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    NewClimate Institute Reacts to Apple's Carbon Neutral Apple Watch Claims

   Adam Engst

   Apple spent a good deal of time in its Wonderlust presentation talking
   about how [1]the new Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 are
   carbon neutral when paired with particular watch bands. But what does
   that mean, and how should those of us not deeply enmeshed in the
   climate world understand the claim?

   While researching how Apple stacks up against other multinational
   corporations, I stumbled across the NewClimate Institute, a German
   non-profit whose goal is to 'generate ideas on climate change and drive
   their implementation.' NewClimate publishes the [2]Corporate Climate
   Responsibility Monitor, which assesses the transparency and integrity
   of 24 major companies' climate pledges and strategies. Apple ranks
   highly in the group.

   So what about Apple's claim that these new Apple Watch models are
   carbon neutral? A Q&A with the authors of the Corporate Climate
   Responsibility Monitor leads off with:

     Apple is one of very few companies assessed in theCorporate Climate
     Responsibility Monitor (CCRM, published February 2023)to have set
     and be implementing reasonably ambitious medium-term emission
     reduction targets. However, we found that Apple's carbon neutrality
     claims create an unnecessarily misleading exaggeration of the
     company's ambition. Without the misleading marketing, Apple could
     stand out as a role model for several aspects of its climate plan,
     but there remain also significant areas of potential improvement.

   Apple has reduced the product emissions for these Apple Watch models by
   over 75%. That's great, but Apple offsets the remaining 25% by
   purchasing carbon credits. Although Apple says it procures credits only
   from "high-quality" projects, natural carbon credits are controversial
   because (among other reasons) forestry and land-use projects are likely
   to be only temporary and thus not equivalent to not emitting the
   greenhouse gasses in the first place.

   I encourage anyone interested in learning more about corporate climate
   claims to read the [3]NewClimate Q&A and relevant portions of the full
   [4]Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2023.

   [5]Read original article

References

   1. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/09/apple-unveils-its-first-carbon-neutral-products/
   2. https://newclimate.org/resources/publications/corporate-climate-responsibility-monitor-2023
   3. https://newclimate.org/news/reaction-apple-unveils-its-first-carbon-neutral-products
   4. https://newclimate.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/NewClimate_CorporateClimateResponsibilityMonitor2023_Feb23.pdf
   5. https://newclimate.org/news/reaction-apple-unveils-its-first-carbon-neutral-products

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