MrTuttle (talk | contribs)
Greenwashing: Add Apple being forced to remove claims of carbon neutrality in the EU, minor wording improvements
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Customers are lead to think that their purchases and frequent replacement of their devices do not have a negative impact on the environment, which is not the case.
Customers are lead to think that their purchases and frequent replacement of their devices do not have a negative impact on the environment, which is not the case.


====Green energy sharing====
In autumn of 2025, stricter EU regulations on misleading marketing claims and a lawsuite by German environmental and consumer protection non-profit organization ''Deutsche Umwelthilfe'' have forced Apple to remove their claim of carbon neutrality on several products on their EU websites. Affected products include the Apple Watch 3 and Apple Watch Series 11.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Schwan |first=Ben |date=2025-11-26 |title=Wegen EU-Regeln: Apple zieht Klimaneutralitäts-Claim zurück [Due to EU regulations: Apple retracts claim of climate neutrality] |url=https://www.heise.de/news/Wegen-EU-Regeln-Apple-zieht-Klimaneutralitaets-Claim-zurueck-10711532.html |access-date=2025-11-26 |website=Heise Online}}</ref>
 
====Green energy pooling====
Apple shares manufacturing capacity at Chinese/Taiwanese companies FoxConn and Pegatron with other companies. If Apple uses a hypothetical 20% of their manufacturing capacity, and company B, C,  D, and E also each take up 20%, and the company doing the manufacturing runs on 20% renewably generated energy, now Apple as well as companies B, C, D, and E will each publicly claim that their manufacturing runs 100% on renewable energy. In other words, each company will claim the 20% renewable energy was used for ''their'' production.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gieselmann |first=Hartmut |date=2023 |title=Von wegen CO2-neutral – Umweltexperten werfen Apple Greenwashing vor |url=https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2023/23/2326512021124424489 |journal=c't Magazin für Computertechnik [Germany] |volume=2023 |issue=23 |pages=49}}</ref>
Apple shares manufacturing capacity at Chinese/Taiwanese companies FoxConn and Pegatron with other companies. If Apple uses a hypothetical 20% of their manufacturing capacity, and company B, C,  D, and E also each take up 20%, and the company doing the manufacturing runs on 20% renewably generated energy, now Apple as well as companies B, C, D, and E will each publicly claim that their manufacturing runs 100% on renewable energy. In other words, each company will claim the 20% renewable energy was used for ''their'' production.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gieselmann |first=Hartmut |date=2023 |title=Von wegen CO2-neutral – Umweltexperten werfen Apple Greenwashing vor |url=https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2023/23/2326512021124424489 |journal=c't Magazin für Computertechnik [Germany] |volume=2023 |issue=23 |pages=49}}</ref>


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These devices were likely trade-in devices from people who received a discount on a new model in exchange. Bloomberg News writes, referring to the contract with the recycler:<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Carr |first=Austin |date=2024-04-18 |title=What Really Happens When You Trade In an iPhone at the Apple Store |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-04-18/apple-iphone-recycling-program-has-secrets |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.ph/bfc3Y |archive-date=2024-08-05 |access-date=2025-09-16 |website=Bloomberg}}</ref><blockquote>Even if the iPhones looked good enough for resale, Apple Inc.’s contract with GEEP (said with a hard “g”) explicitly required that every product it sent be destroyed.</blockquote>Used iPhone that are sold on the used market are a direct competition to new sales by Apple.
These devices were likely trade-in devices from people who received a discount on a new model in exchange. Bloomberg News writes, referring to the contract with the recycler:<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Carr |first=Austin |date=2024-04-18 |title=What Really Happens When You Trade In an iPhone at the Apple Store |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-04-18/apple-iphone-recycling-program-has-secrets |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.ph/bfc3Y |archive-date=2024-08-05 |access-date=2025-09-16 |website=Bloomberg}}</ref><blockquote>Even if the iPhones looked good enough for resale, Apple Inc.’s contract with GEEP (said with a hard “g”) explicitly required that every product it sent be destroyed.</blockquote>Used iPhone that are sold on the used market are a direct competition to new sales by Apple.


Apple likely does not want the public to know about these processes, since security seems to be tight around the shredding process:<blockquote>In some cases, Apple hired outside security consultants to escort trucks to its recyclers and monitor the destruction process, which the tech giant could further analyze through data reports charting scrap weights and commodity yields to ensure the input matched the output.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Carr |first=Austin |date=2025-03-17 |title=Apple Drops Lawsuit Against Recycler in Mystery of Missing iPhones |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-03-17/apple-drops-lawsuit-against-recycler-in-mystery-of-missing-iphones |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.ph/2LdNE |archive-date=2025-05-17 |access-date=2025-09-16 |website=Bloomberg News}}</ref></blockquote>Apple later retreated the lawsuit, most likely to avoid having to disclose how many devices they are really shredding.<ref name=":1" /> <!-- uh-oh, you can't accuse them like that on a wiki page!!1 (Wiki English: please rewrite according to Editorial Guidelines) -->
Apple likely does not want the public to know about these processes, since security seems to be tight around the shredding process:<blockquote>In some cases, Apple hired outside security consultants to escort trucks to its recyclers and monitor the destruction process, which the tech giant could further analyze through data reports charting scrap weights and commodity yields to ensure the input matched the output.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Carr |first=Austin |date=2025-03-17 |title=Apple Drops Lawsuit Against Recycler in Mystery of Missing iPhones |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-03-17/apple-drops-lawsuit-against-recycler-in-mystery-of-missing-iphones |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.ph/2LdNE |archive-date=2025-05-17 |access-date=2025-09-16 |website=Bloomberg News}}</ref></blockquote>Apple later retreated the lawsuit,<ref name=":1" /> leading to speculation that it wanted to avoid having to disclose how many devices they are really having shredded. <!-- uh-oh, you can't accuse them like that on a wiki page!!1 (Wiki English: please rewrite according to Editorial Guidelines) -->


====iPhone recycling robot mostly a publicity stunt====
====iPhone recycling robot mostly a publicity stunt====