Opinion: Apple’s climate plan is even more interesting than it appears

Apple has promised to ensure that most of its largest suppliers will deploy energy efficiency measures and switch to 100% renewable energy within the decade. — Bloomberg

Apple Inc captured headlines last week for declaring it would be carbon neutral by 2030. The effusive global press coverage rightly pointed out the level of ambition on display from the company in pledging to hit such a target by the end of this decade. But all the stories I read missed some key numbers published in Apple’s sustainability report that make the plan a lot more interesting.

First, the US$1.6tril (RM6.80tril) company was responsible for 25.1 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions in 2019, roughly the same as in 2018 and the same as the annual climate pollution from island nations Cuba and Sri Lanka. Second, its own energy needs are already entirely served by renewables, meaning that less than 1% of the company’s emissions are generated by its facilities or the plants powering those facilities. Apple’s new climate commitment, therefore, is almost entirely about its Scope 3 emissions, the category any company has the least amount of control over because they’re generated by suppliers and users.