Apple Inc.’s 2015 Environmental Responsibility Report doesn’t beat around the bush.
“We don’t want to debate climate change. We want to stop it,” the report says, before spelling out the company’s efforts for reducing its carbon footprint and taking the environment into account in its facilities and products.
“Our environmental commitment starts in the places where we work—from our corporate campuses to our data centers,” the report continued. “Although our facilities now represent only 1 percent of our carbon footprint, they reflect our values, and we want them to act as models for others to follow. This is why we are constantly making our facilities more energy efficient and aggressively investing in renewable energy.”
The report is yet another example of a business speaking out on climate change. As TPM has noted in the past, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has publicly feuded with former members on its stance on climate change.
In leaving the conservative ALEC, groups like Google and Microsoft have loudly griped about the organization’s policies on the environment and climate change.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has even accused ALEC of “literally lying about climate change.”
More recently, ALEC began sending cease and desist letters to liberal advocacy groups focused on green energy and climate change who criticized it. Common Cause got a cease and desist letter but said it wouldn’t comply. The League of Conservation voters got one as well, according to The Washington Post.
While ALEC has said that climate change is a “historical phenomenon” it’s also signaled opposition to moves to fight climate charge.
“Unilateral efforts by the United States or regions within the United States, will not significantly decrease carbon emissions globally, and international efforts to decrease emissions have proven politically infeasible and unenforceable,” ALEC said in a cease and desist letter.
By contrast, Apple’s new report says the company is taking carbon emissions into designing and processing products and its facilities.
“We’re always trying to improve the way we conduct our greenhouse gas life cycle analysis,” the report said. “And when our assessments reveal a material, process, or system that’s making a significant negative impact on our carbon footprint, we reexamine how we design that product, process, or facility.”
(H/t: The Verge)