The move is said to be caused at least in part by Apple’s “green push,” according to the London Evening Standard. Apple has taken measures during the past few years to lessen the environmental impact of its products. Those measures include reduced packaging as well as changes in the types and number of components used in its products. While the measures have been seen as effective by organizations like Greenpeace, Apple still faces criticism from environmental organizations in supplier countries, most notably China.

The presence of halogens in electronics is a danger, because when products are incinerated at the end of life, the burning halogen can release dioxins and furans into the atmosphere, which have been shown in studies to be increasing in presence in soil, ground water and people. Dioxins and furans are thought to be carcinogenic in large-enough concentrations, and in fact a 2003 study said that there is no known “threshold below which dioxin will not cause cancer.” Sounds like getting rid of them is a wise move.

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Apple has been in talks with Chinese environmental groups since those organizations have been levying accusations of environmental abuses at the company’s supplier partners, which were collected in a report released in August. Ma Jun, a leading Chinese environmentalist, told the Wall Street Journal  Apple met with leaders of five environmental groups on Tuesday, and it represented “a major step forward” for Apple and the aims of the environmental organizations.

Another environmental group leader, Li Li of EnviroFriends, said though it’s a step in the right direction, the groups and Apple “haven’t reached a consensus” and still disagree on many specific things. For instance, while Apple has acknowledged 15 of the 22 suppliers identified in the August report are indeed Apple suppliers, it wouldn’t single out which ones. Apple has a history of not making its supplier information public, possibly in order to keep a tighter lid on potential supply chain leaks regarding upcoming products.

The lack of openness is a problem, Li Chunhua, secretary general of the Green Stone Environmental Action Network told the IDG News Service: “What Apple has been doing is positive, but we want them to be more open with their supply chain.” For environmental groups, transparency with regards to suppliers translates into greater accountability for their actions on Apple’s part.

One of Apple’s key suppliers for its unibody Mac enclosures, Catcher Technologies, had to shut down a factory in October when nearby residents complained of pungent odors. It’s likely the attention this received that helped prompt the meeting on Tuesday, and Apple’s decision to open investigations into 15 of its suppliers.

Apple maintains a supplier responsibility policy, which in part insists its partners “use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes,” and releases a report each year detailing the findings of audits it conducts to ensure the policy is being met. Complaints like those from this group of Chinese environmentalist organizations suggest it may need to do more to satisfy growing scrutiny.

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The report specifically names five suppliers, some of whom are known to work with Apple, like Foxconn, and some of whom are only suspected to be Apple suppliers (through public information and court documents gathered by the Chinese environmental groups), since the Mac maker doesn’t make public the source of its components. The watchdog agencies looked into manufacturing facilities in six different locations in China and their surrounding communities and found significant environmental damage, such as extremely high levels of pollutant discharge into nearby lakes and rivers. The groups contend that in addition to damaging effects on local ecosystems, this could significantly affect the health of local residents.

According to the report, the reason Apple is worth special attention is because it has apparently been one of the electronics manufacturers most reluctant to take steps to clean up its act:

Apple has become a special case. Even when faced with specific allegations regarding its suppliers, the company refuses to provide answers and continues to state that “it is our long-term policy not to disclose supplier information.” A large number of IT supplier violation records have already been publicized; however, Apple chooses not to face such information and continues to use these companies as suppliers. This can only be seen as a deliberate refusal of responsibility.

Apple has already responded by telling the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs’ director and report co-author Ma Jun that some of those factories listed are not in fact suppliers of components for the company, according to the Globe and Mail, but it would not go into further detail about which specific factories weren’t building Apple parts.

An Apple spokeswoman also reiterated Apple’s stance regarding supplier responsibility in response to the allegations, saying that the company “require[s] that our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made.”

Last week Apple came under renewed fire for an incident that resulted in the poisoning of nearly 200 workers in 2009 at its Chinese supplier Wintek, and an explosion in May at Foxconn, another Apple supplier, led to two deaths and a number of injuries.

Attention to how Apple’s supply chain operates is only likely to increase as the company continues to grow its presence worldwide, and especially in China. It will be interesting to see if calls for greater transparency are answered, given Apple’s generally secretive tendencies.

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According to the report, the new $1 billion dollar data facility that Apple has built and is expected to start using this spring, is one of the worst offenders in the world when it comes to power consumption, both in terms of sheer volume of power required, and in how clean that energy is. The facility will use as much as 100 MW of electricity when it opens, according to Greenpeace, which is the same as around 80,000 homes in the U.S., or 250,000 in the E.U. That energy comes from a grid that uses less than five percent clean energy, with the rest coming from dirty sources that Greenpeace sees as most ecologically harmful and dangerous, like coal and nuclear.

Apple data center choices led to it receiving the lowest clean energy index of all companies rated, with just a 6.7 percent rating. Yahoo topped the list with 55.9 percent clean energy, while Google and Amazon also ranked highly with 36.4 and 26.8 percent, respectively. Apple at least received a higher score in the categories of transparency and mitigation strategy, however, beating out other companies near the bottom like Facebook and Twitter.

Greenpeace acknowledges that in many ways cloud computing can save energy (like by replacing physical disc-based purchases with digital downloads, as Katie mentioned yesterday), but it also advises that focusing on efficiency runs the risk of ignoring the impact of clean vs. dirty energy, which is still a crucial component missing from the tech sector’s sustainability efforts.

Accounting for the energy impact of IT is tricky, as Greenpeace points out in its report, so making too much of these numbers at first blush probably isn’t advisable. Apple also actually hasn’t even started using its N.C. data center, so it’s entirely possible that the estimated energy picture Greenpeace used won’t accurately reflect the in-use figures. But the point is well made that cloud computing’s impact needs to be taken into account when we consider the footprint of tech companies, especially as it moves towards becoming the dominant computing model.

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Carbon Footprint

The report, prepared by non-profit organization the Green Press Initiative (PDF), takes into account the average lifecycle of e-reading devices, and even accounts for the general impact of the iPad (in terms of the production process used in making one) on human health when compared to that of the average book. Using Apple’s own published environmental report regarding the iPad (it’s the only e-reader / tablet maker that even publishes one), Green Press Initiative determined that an iPad is responsible for 130 kg (287 lbs) of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions over its average lifetime. The average printed book, by contrast, is responsible for only 8.85 lbs. So, an iPad owner needs only download 32.4 books instead of purchasing paper copies in order to reach the break even point when it comes to carbon footprint.

Resources and Human Health

But carbon emissions aren’t the only consideration when it comes to environmental impact. The report goes on to note that the iPad’s construction is roughly equivalent to between 40 and 50 books when it comes to fossil fuel, water and mineral consumption, and that a single e-book has 70 times the impact of a printed book on human health, owing to particulate matter resulting from energy use and the book’s production.

Known Unknowns

The report acknowledges that there are a few factors where the ultimate impact of the iPad and other e-reading devices isn’t yet known. These include energy consumption that occurs during the device’s use stage, which is obviously zero for paper books. It does point out that in some cases, even using a light while reading uses more energy than an active iPad, which uses about 3 watts when used specifically for reading e-books. Server storage energy use costs are another potential factor, but again the report stresses that this impact is likely relatively small and spread out across a large number of users.

E-waste and recycling are the biggest question marks when it comes to e-readers. Books can be recycled, but it’s not clear how many actually are. E-readers can also be recycled, but it’s a more difficult process and in some cases, recycling simply means a device handed down to less developed parts of the world for precious material recovery, with the remainder discarded in traditional landfills. This is by far the most difficult and nebulous cost to account for.

How Many Books?

In the end, the report suggests a sliding scale with ranges wherein the iPad and other e-readers might be more green than their paper counterparts. The more printed books you offset with an e-reading device, the better. At around the 30 to 70 book mark, the report estimates, is where the break-even point lies in terms of general environmental impact, and it’s between 60 and 90 titles where it starts to become better to buy e-books than paper ones. Matt Schneider, a researcher and graduate student working in digital and print culture, points out that the national average for books read per year in Canada is about 20. In the U.S., it’s is only around 9 (or 15 if you don’t include the Americans that read zero books). At these rates, it’s probably better for the environment that the general population continue to use paper books, while heavy readers move to digital formats.

The Green Press Initiative also points out, however, that since the iPad is a multi-purpose device, its environmental impact is defrayed over a number of activities, not just e-reading. Also, the impact of downloading an e-book for someone who already owns the iPad for other purposes is relatively small; so in fact it may be even more of an environmental do-gooder than even the Kindle, which has lower power requirements but is also generally a single-focus device.

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I quit smoking four years ago, but before that, I was a dedicated smoker for a solid decade. Luckily, I never had any Mac trouble that would necessitate a warranty replacement during those 10 years, or I might’ve been out of luck. Apple has denied Applecare warranty service in at least two separate instances due to the effects of secondhand smoke, according to Consumerist.

In both cases, smoke was to blame for repairs not performed, but not because the malfunctions the computers suffered were due to damage related to cigarette smoke. Instead, the fact that the Macs had existed in houses where people smoked had resulted in the machines being labeled health risks, which was grounds for repair personnel to refuse to work on them.

It’s unclear whether or not smoking is specifically covered in the terms of Applecare, but it appears that the grounds upon which service refusals have been made is the classification of nicotine as a hazardous substance on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) list. At least, that’s what one of the people affected heard from Steve Jobs’ office, though she clearly disputes the logic used in that justification:

Dena [from Jobs' office] did advise me that nicotine is on OSHA’s list of hazardous substances and Apple would not require an employee to repair anything deemed hazardous to their health. However, OSHA also lists calcium carbonate (found in calcium tablets), isopropyl alcohol (used to clean wounds), chlorine (used in swimming pools), hydrogen peroxide (also used to clean wounds), sucrose (a sugar), talc (as in powder), etc…as hazardous substances.

Consumerist couldn’t get an Apple representative to make an official statement regarding the company’s policy on Macs used in a smoking environment, but considering the similarity of both responses to the inquiries of the two people affected, Apple repair personnel at least reserve the right to refuse service, even if they don’t always choose to exercise that right.

As a longtime smoker (who never smoked indoors anywhere I lived, mind you), and as someone who’s had to get the cigarette smell out of at least one car before selling it, I can see people objecting to working on a computer that’s been saturated with smoke for an extended period. The smell isn’t pretty, and it might feel like the machine might be hazardous to your health — feel being the key word.

I’m no scientist, but I’m assuming it isn’t like the Apple techs cracked the case and a puff of smoke shot out. Is there really a significant danger associated with the inert remnants of what smoke leaves behind? I remain highly skeptical. Anyone else ever run into this excuse for refusing an otherwise valid Applecare repair?

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Apple is putting a lot of emphasis on its “green” initiatives lately. But is it the real deal?

For example, Apple’s new energy efficiency page says that because 53 percent of Apple’s greenhouse gas emissions are a result of the power its products consume, it’s designing these products to be as energy efficient as possible employing three strategies to reduce energy consumption: more efficient power supplies, components that require less power, and power management software. Every new Mac is claimed to meet the strict low-power requirements of the Energy Star specification.

However, the operative questions are how much does “green computing” matter to consumers, and whether corporate marketing of “green” IT devices amounts to more image-spinning than substance.

Only the Bare Minimum?

Some critics, such as MacNewsWorld’s Rob Enderle accuse Apple of doing the “barest minimum necessary” to justify its “green” claims — indeed less than its major competitors, but viewed pragmatically that’s a sensible approach because based on his research into the matter, in Enderle’s view Apple’s customers mostly don’t care. Is that an accurate assessment, or exaggeratedly jaundiced? After all, environmentalist poster boy Al Gore sits on Apple’s board of directors.

Enderle claims that Apple tried to ignore green computing entirely until the eco-activist organization Greenpeace began relentlessly slagging the company as an environmental foot-dragger and laggard.

Addressing Apple’s Environmental Footprint

Apple’s website highlights several key areas in which it’s addressing its environmental footprint, citing engineering innovations such as the unibody MacBooks, whose light, fully recyclable housing is sculpted from a single billet of aluminum, and the lightness of the current iMacs which contain less than 20 pounds of materials.

Apple also claims to be at the industry forefront in eliminating toxic chemicals, such as arsenic, brominated flame retardants (BFRs), mercury, phthalates, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from its products.

Cupertino has reduced packaging bulk, and, somewhat questionably in my view, bundles fewer peripherals with its systems, which arguably has some minimal environmental benefit, but also saves Apple a fair bit of money while diminishing value to the consumer of what is a premium-priced product.

Diminishing Value for Minimal Environmental Benefit

For example, the new WallStreet PowerBook I bought in 1999 came with video, Ethernet, and modem cables and a decent hard copy manual. To connect the unibody MacBook I bought this year to an external monitor I need one of several varieties of Mini DisplayPort adapters, have to supply my own Ethernet cable, was obliged to buy a USB modem, and documentation amounted to a quick start pamphlet. Environmental sensibilities notwithstanding, I don’t perceive this as progress.

Apple’s claims of cleaning up its environmental footprint act do have substance in terms of operational energy consumption. One reason using laptops has long appealed to me is that because they must be able to operate on battery power, they’re engineered for energy efficiency. However, even Apple’s mass market desktops have very decent energy consumption profiles these days, with iMacs reportedly using about as much energy as a 60-watt lightbulb, and Mac minis substantially less than that.

How Much Does the Average Mac-buyer Care?

But how much does the average Mac-buyer care? I’ve been almost exclusively a laptop user for the past 13 years, but even back when I used desktops, I almost always shut them down if I would be away from the keyboard for a half-hour or more. My observation was that most people were inclined to just leave their computers up and running all day, and even in many instances all night as well.

My inference, not only in the context of personal computers and other IT devices, is that while people like to think of themselves as being “green” and environmentally conscientious, their resolve tends to flag quickly when reducing their personal environmental footprint begins to involve more than minimal inconvenience and/or significantly increased cost, so that for many a commitment to “greenness” is heavier on politically correct rhetoric and feel-good exercises that let one imagine they’re “doing something” virtuous to save the planet with empty symbolic gestures rather than substantive behavior changes, like, say, taking fewer showers or washing clothes less often, or shutting off (or sleeping) their computer when not using it.

A Pew Research study found the average North American’s definition of what constitutes “necessity” these days includes a car (91 percent), washer (90 percent), dryer (83 percent), home air conditioning (83 percent), microwave (68 percent), TV (64 percent), car air conditioning (59 percent), and home computers (51 percent). Substantial minorities also included cell phone (49 percent), dishwasher (35 percent), cable or satellite TV (33 percent), and high-speed Internet (29 percent), and a few even considered a flat screen TV (5 percent) and an iPod (3 percent) “necessities.”

Am I being overly cynical? How much do Apple’s and the other computer-makers’ green efforts impact your buying intentions and user behavior?

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While the company, to date, has largely focused on reporting the environmental impact of its manufacturing processes, the updated site also examines Apple products over their entire life cycle, including consumer usage. In conjunction with the site launch, Peter Burrows of BusinessWeek reports on Apple’s effort to change the “terms of debate” over the environment.

For Apple, that debate has often been with Greenpeace. The environmental organization’s periodic reports on the green efforts of technology companies have often graded Apple poorly. In the BusinessWeek article, Steve Jobs was his usual candid and caustic self, saying that “I thought Greenpeace was being very unfair with us at the beginning, and that they were using us to get visibility.” While that may be true (I think it is), more objectively, one of the many problems with the methodology Greenpeace uses in its reports is that it takes into account future commitments as well as actions in the present.

Another issue Apple has with some green rankings is the exclusive focus on the operations of a company, often without even taking into account the environmental impact of the products. Jobs likened this to “asking a cigarette company how green their office is.” To that end, Apple is coming clean on its true carbon footprint, and it’s a big one.

For Apple, that’s 10.2 million tons of carbon emissions annually, more than half the the company’s total output. In contrast, HP and Dell, both far larger companies in terms of manufacturing and numbers of products sold, report smaller emissions totals. For HP, that’s 8.4 million tons annually, while Dell reports a seemingly miraculous 471,000 tons. Of course, neither company counts the emissions totals of products in the hands of consumers, and that is a big deal. Apple’s decision to report those totals “could completely change how companies are evaluated,” according to Alexandra McPherson of the environmental group Clean Production Action.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether Greenpeace will give Apple credit where credit is due. After all, how much publicity can Greenpeace get from badgering a beleaguered company like Dell?

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Greenpeace released the 12th edition of its Guide to Greener Electronics today (PDF), with Apple falling somewhere between tangerine and burnt orange. For those who take the rating seriously, Apple scored 4.7 out of 10, unchanged from last time, though the company slipped from 10th to 11th place in the ranking of 18 companies.

The guide is based on three “demands” (their word) by Greenpeace: eliminating toxic substances, e-waste recycling and energy usage. Those demands are then broken down into four sub-demands, which are ranked: bad, partially bad, partially good, and good. Overall, Apple scores mostly in the middle, but with several bad grades.

The single, wholly positive ranking Apple receives is for the timeline on phasing out nasty PVCs and BFRs from manufacturing. As Apple and the Environment notes, “Printed circuit boards, electrical components, mechanical parts, and internal cables are BFR-free and PVC-free.” However, Greenpeace even takes issue with that claim because Apple has “unreasonably high threshold limits for BFRs and PVC in products that are allegedly PVC-/BFR-free.”

Greenpeace criticizes Apple strongly on e-waste recycling, while at the same time noting the company has extended coverage of its recycling program to Asia, and that Apple has set a goal of a 50 percent recycling rate by 2010. The main problem, according to Greenpeace, is a matter of disclosure on the part of Apple. On the issue of energy, Apple again scores poorly. First, because the company does not report on GHG (greenhouse gasses) emissions, Apple fails. Second, because the company does not report on renewable energy usage, Apple fails.

If you don’t see a pattern here, what it comes down to is that Greenpeace grades companies on words as much as action. Apple is a secretive company by nature. Considering how confrontational Greenpeace has been with Apple in the past, it’s hardly a surprise that Apple makes no effort to meet the “demands” of Greenpeace.

The real question here is why Greenpeace focuses so much on Apple. Both Dell and HP sell far more computers than Apple. Both have dropped in ranking, according to the latest guide, and both now score lower than Apple. Does this mean we will see protestors at the headquarters of HP? Will there be advertising campaigns about a “yellow” Dell? If Greenpeace followed its own guide, that’s what should happen.

However, the difference between Apple and every company in the guide is brand. Apple is easily the most popular brand. By focusing on Apple negatively, Greenpeace can theoretically threaten Apple’s brand popularity. Further, any changes Apple makes because of pressure from Greenpeace could then be leveraged against companies that actually pollute more than Apple. Finally, attacking the most popular company raises awareness of Greenpeace itself, not that the environmental organization would ever be so self-serving.

Keep going green, Apple, but keep going without Greenpeace.

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I was also made aware of a second rejection yesterday, this one actually less of a rejection and more of a revocation after the fact. The app in question in this case is A Real Tree (iTunes link), which we covered when it was initially released. Mokugift, the people behind A Real Tree, contacted me explaining the situation, and it provides some rare insight into how Apple deals directly with iPhone developers. As a bit of background, A Real Tree is an app that is used to help plant trees in areas hurt by deforestation. You purchase the app, they plant a tree. Simple.

In the email, Mokugift’s representative describes how Apple called them a week ago to inform them that A Real Tree would need to be altered or would be removed from the App Store. The reason given was that a new policy was in place prohibiting apps from claiming to do anything beyond themselves, and that any and all applications related to charity were also no longer permitted. According to Apple, this was clear from the SDK agreement, though a search by Mokugift couldn’t produce any such reference in that document.

Not only that, but when asked for a written copy of the new policy, the Apple rep stated that they were only allowed to communicate it over the phone. In other words, they couldn’t commit anything to paper, where it might get out to the newsmedia and circulate. The shyness went even further, according to our source:

This person even declined to email us from an Apple email address to confirm that he worked for Apple. We wondered if this was legit, so we called Apple and asked for him via the front desk. He answered, so as far as we know he works there, but he won’t confirm his role nor this unwritten policy.

The conditions Apple gave in order to keep A Real Tree in the Apple store were to remove any reference to planting any actual trees, which is basically the entire point of the app. Mokugift was given until March 10 (yesterday) to comply, otherwise the app would be pulled. As of today, the app is still available, but there is no description associated with it.

Mokugift would like to continue helping the United Nations Environment Programme, but they’re at a loss as to how to convey the purpose of the app without stating that they will plant a tree for every app sold. They’d like our readers to offer suggestions as to how to get around the limitation. My own idea? Encourage users to write reviews which describe the app’s functionality, so at least it will be visible somewhere on the app’s page in iTunes.

Pretty sure we didn’t need another example of why the App Store review process is broken, but we got one anyway. Has me really hoping the Cydia Store pans out.

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