The Cupertino California company spoke out in defense of its decision to remove its products from the EPEAT environmental rating program by noting that it already takes a “comprehensive approach” to making environmentally-responsible products. The whole stance was conveyed by a statement made by Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokesperson.
According to Huguet, “Apple takes a comprehensive approach to measuring our environmental impact and all of our products meet the strictest energy efficiency standards backed by the US government, Energy Star 5.2. We also lead the industry by reporting each product’s greenhouse gas emissions on our website, and Apple products are superior in other important environmental areas not measured by EPEAT, such as removal of toxic materials.”
For those of you who didn’t already know, the whole issue was brought about when the newly-appointed CEO of EPEAT, Robert Frisbee, revealed that Apple had asked the group to remove 39 of its products, including desktops, laptops, and monitors. This was due to Apple reportedly telling the executive that its “design direction” had diverged from EPEAT’s requirements. The news came as a bit of a surprise as Apple helped develop the EPEAT standard in its early days but lately has moved away from the group’s requirements of making products that are easy to disassemble in the interest of recyclability.
The recently released statement from Apple suggests that the Cupertino California company felt EPEAT was too narrow in its scope as it doesn’t track removal of toxic materials or energy efficiency. It should also be noted that EPEAT doesn’t certify smartphones or tablets, which are currently Apple’s largest streams of revenue. Although a move from EPEAT is unlikely to have a significant value on Apple’s sales to consumers, it could compact the sales of Macs to government agencies. As of right now, federal agencies are required to be 95% EPEAT-certified and just yesterday, San Francisco said that it is notifying city agencies that Macs will not qualify for purchase with city funds.
Apple has been pretty open to show off its continued efforts to make greener products so the move was a bit unexpected. That being said, we’ll have to see what comes out of Apple’s decision to pull products from the EPEAT registry by waiting and being patient.
Source: The Loop
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