What you need to know
- Apple was invited to attend a UK Environmental Audit Committee in the UK.
- The company reportedly canceled its plans to send representatives.
- The Committee said it led them to believe Apple's "environmental obligations are not taken seriously enough."
A UK Environmental Audit Committee has said that Apple does not take its environmental obligations seriously enough after the company failed to send reps to a hearing.
As reported by Bloomberg, A government Environmental Audit Committee is said to have invited Apple to send representatives to a hearing as early as July. The report says that Apple "canceled at short notice" and did not respond before a September 4 deadline.
Chairman Philip Dunne, Conservative MP for Ludlow, was not best pleased. According to the report:
Apple's "unwillingness to answer my committee's questions has led us to believe its environmental obligations are not taken seriously enough," Chairman Philip Dunne said in the statement. That's even though the company "appears to have a positive story to tell regarding its efforts on climate change."
Dunne reportedly further stated that given Apple's sale of more than two billion iPhones, the answers Apple has to questions about minimizing its environmental footprint were "crucial", claiming too many devices were hard to repair:
Dunne said. Too many electronic devices are difficult or expensive to repair, creating a "throwaway society for electronics," he said. Earlier this year, France levied a fine on Apple for knowingly slowing down older iPhones through software updates.
Apple recently released its mammoth environmental commitment for the next ten years, by which time it hopes to become carbon neutral. Waste reduction is a huge part of Apple's commitment. From our analysis:
Apple's second strand is resources. Apple is striving to ensure that one day, it will make products using only recycled or renewable materials, creating zero waste. Alongside this, it plans to eliminate plastics from packaging by 2025, minimize its use of freshwater resources where they are scarce, and eliminate landfill waste from corporate facilities and suppliers.
