What you need to know
- Lisa Jackson sat down for an interview with Vogue to talk about Apple's environmental plan.
- The executive talked about the company's focus on carbon neutrality and environmental justice.
- She also had some suggestions for businesses that focus on carbon offsets.
Today, Apple unveiled an ambitious plan to become completely carbon neutral by 2030. Lisa Jackson, the company's Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, sat down with Vogue to talk about the plan.
Apple is planning on doing much more than what other companies do to currently offset their carbon impact, which is to purchase carbon offsets. While some companies are criticized for basically "buying their way out" of making meaningful change, Jackson points out that focusing on this alone is also a missed opportunity for a company's bottom line.
Before a brand considers carbon offsets, "an important thing they have to recognize first is the extraordinary opportunity in seeing sustainability in terms of efficiency," she explains on a call from San Francisco. "If you can use less energy, less water, and less raw materials, that's a good thing for the planet, and it's usually a really good thing for your bottom line. Even today, a ton of the work we do is still making improvements in efficiency."
Jackson also talks about environmental justice, a topic that is sometimes lost in the environmental conversation but is an important reality to face.
"You can't have justice if you don't have environmental justice," Jackson says. "The pandemic has brought environmental justice back up to the front (of the conversation). There's an imperative to our work that we don't talk about enough, which is (the need to) help people who didn't cause the problem but will be the victims of the problem because of where they live and their access to fresh water or food, which will both be challenged."
In an effort to support black and brown owned businesses that are focused on building climate change solutions, the company is lending its expertise on supply chain and sales.
"We're bringing them some help by giving them the benefit of something Apple really knows, which is how to grow and scale from a supply chain perspective and a sales perspective," she says. "I'm looking forward to telling the story of where Apple is making its mark in the racial equity and justice space, just as we're making our mark in the environmental space."
You can check out the full interview on Vogue.
