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News & Views From the Front Line
Monday, 28 September 2009
Green Apples not just a fad
More than two years ago I blogged about Apple Computer's run in with Greenpeace and I continue to use it as a case study of the risks of being targeted by a pressure group. Well Apple have released a new site which makes the environmental impact of their products as transparent as possible.As someone who is typing this on his sixth Mac in 20 years, I really chuffed that such a high profile company has realised that in the 21st century, hip = green and vice versa. Interesting too that my 2008 model Powerbook Pro has 60% of the carbon emissions in use as my old laptop.
This energy efficiency has wider importance too as the world becomes increasingly digitised. There is an interesting article in the latest edition of The ENDS Report on the carbon footprint of data centres. Incredibly the typical server only uses 10-20% of its capacity. A technique called 'virtualisation' is now being used to increase this to 50-70% - a massive improvement.
There are many benefits of the shift to a digital world - removing the information (photos, music, movies) from the medium (film, paper, CDs, DVDs plus associated packaging and distribution) - and it is great to see that the carbon footprint of each unit of digital activity is dropping so rapidly so we don't simply move the problem around.
Update 9/10/09
Apple have announced, like Nike and several other large players, that they are resigning from the US Chamber of Commerce in protest at the latter's stance on Obama's climate change bill. Almost literally walking the talk.
Labels: apple, carbon emissions, data centres
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:46
0 Comments
Saturday, 9 June 2007
A Greener Apple
I'm writing this on a three and a half year old Mac PowerBook. Us Mac users are notoriously sanctimonious and, often, downright snooty when it comes to our IT, so it came as a bit of a shock when Greenpeace launched a campaign against Apple for coming bottom in their scorecard of electronics companies for the second year running (see graphic).
Apple's brilliant, but notoriously brittle, CEO Steve Jobs reacted dismissively to the campaign at first, but something must have sunk in as he has now launched an impassioned defence of Apple's record, trailed on the front page of their website last month. The most significant part is a pledge to phase out some of the more controversial chemicals in its product range, such as Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), by 2008 - other computer manufactures have pledged to phase them out by 2009.
So I can go back to being smug about my Mac...
Labels: apple, chemicals, IT, toxic
# posted by Gareth Kane : 17:00
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A highly accessible, practical guide to those who want to introduce sustainability into their business or organization quickly and effectively.
