Greenpeace Loves to Pick On Apple

Apple's high profile with the save-the-whales crowd makes it a convenient target. Here's how the computer maker could call off the dogs once and for all

by Arik Hesseldahl

There Greenpeace goes again.

First it was the Mac. Now it's the iPhone. I've harrumphed before, in this column (BusinessWeek.com, 3/29/07) and in my blog, about Greenpeace's flawed attacks on Apple (AAPL) for using certain toxic chemicals in its computers. And now I'm ready to harrumph anew.

It's not that Apple's environmental conscience should be entirely clean. The company is in no better shape than other major computer makers when it comes to the use of these chemicals. Yet while it's not an excuse, Apple sells just a fraction of the number of computers sold by Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), both of which draw less consistent ire from Greenpeace.

Why Apple Is the Whipping Boy

It's clear why Greenpeace picks on Apple so incessantly: The unique place that Apple and its chief executive officer, Steve Jobs occupy within popular culture and the technology industry make them both convenient whipping boys for publicity-hungry environmental organizations. Calling out Apple over environmental issues simply gets more headlines than criticizing HP would.

And Apple makes an especially juicy target when you consider that its branding and identity tend to overlap with so many cultural touchstones that the modern, left-leaning consumer is likely to consider important. Demographically speaking, Mac users are more likely to care about global warming, deforestation, and other environmental issues than your average Windows user. They're also more likely to respond to one of Greenpeace's calls to write letters, send e-mail, and show up at shareholder meetings to lobby for whatever the organization is up in arms about at any given moment. And having Al Gore, a freshly-minted Nobel laureate, on its board of directors also sends a strong message about how Apple wants to be perceived on the environmental front.

The last time Greenpeace blasted Apple over its use of two types of toxic chemicals—brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)—the group did succeed in provoking a reaction from the company. Jobs published an open letter called "A Greener Apple," in which he pledged to eliminated BFRs and PVC from the company's products by the end of 2008.

Greenpeace's Subjective Analysis

That pledge barely moved the needle on Apple's standing in the latest edition of Greenpeace's subjective Guide to Greener Electronics, published in September. The company is still nearly in last place in the ranking, which grades companies on their use of toxic substances (BFRs and PVC being the ones Greenpeace is most concerned about) and recycling take-back programs. Apple came in ahead of dead-last Panasonic (MC), even with HP, and far behind the world's largest supplier of wireless phones, Nokia (NOK), which has effectively eliminated the offending chemicals from its phones. Other companies, notably Dell, scored higher because of public promises to eliminate BFRs and PVC from their products at some date in the future and because Greenpeace liked their recycling policies.

Greenpeace says its analysis found bromine in various components of the iPhone, both within the device and in the accompanying headphones. Greenpeace also helpfully pointed out at least some of the flaws in its reasoning for singling out Apple again. For instance, it was unable to determine whether the bromine detected in the iPhone was derived from any of the specific compounds restricted under the RoHS directive, a set of rigorous European Union environmental standards covering toxic substances in electronics.