It’s probably the fastest policy reversal in Apple’s history. After a week of being pilloried for withdrawing from the EPEAT registry — a set of environmental standards for tech products — the Cupertino giant has changed course.
The announcement came in a letter from Bob Mansfield, Apple veteran and the soon-to-retire senior VP of engineering. “We’ve recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system,” he wrote. “I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.”
EPEAT requires that companies make products that can be disassembled and repaired by consumers, so that the computer recycling process (which often ends up taking place in the poorer parts of China) isn’t likely to let toxic substances such as batteries leach into the environment.
Apple had signed up for the standard years ago, and withdrew without explanation last week — likely because the design of new products such as the iPad and Macbook with Retina Display makes them much harder to disassemble.
The first sign of trouble over the withdrawal came when the city of San Francisco — Apple’s northern neighbor — announced it would no longer buy Apple products, since it was required to buy EPEAT-certified tech.
The company tried to spin the withdrawal by claiming its own internal environmental standards were stronger than EPEAT’s. Mansfield repeats that claim in his letter: “our engineering teams have worked incredibly hard over the years to make our products even more environmentally friendly, and much of our progress has come in areas not yet measured by EPEAT,” he writes.
Which may well be true, but it didn’t change the large number of government and corporate customers who have hitched themselves to the EPEAT wagon.
One thing that wasn’t clear from Mansfield’s letter: whether Apple’s design would change as a result of this decision. Will iPads suddenly become easy to disassemble and remove the battery from? Here’s the closest Mansfield got to addressing that question:
“Our relationship with EPEAT has become stronger as a result of this experience, and we look forward to working with EPEAT as their rating system and the underlying IEEE 1680.1 standard evolve. Our team at Apple is dedicated to designing products that everyone can be proud to own and use.”
Is this the right move by Apple? Let us know in the comments.
Source: Mashable
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