfd 3y ago

This is a useful comparison for me to check Apples claims: https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/14-inch_MacBook_Pro_PER_Jan2023.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/14-... The M2 MacBook Pro is 240 kg CO2 with a similar split of 79% production and 20% usage.