Sustainability initiatives from the big tech companies

How Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook are branding themselves as environmentally friendly

Being environmentally friendly seemingly makes good business sense these days. When surveyed, the vast majority of people say they want to buy from environmentally friendly companies. When given the ability to check on sustainability, 75% used at least one strategy to check that information.

That goes for employees as well: a survey conducted in 2019 among employees of large companies in the US found that more than 70% of respondents said they would be more likely to work for a company with an environmental program. To be sure, there seems to be some cognitive dissonance here as most Americans don't even bother doing their small part. Only a third of Americans actually recycle. Moreover, carmakers, which are being forced to move toward a 100% electric vehicle world, are criticizing carbon goals as reality sinks in that electric vehicles actually need fossil fuels to run. Turns out, fossil fuels are the primary source of electricity.  

Even so, while carmakers are starting to warn everyone that carbon goals are unrealistic, tech companies are trying to signal that they're staying obedient to this cause. Some 90% of executives think sustainability is important, and among those are the biggest companies, including Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple. In fact, they've made sustainability part of their brand as a company. 

Here's some of the climate initiatives these companies have engaged in over the last few years: 

2019:

• Apple today announced an expansion of its recycling programs, quadrupling the number of locations US customers can send their iPhone to be disassembled by Daisy, its recycling robot.
• The Apple-launched China Clean Energy Fund invested in three wind farms
• Apple announced it nearly doubled the number of suppliers that committed to run its Apple production on 100 percent clean energy, bringing the total number to 44. 

2020:

• Apple unveiled its plan to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030
• Apple announced it will invest in the construction of two of the world’s largest onshore wind turbines located near the Danish town of Esbjerg.

2021:

• Apple announced over 110 of its manufacturing partners around the world are moving to 100% renewable energy for their Apple production, with nearly 8 gigawatts of planned clean energy set to come online. Once completed, these commitments will avoid over 15 million metric tons of CO2e annually — the equivalent of taking more than 3.4 million cars off the road each year. Additionally, Apple is investing directly in renewable energy projects to cover a portion of upstream emissions, as well as a major energy storage project in California to pilot new solutions for renewable infrastructure.
• Apple announced a carbon removal initiative, called the Restore Fund, to make investments in forestry projects to remove carbon from the atmosphere while generating a financial return for investors. Launched with Conservation International and Goldman Sachs, Apple’s $200 million fund aims to remove at least 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually from the atmosphere.

2022:

• Apple released new details on the increased use of recycled content across its products. For the first time, the company introduced certified recycled gold, and more than doubled the use of recycled tungsten, rare earth elements, and cobalt. Nearly 20% of all material used in Apple products in 2021 was recycled.
• Apple called on its global supply chain to take new steps to address their greenhouse gas emissions and take a comprehensive approach to decarbonization. The company said it would evaluate the work of its major manufacturing partners to decarbonize their Apple-related operations — including running on 100 percent renewable electricity — and track yearly progress. 

2023:

• Apple announced new partnerships and support for global efforts to engage communities in environmental solutions, including work aligned with Apple’s Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, including with Conservation International, the Afro-InterAmerican Forum on Climate Change, the Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, and Beyond Benign.
• Apple announced an expansion of its Restore Fund, doubling the company’s total commitment to advancing high-quality, nature-based carbon removal projects.
• Apple announced its first-ever carbon neutral products in its new Apple Watch lineup

2019:

• Google and the municipality of Amsterdam announced a partnership to gain insight into the city’s air quality at the street level.
• Google announced that for the second year in a row it first reached it goal of buying enough renewable energy to match 100% of its global annual electricity use
• Google revealed that it made the biggest corporate purchase of renewable energy in history, including 1,600-megawatt of wind and solar and 18 new energy deals. 

2020:

• Google announced a new carbon-intelligent computing platform, designed and deployed for its data centers to shift the timing of many compute tasks to when low-carbon power sources, like wind and solar, are most plentiful.
• Google issued $5.75 billion in sustainability bonds, the largest sustainability or green bond by any company in history
• Google eliminated its entire carbon legacy, covering all of its operational emissions before it became carbon neutral in 2007), through the purchase of high-quality carbon offsets.
• ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, with grant support from Google.org, funded six projects, which will use actionable data to test new strategies that can reduce emissions and improve air quality in cities across Europe.
• Google launched the Google for Startups Accelerator: Climate Change for climate-focused technology startups across Canada and the United States.
• Google became the first cloud service to share data that helps customers to fully decarbonize apps and infrastructure, through insights on how often each Google Cloud region was supplied by carbon-free energy on an hourly basis.
• Google pledged to a water stewardship target to replenish more water than it consumes by 2030 and to support water security in communities where it operates.
• Google announced the first version of the Global Fibre Impact Explorer, a tool built on Google Earth Engine that uses Google Cloud computing, which assesses the environmental risk of different fibers across regions as it relates to environmental factors such as air pollution, biodiversity, climate and greenhouse gasses, forestry and water use.

2022:

• Google, revealed that by 2025 it aims to cut food waste in half for each Googler and send zero food waste to the landfill.
• Google unveiled new Chromebooks made with recycled materials, which are easy to customize, repair and upgrade.
• Google announced that its real estate and ecology teams were working to bring nature back into the built environment, in part by restoring critical habitats like oak woodlands and willow groves across our Bay Area campuses.
• Google co-funded a pilot project to install water-saving technology in three multi-family buildings in Los Angeles.

2023:

• Google announced the Google Carbon Removals Research Awards to support academic research focused on carbon removal approaches.
• Google announced a $5 million grant and Google.org Fellowship to Woodwell Climate Research Center to help them deploy satellite imagery and AI technology to track permafrost thaw in near real-time.

(Image source: airswift.com)