Apple Inc. has dramatically improved its climate change reporting as requested by As You Sow in a shareholder proposal voted on by Apple shareholders last February. On Sept. 24, Apple released more extensive data about the life cycle impact of its products.
Apple Inc. has dramatically improved its climate change reporting as requested by As You Sow in a shareholder proposal voted on by Apple shareholders last February. On Sept. 24, Apple released more extensive data about the life cycle impact of its products. Read more in the BusinessWeek story citing As You Sow's Program Director Conrad MacKerron.
In february this year, As You Sow challenged Apple Inc. to match the performance of its peers in a shareholder proposal presented at its annual meeting in May. HP, Dell, IBM and Intel have made public commitments to greenhouse gas reductions; Apple has not. The proposal asked Apple to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and address other environmental and social impacts such as toxics and recycling, as well as employee and product safety. After the filing of our proposal, Apple released a series of product-based greenhouse gas emission estimates last October. But this data was inadequate to address our concerns. The company did not report GHG emission data in a way that makes it comparable with peers. Apple has received low scores in several studies evaluating the quality of its public GHG disclosure.
“It’s disappointing for Apple to have one of the world's foremost authorities on global warming, Al Gore, on its (Apple's) board but to lack a clear commitment to reduce greenhouse gases,” then said Conrad MacKerron, director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Program. The proposal received the support of about 9% of shares voted. Read more.
As You Sow was able to secure agreements by three mid-sized IT companies to participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project process in 2009. As You Sow withdrew proposals at Broadcom and Novell, and Jabil Circuit agreed before a proposal was filed.
