Apple’s $4.7 billion in Green Bond investments have aided in the development of innovative low-carbon manufacturing and recycling technologies, the firm revealed today. Since 2016, Apple has issued three Green Bonds, with projects demonstrating how the investments may cut global emissions and deliver sustainable energy to communities across the world.
As part of this effort, Apple is acquiring direct carbon-free aluminum as a result of significant advancements in smelting technology to decrease emissions. Aluminum is the first metal to be produced on a large scale outside of a laboratory without emitting any direct carbon emissions during the smelting process. The material will be used in the iPhone SE, according to the business.
“Apple is committed to leaving the world a better place than we found it,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives. “Our investments are advancing the breakthrough technologies required to lower the carbon footprint of the materials we use, even as we transition to using solely recyclable and renewable materials throughout our products in order to protect the earth’s finite resources.”
Apple has released a total of $4.7 billion in order to expedite progress toward the company’s objective of becoming carbon neutral across its supply chain by 2030. Its first two bonds, issued in 2016 and 2017, have already been fully allocated. The 2019 Green Bond will fund 50 initiatives, including the breakthrough in low-carbon aluminum. These 50 initiatives will reduce or offset 2,883,000 metric tons of CO2e, construct roughly 700 megawatts of renewable energy capacity globally, and support new recycling research and development.
Green Aluminum Smelting Innovation
ELYSIS, the firm behind the world’s first direct carbon-free aluminum smelting technology, announced the production of the first commercial-purity primary aluminum on an industrial scale for use in Apple products. The new method generates oxygen rather than greenhouse gases, and the result represents a significant milestone in the manufacture of aluminum, one of the world’s most commonly used metals. This first batch of commercial-purity, low-carbon aluminum from ELYSIS will be purchased by Apple for use in the iPhone SE. ELYSIS used hydropower to create this aluminum at its Industrial Research and Development Centre in Quebec.
Apple contributed to this groundbreaking improvement in aluminum manufacturing through an investment collaboration that began in 2018 with Alcoa, Rio Tinto, and the governments of Canada and Quebec. The following year, Apple acquired the joint venture’s first commercial batch of aluminum, which was used in the construction of the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
“This is the first time aluminum has been manufactured at this commercial purity, without the generation of greenhouse gases, and on an industrial scale.” The sale to Apple validates the market’s interest in aluminum produced utilizing our ground-breaking ELYSIS carbon-free smelting process. “Today’s announcement demonstrates that ELYSIS, a joint venture between Alcoa and Rio Tinto, was able to convert an idea into a reality,” said Vincent Christ, CEO of ELYSIS. “We are thrilled to be collaborating with Apple on this breakthrough, which has the potential to transform the way aluminum is made forever.”
Today’s achievement builds on Apple’s tremendous work in decreasing the carbon footprint of aluminum and other metals featured in its products. Since 2015, the company’s carbon emissions related with aluminum have been reduced by roughly 70% by converting to recycled aluminum and aluminum smelted using hydroelectricity rather than fossil fuels. Every iPad model, including the new iPad Air, as well as the current MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, and Apple Watch, is manufactured with a 100 percent recycled aluminum enclosure.
