Jobs Polishes Apple's Eco Image

Responding to critics like Greenpeace, which gave his company a particularly low rating in environmental friendliness, Apple chief Steve Jobs outlined the company's plans for making itself more eco-friendly. Strategies including reducing the use of toxic chemicals like arsenic, and expanding product recycling programs. Greenpeace lauded the move, but indicated there was more work to be done.



Having found his company in April at the bottom of a Greenpeace list ranking the world's most eco-friendly electronics companies, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted a letter on the company Web site Wednesday detailing present and future plans to make a greener Apple. Included among the iPod maker's green initiatives is a push to reduce the use of toxic substances in its products and also to improve its practices for recycling old products.

"It is generally not Apple's policy to trumpet our plans for the future; we tend to talk about the things we have just accomplished," Jobs wrote. "Unfortunately, this policy has left our customers, shareholders, employees and the industry in the dark about Apple's desires and plans to become greener."

"Our stakeholders deserve and expect more from us, and they're right to do so. They want us to be a leader in this area, just as we are in the other areas of our business. So today we're changing our policy," he continued.

Green Apple

In his rebuttal to criticism from environmental groups such as Greenpeace, Jobs noted several steps that Apple had already undertaken to reduce the impact of its products on the environment. Whereas other companies, including Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) Latest News about Dell, Gateway (NYSE: GTW), HP (NYSE: HPQ) Latest News about Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo continue to ship cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors that contain as much as three pounds (1.36 kilograms) of lead, Apple completely eliminated the displays from its product line in 2006, according to Jobs.

Apple's remaining line of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) contains arsenic and mercury. In order to eliminate the use of mercury in its displays, the company plans to transition from fluorescent lamps to light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to illuminate the displays. The first Macs sporting LED backlight technology will debut later this year. However, Jobs cautioned, making a full transition to LED backlighting could take time.

"Our ability to completely eliminate florescent lamps in all of our displays depends on how fast the LCD industry can transition to LED backlighting for larger displays," he wrote.
Out With Arsenic

In addition, Apple plans include a complete elimination of the use of arsenic it all of its displays by the end of 2008. As for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), Jobs said Apple began phasing out PVC in 1995 and began restricting BFRs back in 2001.

"Today, we've successfully eliminated the largest applications of PVC and BFRs in our products, and we're closer to eliminating these chemicals altogether," Jobs wrote. "For example, more than three million iPods have already shipped with BFR-free laminate on their logic boards. Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of PVC and BFRs in its products by the end of 2008."

In terms of Apple's recycling programs, Jobs pointed out that the company began recycling in 1994. During the past 13 years that program has expanded to include more than 82 percent of the countries in which Macs and iPods are sold. By the end of 2007 that percentage, according to Jobs, will increase to 93 percent.

As part of its recycling efforts, Jobs said in the future Apple will extend its free iPod recycling program, currently only available in the U.S., to the rest of the globe.
Still Not There

Greenpeace lauded the Apple's new commitment to environmental transparency and the phasing out of the worst chemicals in its product range as "genuine steps forward." However, the environmental organization noted that the plans Jobs outlined would only raise Apple's score from its previous 2.7 to 5 out of 10.

"We look forward to Apple going further to green their existing products, to get non-toxic products on the market and to announce a worldwide take-back and responsible reuse/recycling policies," the group said. "We will continue to work with Apple users to ask Apple to do just that."

The greening of products is all well and good, Danial Fleischer, an analyst at IDC, told MacNewsWorld, and it is a topic that many IT vendors are focusing on. "This is something that doesn't come as a surprise. It is something that a lot of IT vendors are focusing on, how to portray a green image to the marketplace."

A green strategy Barracuda Spam Firewall Free Eval Unit - Click Here does not stop at producing green products, Fleischer pointed out. In his research, producing and using green products plays a role, but it is not the only answer. Manufacturers also need to take a hard look at and begin greening their manufacturing processes as well.

"There's one thing in developing green products, but it's another thing to presenting yourself as a green organization," he explained. "The approach to take is to set your own internal goals and your own internal targets and benchmark yourself on anything from energy reduction to reducing your carbon footprint within manufacturing and logistics as well."
Source :http://www.macnewsworld.com