In Apple's World, Thin Is More Important Than Green

Apple has pulled all of its computer-y things (desktops, laptops, monitors) from the EPEAT certification program, flipping the bird to an EPA-backed, internationally-supported standard that is designed to mitigate the environmental damage and social impact of electronics making. The EPEAT measures performance across categories like recyclability, the kinds of toxic materials involved, and low long products last. Apparently, Apple is too cool to be green, imploring such trivialities compromise it's "art."

"They said their design direction was no longer consistent with the EPEAT requirements," Robert Frisbee, the CEO of EPEAT, told CIO Journal. Frisbee says someone from Apple informed him in June that the company was turning its back the program, environmental friendly standards Apple originally helped create over ten years ago (along with other manufacturers, advocacy groups and government agencies, led by the Green Electronic Council). Since then, the company has been happy to flaunt its "Gold Standard" certification, plastering it all over their marketing materials, environment page and even in its technical specifications details.

At least until now. The source of the aboutface may be rooted in Apple's latest MacBook computer (the one with that super high resolution "Retina" display), which electronics repair advocates iFixit called the "the least repairable laptop [ever]" when they tore one apart in June. To achieve the MacBook's stunning (and admittedly beautiful) design and svelte figure, Apple is relying on soldered RAM (forget about upgrading it), a battery that's super-glued into the case (good luck replacing it) and a display that is permanently fused (because look, what you should really be doing is buying a new computer, at least according to your "friends" at Apple). Then as one final reminder that mere mortals shouldn't bother (this is art, remember), the notebook computer is secured with proprietary "Pentalobe" screws so removing the bottom cover requires a special screwdriver.

"I think there’s also an element of purism, we’re going to go for the absolute thinnest," iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens explained in an interview with Motherboard. "No matter what the cost." For Wiens, Apple's decision to suddenly abandon a decades old program in the name of artistic perfection is well, sort of ridiculous. "There's one sentence in [the EPEAT program] that talks about ease of disassembly for recycling," Wiens said. "But most of the standard isn't about that at all. For Apple to back off from the whole standard because of this one thing is amazing and kind of crazy. They're throwing out the baby with the bathwater." No matter the reason, the result remains the same: "Apple has decided that they're not interested in making environmentally friendly products anymore."

But to say this is simply a design consideration would be naive. Above all, this was a business decision, Wiens contends, and it goes all the way back to one of Apple's most iconic products, the iPod (which coincidentally was released in the same year EPEAT was formed, 2001).

"With the iPod, Apple realized very quickly that in order to sell somebody a new iPod, they needed to build planned-obsolescence into the product." In other words, people are only going to buy a new iPod if their current one stops working. It doesn't make business sense to create a product that lasts forever. "They can make light bulbs work way longer than they do," Wien notes.

"So they built in batteries that were impossible to replace. With the iPod Shuffle right now, you can go and buy a new one for $59. It comes with a battery that lasts 300 cycles and then it dies. If you want to replace the battery, you can't. There's no way to go out and buy a new one. Instead, you have to take it to Apple and ask them to replace the battery for you. They say, 'sure, we'd be happy too, that'll be $59 plus $5.95 shipping and handling.' It becomes a completely disposable product."

"So Apple says, 'hey, it's working for us with the iPod, and it's working with the iPhone and the iPad. Why can't we do it with our laptops? And if they can get people to a point where instead of buying a laptop every 4 or 5 years, they're buying one every 2 years, now they're going to make a lot more money." With the new MacBook successfully iPod-ified, Apple looks one step closer to that goal: disposable laptops.

In the age of the paper towel (and now the Swiffer WetJet), the concept of a disposable laptop might not seem so absurd. It's the kind of convenience Americans crave, but it's also the kind of habit and the kind of wastefulness that will have untold consequences on our future, warns Wiens. "We're living in a world where we're manufacturing 1.6 billion cell phones this year so I am very concerned about a future where electronics are disposable because we just can't afford that, we don't have the resources." According to Wiens, "half the elements of the periodic table are in a cell phone. The amount of raw resources we're consuming to manufacture these is absolutely astronomical." That's right, our iPhone way of life is, unsurprisingly, utterly unsustainable.

This is why electronics recycling and international standards like EPEAT, which was the first successful "green" standard of its kind, are so important. From the perspective of recycling, we've had a lot of good fortune, says Wiens. "We've kind of gotten lucky in that electronics recycling is a pretty complicated, toxic and difficult thing to do but because there's enough valuable materials in the electronics, it's worth the electronics recycler's while to figure out how to dismantle these things and run them through shredders so they can extract the gold and copper." Things aren't so peachy in a world run by Apple. "If every product was made like the [Retina MacBook Pro], electronics recyclers would throw up their arms, they'll just stop"

And while legitimate recyclers may indeed give up, such obstacles would do little to deter the desperate, like children in Africa who burn electronics in scrapyards to mine them for raw materials, a practice that all around savages the environment, polluting the water (which leads to birth defects) and creating a mess that is nearly impossible to clean up. "There are externalities that are not accounted for the in marketplace," says Mien. "Manufacturing electronics is vastly cheaper than it would be if you accounted for environmental damage you're doing [in Africa and] in Asia."

Apple defends that they make up only 5% of the global electronics industry, which is true. But as a leading manufacturer and cultural trendsetter, the company's decisions force others into action. "Motorola until last year hadn't made a single cell phone where the battery isn’t user replaceable," says Wiens. "And now they have the Droid RAZR where you can't replace the battery. So that's the real concern, if we see other manufacturer's follow in Apple's footsteps as an attempt to stay profitable."

But even for Apple, such a future is by no means guaranteed. The company, in abandoning EPEAT certification, must manage its own set of risks. Major corporations like Ford, HSBC, and Kaiser Permanente have internal requirements to only purchase computers from sources that are EPEAT certified, said Sarah O'Brien director of outreach for EPEAT. In 2010, 222 out of the 300 American universities with the largest endowments gave preference to EPEAT certified computers while 70 of the schools full-on required EPEAT certification for all electronics purchases, according to O'Brien.

"I think it's a huge opportunity for other manufacturers to come along and produce laptops that are environmentally friendly," Wien told Motherboard. "The federal government can't buy MacBooks anymore. Apple has dominated everyone at every turn. Finally, this is a chink in their armor." Some companies are already taking note. Google’s new self-branded Asus-manufactured tablet entrant, isn’t just thin, its markedly more repairable than the iPad.

For Apple the brand, it’s never looked more vulnerable. Two investigations from the New York Times exposed how the company treats its workers in its Chinese factories as well as its U.S. stores. In a post-Jobs world, Apple's mysticism has started to fade and even its staunchest followers are finally losing belief. Now, without its charismatic and captivating lightning rod, the world is less distracted from the boring truth, that Apple is — just like BP, just like Enron and just like AT&T — just another company.

And like all companies, Apple has only one interest at heart: itself. Not that this will keep us from buying the new iPhone in droves. Of course, you could always vote with your wallet and get the Galaxy Nexus from the good other guys at Google (and Samsung — yes, the battery is removable). But then again, maybe not — at least if Apple can help it.

Follow Alec on Twitter: @sfnuop

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