Year: 2023

 Apple expands innovative Restore Fund for carbon removal

Apple Inc April 14, 2023 1

April 11, 2023

UPDATE

Apple expands innovative Restore Fund for carbon removal

A new fund with Climate Asset Management adds another option for securing high-impact, scalable, nature-based carbon removal offsets

Apple today announced a major expansion of its Restore Fund, doubling the company’s total commitment to advancing high-quality, nature-based carbon removal projects. First launched in 2021 with an up to $200 million commitment with Conservation International and Goldman Sachs, the Restore Fund is now set to grow with an additional fund, including new investment from Apple, and a new portfolio of carbon removal projects. Apple created the Restore Fund to encourage global investment to protect and restore critical ecosystems and scale natural carbon removal solutions. This approach also helps address residual emissions businesses cannot yet avoid or reduce with existing technology.

As part of the expansion, Apple will invest up to an additional $200 million in the new fund, which Climate Asset Management — a joint venture of HSBC Asset Management and Pollination — will manage. The new portfolio also aims to remove 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year at its peak while generating a financial return for investors. For Apple suppliers that become partners in the fund, it will also offer a new way for them to incorporate high-impact carbon removal projects as they decarbonize.

“The Restore Fund is an innovative investment approach that generates real, measurable benefits for the planet, while aiming to generate a financial return,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives. “The path to a carbon neutral economy requires deep decarbonization paired with responsible carbon removal, and innovation like this can help accelerate the pace of progress.”

Apple and Climate Asset Management are taking a broadened approach with prospective projects, pooling two distinct types of investments: nature-forward agricultural projects that generate income from sustainably managed farming practices and projects that conserve and restore critical ecosystems that remove and store carbon from the atmosphere. This unique blended fund structure aims to achieve both financial and climate benefits for investors while advancing a new model for carbon removal that more fully addresses the global potential for nature-based solutions. All Restore Fund investments are subject to rigorous social and environmental standards.

Already carbon neutral for its corporate operations, last year Apple called on its suppliers to become carbon neutral across all Apple-related operations by 2030, including all of their direct and electricity-related emissions, also known as Scope 1 and Scope 2. High-quality carbon removals will help achieve this goal by offsetting any direct emissions that cannot be avoided or reduced. Suppliers are first expected to reduce emissions by transitioning to renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and abating direct emissions. Earlier this month, Apple announced over 250 manufacturing partners have committed to power their Apple production with 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.

Located in Brazil and Paraguay, Apple’s three initial investments with Conservation International and Goldman Sachs aim to restore 150,000 acres of sustainably certified working forests and protect an additional 100,000 acres of native forests, grasslands, and wetlands. Together, these projects are forecast to remove 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year by 2025. Carbon removal is critical to addressing climate change and achieving global climate goals, as leading scientific bodies like the IPCC have emphasized.

To accurately monitor and measure the impact of Restore Fund projects, Apple is deploying innovative remote sensing technologies — including Space Intelligence’s Carbon and Habitat Mapper, Upstream Tech’s Lens platform, and high-resolution satellite imagery from Maxar — to construct habitat and forest carbon maps of the project areas. These detailed maps will help ensure that projects meet our high standards prior to investment and will quantify and verify the projects’ carbon removal impact over time. Apple is also further exploring the use of the LiDAR Scanner on iPhone to enhance monitoring capabilities on the ground.

The Restore Fund is part of the company’s comprehensive roadmap to become carbon neutral for its entire supply chain and life cycle of every product by 2030. Apple will reduce 75 percent of all emissions by 2030 and balance the remaining emissions with high-quality carbon removal.

 Apple will use 100 percent recycled cobalt in batteries by 2025

Apple Inc April 14, 2023 0

April 13, 2023

PRESS RELEASE

Apple will use 100 percent recycled cobalt in batteries by 2025

Industry-leading innovation paves new path for key recycled metals in batteries, magnets, and circuit boards

Cupertino, California Apple today announced a major acceleration of its work to expand recycled materials across its products, including a new 2025 target to use 100 percent recycled cobalt¹ in all Apple-designed batteries. Additionally, by 2025, magnets in Apple devices will use entirely recycled rare earth elements, and all Apple-designed printed circuit boards will use 100 percent recycled tin soldering and 100 percent recycled gold plating.

In 2022, the company significantly expanded its use of key recycled metals, and now sources over two-thirds of all aluminum, nearly three-quarters of all rare earths, and more than 95 percent of all tungsten in Apple products from 100 percent recycled material. This rapid progress brings Apple closer to its aim to one day make all products with only recycled and renewable materials, and advances the company’s 2030 goal to make every product carbon neutral.

“Every day, Apple is innovating to make technology that enriches people’s lives, while protecting the planet we all share,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “From the recycled materials in our products, to the clean energy that powers our operations, our environmental work is integral to everything we make and to who we are. So we’ll keep pressing forward in the belief that great technology should be great for our users, and for the environment.”

“Our ambition to one day use 100 percent recycled and renewable materials in our products works hand in hand with Apple 2030: our goal to achieve carbon neutral products by 2030,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives. “We’re working toward both goals with urgency and advancing innovation across our entire industry in the process.”

Charting Progress to 2025

Apple has significantly expanded the use of 100 percent certified recycled cobalt over the past three years, making it possible to include in all Apple-designed batteries by 2025. In 2022, a quarter of all cobalt found in Apple products came from recycled material, up from 13 percent the previous year. Cobalt is a critical material in the batteries used in most consumer electronics, including Apple devices, enabling high energy density while also meeting Apple’s robust standards for longevity and safety. Apple-designed batteries found in iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook, and many other products represent a significant majority of the company’s use of cobalt.

The company’s use of 100 percent certified recycled rare earth elements has greatly expanded in the last year as well, going from 45 percent in 2021 to 73 percent in 2022. Since first introducing recycled rare earths in the Taptic Engine of iPhone 11, Apple has expanded its use of the material across its devices, including in all magnets found in the latest iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook, and Mac models. As magnets are by far Apple’s largest use of rare earths, the new 2025 target means nearly all rare earths in Apple products will soon be 100 percent recycled.

As part of the accelerated new timeline, all Apple-designed printed circuit boards will use 100 percent certified recycled gold plating by 2025. This includes rigid boards, such as the main logic board, and flexible boards, like those connecting to the cameras or buttons in iPhone. Since pioneering an exclusively recycled supply chain for gold in the plating of the main logic board for iPhone 13, Apple has extended the material’s use in additional components and products, including the wire of all cameras in the iPhone 14 lineup, and printed circuit boards of iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods Pro, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and HomePod. Apple is also working to encourage broader adoption of recycled gold for non-custom components across the electronics industry.

By 2025, the company will use 100 percent certified recycled tin soldering on all Apple-designed printed rigid and flexible circuit boards. In recent years, Apple’s use of recycled tin has expanded to the solder of many flexible printed circuit boards across Apple products, with 38 percent of all tin used last year coming from recycled sources. The application of recycled tin across even more components is underway, and the company is engaging more suppliers in this effort.

Innovation has also driven progress toward another of Apple’s 2025 commitments: to eliminate plastics from the company’s packaging. The development of fiber alternatives for packaging components like screen films, wraps, and foam cushioning has kept Apple on track toward this ambitious goal. To address the remaining 4 percent plastic in the company’s packaging footprint, Apple is innovating to replace labels, lamination, and other small uses. In the last year, Apple developed a custom printer to introduce digital printing directly onto the boxes of iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, eliminating the need for most labels. And a new overprint varnish found in iPad Air, iPad Pro, and Apple Watch Series 8 packaging replaces the polypropylene plastic lamination found on boxes and packaging components. The innovation helped avoid over 1,100 metric tons of plastic and over 2,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Progress in Responsible Sourcing of Primary and Recycled Materials

As Apple reduces its reliance on newly mined minerals, it is also pursuing ways to directly support communities whose livelihoods depend on mining. The company is partnering with experts such as the Fund for Global Human Rights to provide support for frontline human rights and environmental defenders, including in the African Great Lakes region, as well as vocational education programs that enable members of local communities moving away from mining to build skills and pursue new opportunities.

Apple sources primary minerals responsibly and drives the highest level of human rights and environmental standards across its supply chain. Apple was the first electronics company to publish a list of cobalt and lithium refiners in its battery supply chain, with cobalt in 2016 and lithium in 2020. In 2017, the company mapped its supply chain for rare earths. And since 2015, every identified smelter and refiner for tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold has participated in independent third-party audits.

In the transition to recycled and renewable content, Apple has prioritized 14 materials based on environment, human rights, and supply impact that together account for nearly 90 percent of the material shipped in Apple products: aluminum, cobalt, copper, glass, gold, lithium, paper, plastics, rare earth elements, steel, tantalum, tin, tungsten, and zinc.

In 2022, about 20 percent of all material shipped in Apple products came from recycled or renewable sources. This includes the first use of recycled copper foil in the main logic board of iPad (10th generation), the introduction of certified recycled steel in the battery tray of MacBook Air with the M2 chip, 100 percent recycled tungsten in the latest Apple Watch lineup, and the aluminum enclosures found in many Apple products, made with a 100 percent recycled aluminum alloy designed by Apple.

Innovating for the Future of Recycling

Apple’s work to pioneer new research and development for end-of-life disassembly and recycling has helped make this progress possible. Through extensive efforts including partnerships with leading research institutions and the Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas, Apple engineers and experts are developing innovative ways to give materials in Apple products new life, and helping inform design decisions that support disassembly and recovery.

The company’s iPhone disassembly robot, Daisy, separates batteries from other components, and enables specialty recyclers to recover cobalt and other materials, including lithium. Since 2019, Apple estimates that more than 11,000 kilograms of cobalt have been recovered from batteries extracted by Daisy and then returned to the secondary market. Daisy also helps recover rare earth elements, which are largely lost through traditional electronics recycling processes.

Daisy is just one example of how Apple’s innovations in recycling and disassembly can drive industrywide change. The company’s Dave robot, now deployed with a recycling partner in China, can help further accelerate recovery of rare earth elements by disassembling Taptic Engines.

Apple has also begun deploying overhead projector-based augmented reality (AR) systems to recycling partners. The system guides the disassembly of devices including MacBook and iPad by projecting video imagery directly onto a work surface. The company publishes Apple Recycler Guides for global recyclers to maximize efficiency of material recovery while safeguarding human health and safety. As recycled and renewable materials can contribute to lowering each product’s carbon footprint, enhanced recovery is also bringing Apple closer to its ambitious goal to be carbon neutral across its entire supply chain and the life cycle of every product by 2030.

About Apple Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Apple’s five software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

All cobalt content references are on a mass balance system basis.

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Apple

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Apple TV+ limited series ‘The Last Thing He Told Me,’ Now Streaming

CompuScoop Staff April 14, 2023 0

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="410"] Jennifer Gardner[/caption]

The new Apple TV+ limited series “The Last Thing He Told Me,” starring Jennifer Garner, is now streaming. The gripping series based on the acclaimed, bestselling novel by Laura Dave.

The series follows Hannah (played by Garner), a woman who must forge a relationship with her 16-year-old stepdaughter Bailey (played by Rice) in order to find the truth about why her husband has mysteriously disappeared.

Starring and executive produced by Jennifer Garner, the seven-part drama features an ensemble cast that also includes Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Angourie Rice, Aisha Tyler, Augusto Aguilera, Geoff Stults and John Harlan Kim. “The Last Thing He Told Me” is produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and 20th Television, and premieres globally on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Friday, April 14, 2023, followed by new episodes every Friday through May 19.

Created and adapted by Laura Dave, alongside Academy Award-winning co-creator Josh Singer, “The Last Thing He Told Me” marks the first collaboration between the married Dave and Singer, who both serve as executive producers alongside Garner and Hello Sunshine’s Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter. The series is produced for Apple by Hello Sunshine, who optioned the book from author Laura Dave and serves as the studio on the project with 20th Television. Olivia Newman directs the pilot episode, and the all-female director lineup for the series includes Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Daisy Von Scherler Mayer and Lila Neugebauer.

Published in hardcover by Simon & Schuster on May 4, 2021, the novel “The Last Thing He Told Me” became an instant No. 1 New York Times bestseller and remained on the list for more than a year. It was the winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Thriller/Suspense of 2021, an Amazon Best Book of the Year in 2021, an Apple Best Book of the Year in 2021; and, in 2022, “The Last Thing He Told Me” was one of the most popular books checked out at libraries across America as well as the No. 1 most popular e-book. To date, the book has sold more than two million copies in the United States alone and has been embraced in 38 countries around the globe, including the U.K., where it was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. The paperback edition of “The Last Thing He Told Me” will be available for the first time on March 21, 2023 and available to preorder now.

“The Last Thing He Told Me” marks the latest high-profile collaboration between Apple and Hello Sunshine, and will join a lineup of projects produced by Hello Sunshine for Apple TV+ including the soon-to-premiere “My Kind of Country,” a groundbreaking global search for unconventional and extraordinary country music talent and the first competition series for the platform; recently renewed psychological thriller “Surface,” starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw; Emmy, SAG and Critics Choice Award-winning series “The Morning Show”; and, the NAACP Image Award-winning drama series “Truth Be Told,” starring Octavia Spencer.

Apple TV+ offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all your favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV+ became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service in its debut. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries and series have been honored with 344 wins and 1,421 award nominations and counting, including multi-Emmy Award-winning comedy “Ted Lasso” and Oscar Best Picture winner “CODA.”