Apple carbon footprint exploded in 2011

Apple has published an overview of its carbon footprint for 2011, breaking down how factors such as manufacturing, transportation, product use, recycling, and its facilities influence its effect on the environment.

The company estimates that it was responsible for 23.1 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2011. According to Apple, 98 percent of those emissions are related to its products' life cycle, with just 2 percent chalked up to the company's facilities.

That's up significantly over the company's emissions in 2010, which measured just 14.8 million metric tons. To a certain extent, that's to be expected, as the record quarterly sales the company keeps racking up suggest that Apple is producing and shipping more products than ever. But Apple says the amount of its greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of revenue have actually decreased since 2008, to the tune of 15.4 percent.

The GHG Protocol divides greenhouse gas emissions into three "scopes." Scope 1 includes all direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources owned or controlled by the company; scope 2 includes indirect emissions, those from the consumption of purchased electricity, heat or steam; and scope 3 includes indirect emissions such as the extraction and production of purchased materials and fuels, transportation not controlled by the company, and other third-party expenditures.

Apple doesn't say if it uses the GHG Protocol to measure its emissions, but its report does cover manufacturing and suppliers, which seems to suggest it provides a comprehensive overall picture. The company also says that its calculations adhere to the International Standards Organisation's ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 specifications for reporting the information.

To the same end, Apple said that many of its products, for which it produced detailed individual impact reports, have reduced carbon emissions over their predecessors. On the top of that list is the Apple TV, whose current incarnation is responsible for 90 percent less carbon emissions than the version that appeared in 2007. Likewise, the 2011 iMac's carbon emissions have been reduced 50 percent over the original model released way back in 1998, and the 2011 Mac mini has dropped 52 percent since the 2007 iteration. Even the iPad 2 has been reduced 5 percent over its predecessor.

While some of that has to do with the manufacture of the products - Apple estimates 61 percent of its overall greenhouse gas emissions are related to that portion of the product life cycle - much of it has to do with ancillary factors, such as transporting those devices to stores and customers. Because the company has reduced the size of packaging in many of its devices, it can fit more boxes in the same capacity, thus reducing the number of planes and flights needed. For example, Apple says that it's reduced iPhone packaging 42 percent between 2007 and 2011, meaning that one fewer 747 flight is needed for ever 371,250 units shipped.

While the Maiden data centre was the subject of intense scrutiny during its construction, it was officially unveiled to the public during Apple's 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, to illustrate then CEO Steve Jobs's point that Apple was serious about its commitment to iCloud.

A more public commitment to the environment has been an Apple priority since 2007, when Jobs penned the open letter "A Greener Apple". In it, he fought back against criticisms by environmental organisations such as Greenpeace, which had taken the company to task for not doing enough to reduce the use of toxic substances in its products. Jobs said the company would soon be ahead of its competitors in that realm, and promised improving its recycling goal - a milestone it ended up beating a year ahead of schedule.

Since then, of course, Apple has eliminated those materials across its line-up, producing devices that are free of PVC, arsenic, mercury, lead, and brominated flame retardants (BFRs). The company also points out in its latest report that, among its competitors, it is the only one whose entire product line meets and exceeds the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star specification for power efficiency.

As of Greenpeace's November 2011 Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks various technology companies, Apple held fourth place, after HP, Dell, and Nokia. The environmental organization gave the company plaudits for its products, but dinged it on some of its policies and a lack of emissions goals.

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