Apple rejoins green registry, admits exit was mistake

[onehandle]

Source: Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc rejoined the EPEAT environmental ratings system on Friday, acknowledging that its decision to stop participating in a program that rates the green credentials of electronic products was a mistake.

The about-face came after reports that various government agencies and schools that use the EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) certification system were considering dropping Apple's products, which include Macintosh computers and iPads.

"We've recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake," senior vice president of hardware engineering, Bob Mansfield, said in a letter on Apple's website.

Apple has in the past year touted its own green credentials, most recently by announcing an internal initiative to use cleaner energy sources for its data farms in North Carolina.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/apple-rejoins-green-registry-admits-exit-mistake-183343530--sector.html

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Ugh. EPEAT is an antiquated standard that's not even as good as Apple's own standards. Other tech companies embrace it because it's easier than Actually being green.

[Moonwalk]

1. Indeed! Apple is greener than EPEAT, which is what I tried to tell those reporting on this story--

--but there seems to be such anti-Apple mentality on this forum that they just crowed, as if this proved some winning point, "Apple's not even green any more!" It's like any chink in the Apple armor has to be put under a microscope, and any positives to the company ignored.

So, thank you for posting this and pointing that out (K&R)! I'm glad Apple's back on this registry if only to stop the absurd brouhaha asserting that they were no longer green, but I'm sad that badly informed DU folk don't care to learn the truth and instead surrender to bias in regards to Apple. We condemn others for doing this--ignoring facts--when it comes to things like Obamacare, why then do we do the same--ignore facts and just condemn--when it comes to other things, like certain companies? Apple is far from prefect--it lags in a lot of a way (the China situation, wages for store workers, for example), and it is fair to criticize it for such and demand it do better; but it has led the way in many things, things other companies ignore. Like being as green as possible, and being one of the first companies to offer full, health insurance benefits to the partners of gay employees. It deserves credit for what it's doing right, or trying to do right as much as it deserves criticism for what it is doing wrong.

[jayfish]

3. Right...

One of Apple’s newest products, the MacBook Pro with a high-resolution “Retina” display, was nearly impossible to fully disassemble, said Kyle Wiens, co-founder of iFixit.com, a website that provides directions for users to repair their own machines. The battery was glued to the case, and the glass display was glued to its back. The product, released just a month ago, had not been submitted for EPEAT certification, according to the organization.

Frisbee said that the structure of that laptop would have made it ineligible for certification. “If the battery is glued to the case it means you can’t recycle the case and you can’t recycle the battery,” Frisbee said.

Apple was putting design first in an effort to make products smaller and have batteries last longer, said Shaw Wu an analyst at Sterne Agee. “They are not trying to purposely make it hard to open, they are just trying to pack as much as they can into a small space–it’s a design decision,” Wu said.

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2012/07/06/apple-removes-green-electronics-certification-from-products/

[LoveIsNow]

2. If Apple's standards are so high, why not just stay on EPEAT

and pass with flying colors? That doesn't sound logical at all.

But I guess I just don't drink Apple's Kool-aid.

[Indydem]

4. Because the standards are wrong.

The standards dictate that the threshold for ease of recyclability is that you can disassemble a product with commonly available tools into it's base components.

Apple can't keep to those standards anymore. They've moved beyond screws and easy disassembly. They are gluing things together with high strength epoxies - thus some of their new products will not qualify for EPEAT.

Ironically, their products, regardless of whether or not I can personally disassemble them, are 100% recyclable; drop them off at any Apple store and they will recycle them. Unfortunately EPEAT makes no allowance for that.

[LoveIsNow]

5. Thank you. I just found that out from a WSJ article.

It's an interesting predicament, but I think it would be a better solution to lobby for adaptation of the standards. Perhaps they could recycle their own products on the stipulation that their recycling center gets inspected every so often. Nothing would be worse than allowing to regulate themselves, because even if they are doing the right thing now, at some point when profits are down someone WILL come along with the idea of loosening environmental practices to save money.

On an aside that sucks, because everyone in my family saves money by updating their computers themselves, which of course requires you to be able to disassemble them, though we all use PC's anyway.