Apple returns to EPEAT Registry Following San Francisco’s Decision to Stop Buying Its Products

When we first reported that the city of San Francisco was dumping Apple products due to the removal of their Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool status, it was easy to assume that Apple would hardly care about the missed $45K per year and just move on… But apparently Apple lost its heart in San Fran and would do anything to please the city—or, much more likely, Apple became aware that the concerns of San Francisco officials were going to be shared on a larger level. And so, after just a few days apart, Apple is back together with EPEAT and all 40 products are certified.

It’s interesting to speculate about what caused Apple to remove themselves from the list in the first place, but the details of the conflicts are still pretty foggy. Why would Apple remove themselves from EPEAT if, without making any major changes (that we know of), they could just jump right back on? Most assume the Retina MacBook Pro was the item causing the departure, but as seen below, that product is still on the list even if it scores 0 points in some categories. The repairability issues with the RMBP are well documented, but the rift it caused between Apple and EPEAT was apparently quite surmountable.

The official statement from the Senior Vice President of Apple’s Hardware Engineering—Bob Mansfield—indicated that Apple’s interest in protecting the environment had never flagged. To wrap things up, he even states that Apple’s relationship with EPEAT is stronger now than before. Whether or not there’s truth to that, we now know how much Apple cares about staying in society’s good graces when it comes to being green:

“Our relationship with EPEAT has become stronger as a result of this experience, and we look forward to working with EPEAT as their rating system and the underlying IEEE 1680.1 standard evolve. Our team at Apple is dedicated to designing products that everyone can be proud to own and use.”

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Devin Wieland

 

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