Does Apple Need to Abandon its Climate Goals?
Apple is one of the biggest technology companies on the planet. If you haven’t used an iPhone or an iPad, then there is a good chance that you know someone who has, whilst Mac computers appear in virtually every TV show and movie that is released into the mainstream.
The company’s tech is obviously central to that, but the ethos is also important to those that care about the planet moving forward.
Some time ago, Apple claimed that it wanted to be net-zero by 2030, but does the continuing expansion of the use of Artificial Intelligence mean that that is nothing but a pipe dream?
Apple’s Original Plan
Back in the July of 2020, Apple announced that the company had a plan to carbon-neutral within a decade. The declaration covered not just the company itself, but also all of its suppliers. The aim, they said, was to have ‘zero climate impact’ at the point that people were buying their products, obviously aware that they couldn’t also control how the people who bought their gear would behave.
Apple wasn’t the only company to have an eye on the future of the planet either, with Microsoft saying that it planned to have removed the same amount of carbon as it had ever emitted by 2050.
The new Apple Watch Series 9 is the first carbon neutral product! They are also no longer using leather in any future Apple Product. pic.twitter.com/pKCHrft0Qs
— iJustine (@ijustine) September 12, 2023
Not that the promise made by Apple impressed everyone. The Senior Corporate Campaigner for Greenpeace USA, Elizabeth Jardim, said, “I am happy to see that Apple has worked with suppliers to source actual renewable energy and that it has not relied on low-impact solutions like offsetting or renewable energy credits.
But I will want to see how the company is further phasing out reliance on fossil fuels throughout its operations on a near-term timeline. At present, the company has matched data-centre energy demand with renewables and committed to do the same for its supply chain. But this is not the same as phasing out fossil fuel use altogether.”
AI & the Environment
Artificial Intelligence has become something of a catch-all term for the technology that processes information and mimics human thinking, even if only superficially. There are plenty of people who hope that the technology can be used in order to tell us how to save the environment at a time when it feels as though the world is burning.
Problematically, though, the very existence of AI is also damaging to the environment itself. Most of the large-scale Artificial Intelligence deployments get housed in data centres, which take a huge toll on the planet thanks to the energy that they use.
@zerowastestore AI uses a significant amount of water and electricity. Every ChatGPT request uses a water bottle’s worth of water and nearly 10x the energy of a Google search. By 2027, AI could consume as much electricity as Argentina does in a year. Next time you ask AI to do an unnecessary task, consider the impact on the environment first. #cleanenergy #sustainableliving #watershortage #climatechange #ecofriendly ♬ original sound – ZeroWasteStore
Data centres also produce waste from the tech that they use, with the likes of mercury, lead and other hazardous materials being produced. On top of that, during both the building and operating phases, data centres use water, with the global amount of water being used by AI believed to be more than Denmark as a country.
When you add in the fact that energy tends to be produced by the burning of fossil fuels, it is easy to understand why it is that plenty of people are concerned about the environmental impact of the explosion of AI, to the point that some people refuse to use it.
Apple’s Problems
Apple are not dissimilar to any other technology company existing in the modern world, insomuch as there is a desire to introduce and use Artificial Intelligence as much as possible. This, of course, flies right in the face of Apple’s desire to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Although many people have understandable concerns about the proliferation of AI, believing that it will kill off jobs if it is allowed to continue unchecked, there is seemingly no stopping its use by the various tech giants. Apple’s use of AI in its products means that emissions-heavy tech innovations have also been brought to bear.
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Although Apple aren’t alone in terms of the environmental impact of their products, with Google’s total greenhouse gas emissions increasing by 48% between 2019 and 2023 and Microsoft’s increasing by 23% over a similar four-year period, there is little question that the company went big on its carbon-neutral promise.
By the time the launch for Apple’s new iPhone came about in 2024, the company had gone silent on its sustainability progress. It doesn’t mean that nothing’s happening, but it’s fair to say that if people are buying a phone with an environmental stance in mind, the iPhone might be one to avoid.