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Apple Goes Back To EPEAT
An anonymous reader writes with a followup to news from last weekend that Apple had turned its back on the EPEAT hardware certification standard. After hearing criticism from customers, the media, and governmental organizations that Apple wasn't being environmentally friendly, the company's Hardware Engineering VP, Bob Mansfield, wrote today that its earlier decision was a mistake, and all of Apple's eligible products are back on EPEAT. (EPEAT welcomed Apple back with open arms.) Mansfield repeated an earlier statement from Apple that EPEAT does not measure all the ways in which the company's products are environmentally friendly. Mansfield said, "For example, Apple led the industry in removing harmful toxins such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). We are the only company to comprehensively report greenhouse gas emissions for every product we make, taking into account the entire product lifecycle. And we’ve removed plastics wherever possible, in favor of materials that are more highly recyclable, more durable, more efficient and longer lasting. Perhaps most importantly, we make the most energy-efficient computers in the world and our entire product line exceeds the stringent ENERGY STAR 5.2 government standard. No one else in our industry can make that claim."
Mansfield went on to state that Apple would use only genuine Congalese tantalum, African conflict diamonds, rainforest teak, and Iranian oil based lubricants; and furthermore the iOS developers would smoke only Tibetan opium. "No one else in our industry can afford to make those claims, bitches!" he cackled.
At press time, the reporters were too mellow from the complimentary Afghan bud to harsh his groove. Steve Jobs could not be reached for comment.
John
1. Tell everyone you're leaving an environmental program
2. Issue press release saying you're not leaving
3. Use this chance to tell reporters that your products are more environmentally friendly than the competition
I have to admit it's a clever strategy.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I think the /. summary has this a bit backwards. Just read the letter from EPEAT:
This was a messy situation and I think EPEAT did the right thing here in moving forward on recycling standards for computers and smartphones with closed cases and non removable batteries. So I'm happy that we are going to end up with better standards for recycling and at the same time Apple doesn't break with the environmental groups. This is a win-win in terms of policy that probably wouldn't have happened if Apple hadn't publicly stormed off. But /. shouldn't be writing this up as Apple caving to criticism. Their policies on recycling (i.e. the need for an expert recycler like http://www.werecycle.com/ ) haven't changed its EPEAT that is altering policy.
Is that 2.718 championships?
They turned their back on EPEAT just to get the news coverage....doing something bad like that made all the haters spread the word just as much as the fans. Then, when they flip-flopped, all the haters suddenly got a nice little spiel about how they are not only EPEAT-compliant, but even better. And the haters actually paid attention because they were interested now.
And the fans are still happy because Apple is still certified now.
Excellent marketing, all-in-all.
I wonder what kind of back deals finally convinced EPEAT to give Apple the seal of approval.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I commend Apple for saying in public "we were wrong".
Apple helped create the EPEAT standards alongside the other stakeholders who helped define it.
Apple even has a contract to recycle products from ANY manufacturer, for free, with free shipping fees and boxes provided. What other vendor does this? Who puts their money where their mouth is on the environment?
Apple's products, in real, practical terms, are MORE recyclable, in terms of recyclable content contained therein, and the ability to actually recycle them — albeit by using Apple's programs for things like iPhone, iPad, and now the Retina MacBook Pro — and that many other EPEAT-certified products may be (and are) markedly worse than Apple's products in this sense, but can still be certified because they are able to be disassembled with conventional tools. How does that make them "more green"?
EPEAT alone isn't the end-all, be-all of green certifications. Organizations use EPEAT because it is a metric; a box that is easy to check; an easy way to define the "greenness" of a product. Apple helped develop the EPEAT standard, and has been one of the most committed and transparent manufacturers to green tech, environment, and recycling. No other major vendor has this level of transparency.
And Apple is STILL targeted by folks like Greenpeace, even as Apple is pursuing green more aggressively than its competitors, with Data Center Knowledge noting:
EPEAT didn't cave on anything — but the next generation of EPEAT would do well to consider the real, end-to-end recyclability and carbon footprint of electronic products.
I'd like to see him drive the company out of profit, and THEN make claims about him being nuts.
One thing I missed when I replied to your comment initially, that is most interesting:
The Retina MacBook Pro is EPEAT Gold in the US and Canada.
Longer Lasting, with an expiration date!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Few things surprise me, but this one does. But it goes to show that without Steve Jobs, Apple doesn't have quite the strength of backbone that it once had. We may see many more examples of bending over backward before long.
So I guess since apple is returning to epeat we can all return our new macbooks and get removable screens and batteries now? Or did nothing actually change?
The EPEAT website lists some interesting requirements along with the EU hazardous material content and recycling common sense. They also specify that three year extended warrenties must be available and that memory must be upgradeable and that repair must be possible up to five years after production ends. I doubt this fits Apples business model even if this too might be considered green common sense. Who wants to be burdened with supporting customers when you could just sell them the next model, silly customers...
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Can you back that up with proof? They have a recycling program and as long as you're not taking something ancient back you can get a gift certificate for bring it back. I can't think of any other company that gives incentives to bring your shit back to recycle it.
Their issues is that a person can't remove their own battery. That is not an environmental hazard and in fact Apple being the only one that can reomve it guarantees it gets recycled. Where as batteries that consumers can remove and replace can and do end up in land fills.
If you disagree feel free to provide proof.
He's doing his best, just give him a little more rope.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
If Steve Jobs was around and decided that Apple should not be part of EPEAT, then Apple would remain off EPEAT for good regardless of consumer opinion or corporate backlash. Instead the new Apple appears to pander to the same.
Apple lost its balls with Steve.
Microsoft is the definitive champion of a business model involving brash announcements, gathering of opinion, and eventual backpedaling, hopefully Tim Cooke is not looking to take over that title.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
"wrote today that its earlier decision was a mistake"
we thought we could get away with it. our intentions weren't a mistake. Thinking there wouldn't be as much of an outcry was actually the mistake.
Nothing has actually changed except that Apple will go back to identifying products that are EPEAT compliant as such, which lets Apple sell those products to organizations that require that certification. The retina MBP is not one of these; Apple hasn't said anything about modifying its construction, and doubtless doesn't intend to. As a high end laptop sold more to individuals to organizations, its sales are not all that dependent upon EPEAT certification anyway. EPEAT has has indicated willingness to consider input from Apple regarding updates to its certification policy, and I expect that Apple will push for a provision to grant certification to products for which the manufacturer has a credible environmentally friendly recycling program, without nitpicking the details of how the device is constructed.
Too bad the truth is that Apple recycles any of their products for free, and any other manufacturer's products, also for free, and it's all zero-landfill, meaning that image is completely, 100%, provably false.
But again, I know you're trolling — I'm just replying so others following this threat won't have any chance of being duped by any of your posts.
Replying to yourself now? Why is it that I picture spittle flying from your mouth as you type this?
Fortunately, those machines can still run Mac OS X just fine.
Fixed that for you.
That is why Apple ditched EPEAT in the first place. Being able to disassemble toxic components "with common tools" is a requirement of EPEAT compatibility. Did EPEAT just magically excuse Apple from this?
FTFA linked in TFA: "EPEAT requirements hold that electronics must be easy to disassemble, so their components can be recycled. The iPhone, the iPad, and the new MacBook Pro with Retina display don't pass muster..."
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
"Oh my word, this product lacks EPEAT certification! I cannot purchase this!" -- absolutely no one in an Apple store, ever.
bah.
Never mind the warrenty, what about adding to the memory?
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Reality is that geeks are upset they can't mess with the inside of the closed devices- not that changing storage or batteries was really much freedom to begin with. The batteries always were extremely difficult to impossible to source outside of Apple since they have always been custom made (past attempts at industry standard batteries always failed.)
I don't like having a closed device either but I frankly do not care if I can't upgrade the storage or change batteries if they do not extort huge sums from me (beyond what they do already for the devices, which range from fair to abusive.) I've never changed a battery in a computer (other than the lithium for the clock.)
I've taken apart devices with glued batteries-- it is not a huge deal or impossible. For recycling taking it apart is more work than ripping a battery off. Where you should be concerned is if they move to one of those newer paint-on type lithium batteries which can never be removed without some chemical process.
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I was looking at the stories on TUAW about this a few days ago when the dropping out of EPEAT was announced, and it amused me greatly that the vast majority of commentors were coming out about the futility of recycling and how forward thinking Apple was to ditch overblown environmental concerns in favor of design.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
No, but I'd repair it.
Seriously.
In my previous job I had to repair a lot of electronic devices, (mostly laptops that got dropped or similar). Having to toss an entire ipad because the glass screen is cracked would be very wasteful. It doesn't matter if you have to replace it, or you send it to apple and they replace it, or it gets sent to india/china and is 'recycled' there, hard to tear down is hard to tear down.
No one, absolutely no one wants to spend 100 dollars in man hours to recycle a laptop or an iPad. By making devices hard to repair you make them landfill fodder, or dumping on poor people fodder. Now if all you need is a single 'special' tool or two (that are really just odd variants of generic tools) that's not a huge problem, but the direction apple went, with unibody construction, gluing parts to other parts etc. soldering them all together was making their devices very hard to repair, even for their own people, to the point that it would be better to just junk any broken device and completely replace it. That's bad (generally).
If you could get what you wanted by just crushing down the electronics and re-refining out the metals then it wouldn't be so bad to have everything soldered together from an environmental standpoint, but because of all of the relatively toxic parts that's not usually a great option.
"Perhaps most importantly, we make the most energy-efficient computers in the world"
My Kill-A-Watt would like to have a word with you, as I have several computers that run much faster than your crap and don't consume nearly as much power.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Memory must be upgradeable... How does the rMBP have an EPEAT Gold certification, then? I really want to know, because I thought the same thing.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Words are cheap, what are they doing about it?
For one thing, Apple is providing a recycling program for its own hardware, provided you happen to live within reasonable driving distance of an Apple Retail Store.
They can run an outdated version of Mac OS X. How long does Apple provide security updates for old versions of Mac OS X? And I was under the impression that each new iOS version needed a new version of Xcode to develop applications for it, and new versions of Xcode ran only on the latest version of Mac OS X.
Darn, I had all my money on creating some BS called iPEAT or buying whoever is being EPEAT. I should have went with the obvious one.
They do.
Now, today's "resolution" cheerfully proclaims that Apple is back in the program because it embraces so many environmentally aware policies and that EPEAT is pleased as punch to have them back.
But, uh, okay, what happened? Has Apple now agreed to make its batteries removable and -- gulp! -- even user-replaceable? Or has EPEAT buckled and compromised its standards to favor a politically powerful client? Dead silence -- but isn't that the real issue?
Yet iphones and ipods are known to end up on landfills too - if you disagree, well, I've seen it happen (and prevented it twice too). The fact that people (not all, thank god) are too lazy to recycle batteries means they are just as lazy with recycling phones, laptops, etc. too. The fact that you can recycle batteries helps somewhat though...
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Mod this up folks, I could not have said this better - and it seems there is a whole load of fanbois dumb enough to actually not realize all this at all, babbling about how tree-ish apple is coz it recycles the (whole) devices for you so you don't have to separately let them recycle your battery - I would bet they might even argue that having to recycle two batteries (or even more) per one device means that the device is much worse for environment as after all, their glued in battery devices only need one battery recycled per device.
I really wish I was joking...
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Of course. All sorts of electronics end up in land fills because some people don't care. In fact I imagine that's where most user replace laptop batteries end up. Apple adds an incentive to do the right thing by offering a gift voucher in some cases but that's not going to stop everyone from doing the wrong thing.
You didn't really read what I said if you're asking if Apple have a recycle program. Apple no only don't charge you buy, in some cases, give you money for it in the form of a voucher. But there's not much point in saying that as I'm sure you won't read this and just reply with whatever you want to say no matter how nonsensical.
ME-MO-RY, not storage space. You know, RAM - storage space is never (practically never anyway) referred as "memory", RAM is always.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
At least in my country, Finland, you can take any batteries to closest shop and drop them into used battery bin - but in USA if government pushed laws to achieve same it would probably seen as human rights violation (companies are people there). ;p
Well, at least in our world anyone who cares even a little can recycle batteries just by taking them to shop when going to by groceries - it's awful, is it not?
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
In the UK we have (afaik) one shop, Sainsburys that has a normal battery drop-off but there's no way it'd fit a laptop battery which seems silly to me. At least it's slowly catching on.