Apple race surpasses rivals in quests to eliminate carbon pollution

Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are all trapped in the race to see who can first zero carbon pollution.

Apple reported on Wednesday that it was on the way. Since 2015, the company has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 60%. The company said. It covers everything from manufacturing and marketing to running a company and using it by its customers.

Many companies have eliminated their core operations carbon footprint. Cheap solar And wind, and increasingly affordable grid-scale batteries, have become relatively simple and even more advantageous in terms of cost.

However, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have pledged to eliminate not only their carbon emissions, but also their supplier emissions and their customers’ energy use. These are what are called Scope 3 Emissions are the most difficult to tackle as they lie outside the direct management of the company.

In that regard, Apple has taken several pioneering steps. At work Apple Watch Series 9 has been announcedit also states that it will buy renewable power supplies on behalf of its customers. A year later, that I did the same thing For buyers of the new M4 Mac Mini.

The Mac Mini announcement also misrepresented the distinctive role semiconductors play in the carbon footprint of electronic products.

The base model MAC MINI, with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, produces 32 kg of carbon contamination over its lifetime, but the top-spec version with 64GB of RAM and 8TB of storage has a footprint of 121 kg. We are responsible for having a large number of chips and almost quadruple the diagram.

Apple said Wednesday it was working with semiconductor suppliers to address the issue, with 26 of them already pledging to reduce at least 90% of the greenhouse gases that were fluorinated in the work. Fluorinated greenhouse gases are widely used in today’s semiconductor manufacturing, etching functions into chips and cleaning equipment. However, fluorinated compounds are some of the most powerful greenhouse gases. For example, hexafluoroethane produces 9,200 times more warming than comparable amounts of carbon dioxide.

Apple aims to eliminate at least 75% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. In other words, it’s far beyond the target for the rest of the five years. The company says it will offset the remaining 25% through its carbon removal program.

It’s similar to how other companies are tackling the most challenging emissions and how they work, despite their differences in details. For example, Microsoft is investing in technology solutions Direct air capture In addition to nature-based solutions such as Replanting. Apple has it I’ve decided Its nature-based solutions offer the best chance to reduce emissions in the short term.