Computers September 25, 2009, 7:14PM EST

Steve Jobs on the Greening of Apple

In one of his first post-leave interviews, Apple CEO Jobs says the impact of products, not the emissions of factories, is what counts, and that it's time to focus on a company's results, not its lofty goals

Story Tools

Except for one keynote speech he gave on Sept. 9, Apple CEO Steven P. Jobs has shunned the press since he went on medical leave in January. But Jobs spoke with BusinessWeek on Sept. 22 about a subject that has nothing to do with the Mac, iPods, or iPhones.

The topic was Apple's (AAPL) reputation with regard to the environment and its effort to reposition itself as a leader instead of a laggard. While environmentalists tend to focus on carbon emissions from corporate operations and companies' publicly stated goals to do better, Jobs says Apple wants to set the pace in addressing what he says is a bigger challenge: reducing the amount of power required to run the company's products. "Unfortunately, we're way ahead of our competitors," Jobs contends.

Until recently, Apple did little to back up this argument other than to say "trust us." That didn't sit well with organizations that urge companies to engage in public debate over global warming or appoint executives or board members to push a green agenda. Apple almost never takes a position on public-policy questions, and few Apple staffers speak or even attend industry conferences. So it's not surprising that Apple scores poorly in rankings. "We tend to report rather than predict," says Jobs. "You won't see us out there saying what the PC is going to look like in 2016. We quietly go try to invent the PC for 2016."

A New Way to Gauge Carbon Footprints

But now, Jobs thinks the time is right to report on what Apple has accomplished. The company has finished a multiyear data-mining project to fully understand its environmental impact on the planet and has published data that may stir up controversy. Apple takes issue with studies that hand accolades to rivals such as Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) for cutting emissions at their facilities. Apple's research suggests that those emissions make up only a small slice of a company's larger environmental impact—a mere 3% in Apple's case. Far more of the carbon footprint, he says—53%—is generated by Apple's products. "Everyone focuses on whether you have motion detectors in the conference room" so the lights will go off when it's unattended, says Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook. "But making products cleaner involves real engineering. It's about innovating, and it's hard work."

Dane Parker, Dell's director of environment, health, and safety, concurs that the collective use of products has a bigger impact than a company's facilities. At the same time, he speculates that Apple's analysis is at best a guess. "I don't think they're fudging anything," he says. "But I don't think there are sufficiently vetted methodologies" that all companies can follow. Until they exist, Parker thinks it's more useful for companies to lead in terms of things they can control. Better to focus on the energy efficiency—which saves money as well as greenhouse gases—than an abstract notion such as a product's carbon footprint.

Jobs says Apple's environmental consciousness isn't new—just expanded. The company has focused on energy efficiency for years, he says. When Greenpeace launched a campaign criticizing Apple in 2007, Jobs fumed that the group was unfairly using Apple's fame to draw attention to its cause. He says he agreed with many of the group's goals, and he even agreed that Apple had to do more than just make energy-efficient products, such as improving its recycling program.