Apple has set a public goal to go completely carbon neutral in its supply chain by 2030, and it’s out with an update on those efforts today. According to Apple, its manufacturing partners now support over 13 gigawatts of renewable electricity around the world, while more than 250 Apple suppliers are committed to relying completely on renewable energy by 2030.

In a press release today, Apple gave an update on its efforts to go fully carbon neutral by 2030. For its global corporate emissions, Apple is already carbon neutral. It supports 1.5 gigawatts of renewable electricity around the world to power all corporate offices, data centers, and retail stores. It has also invested in 500 megawatts of solar and wind in China and Japan to address upstream supply chain emissions.

Apple’s efforts are now largely focused on its supply chain and manufacturing partners. Apple says that more than 40 of its manufacturing partners have joined the Apple Supplier Clean Energy Program within the last year, making for a total of over 250 suppliers across 28 countries.

The company is also offering a “Clean Energy Academy” for its partners to help “identify and implement solutions for clean energy and carbon reductions.”

More than 40 manufacturing partners joined Apple’s Supplier Clean Energy Program in the last year. Apple has called on its suppliers to decarbonize all Apple-related operations, including sourcing 100 percent renewable electricity.

Through their participation in the Supplier Clean Energy Program, Apple’s suppliers are signaling demand for the expansion of renewable electricity capacity around the world. Since 2019, the operational renewable energy across Apple’s global supply chain has expanded five times over, now totaling 13.7 gigawatts. This equated to 17.4 million metric tons of avoided carbon emissions last year — the equivalent of removing nearly 3.8 million cars from the road.

Apple has also given an update on its $4.7 billion Green Bond commitment, saying that it has disbursed over $3.2 billion to date.

To help accelerate clean energy progress and environmental innovations around the world, Apple has disbursed over $3.2 billion of the company’s $4.7 billion Green Bond commitment to date — including the total $2.5 billion of its first two bonds. So far, the company has allocated $700 million of the proceeds from the 2019 Green Bond to support 59 projects — including the development and distribution of clean energy training resources for suppliers and collaborative advocacy efforts in Japan, Vietnam, and South Korea.

The projects supported by the 2019 Green Bond are expected to mitigate more than 13.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over their lifetime. 

In addition to building green energy capacity for supply chain partners, Apple says that the Green Bond spend has supported things like low-carbon design, energy efficiency, and the expansion of renewable energy in grids around the world.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, touted the company’s efforts in a statement today:

At Apple, we’re carbon neutral for our own operations and innovating every day to go even further in the urgent work to address climate change. With partners around the world, we’re adding even more renewable energy to power our global supply chain and investing in next-generation green technologies. The scale of this challenge is immense – but so is our determination to meet it.

Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, added:

Our new supplier commitments demonstrate the rapid pace of progress we’re making toward our 2030 carbon neutrality goal. We are taking urgent action on a global scale to unlock a greener, more innovative, and more resilient future.

Find Apple’s full press release on its website.

Source - 9to5Mac