Following packaging leaks, various reports in June and July suggested that Apple would stop including power adapters in the packaging of its iPhone and various other products. Suggested reasoning for excluding the power adapter included reduced accessory and shipping costs, along with countering reduced profit marges on the new iPhone. Perhaps a logical choice in an exceedingly troubled economic time period, but still a disputable choice from a company still reporting record profits.
Slightly more than two months later, at Apple’s September event on September 15th, the rumors were confirmed. Apple announced that its new Apple Watch products will ship without a charger. The watch still comes with a charging cable, so Apple’s argument appears to be sound: removing the charging adapter will help Apple to meet its environmental sustainability goals. They suggest that most customers already own USB power adapters, so that it is a logical choice to stop including them in the box. Seems genuine right?
However, one can also start to wonder whether there aren’t financial reasons at stake. Apple sells the simple plastic power adapter for $20/€25. Selling these chargers on top of the product itself will be a nice income boost. While Apple argues that many of its customers own multiple power adapters, there will still be users that need to buy an adapter in order to use their new Apple product. It all seems more like a level-headed down cost-benefit analysis decision than just being based on environmental reasons.
To me, this seems to be a typical example of greenwashing. Greenwashing refers to companies “misleading customers about their environmental performance or the environmental benefits of a product or service” (Delmas & Burbano, 2011). Apple is not new to greenwashing issues. In 2011, Apple launched an advertising campaign titled “the world’s greenest family of notebooks’, and was promptly forced to change this to “the world’s greenest lineup of notebooks’, with the National Advertising Division citing that ‘greenest family’ was too broad (Diffenderfer & Baker, 2010). Apple’s environmental claims have been subject to more ‘Greenwashing’ debate, with Apple shipping devices with poor repairability and recyclability scores.
Something that stirs the debate up even more is the iPhone. While Apple’s claims about almost anyone having a USB power adapter may seem valid, questions arise when thinking about the iPhone. For the past two years, new iPhones have shipped with a cable with at the one end a lighting end, the iPhone’s proprietary port, and the other end a USB-C plug. USB-C is more of a novel connector, which has only been in popular use for the last two years. If Apple is to ship the iPhone without a power adapter, but with the USB-C cable, many buyers won’t be able to charge their phones, as USB-C adapters are much less widespread. Will Apple ship newer iPhones with an older lightning to USB-A cable without a power adapter? Or will they stick with USB-C? And what will happen to future Apple products. Let me know in the comments what you think, and whether you know of any other greenwashing examples in the tech world.
References:
Diffenderder, M., & Baker, K. A. C. (2010). Greenwashing: what your client should know to avoid costly litigation and consumer backlash. Nat. Resources & Env’t, 25, 21.
Delmas, M. A., & Burbano, V. C. (2011). The drivers of greenwashing. California management review, 54(1), 64-87.
Dear Martijn,
This topic is very debatable. However I do agree with you. By doing such actions Apple saves transportation and production costs. Even it was really more sustainable I believe it is quite an “easy” step they took. They are not actually changing their ways of producing or the materials used but only trying to induce people to buy the charge separately again afterwards. This does not imply that they are treating their waste but only trying to put the “blame” on another stakeholder. However, I do believe that removing the charger is a good initiative for the environment as it is true that we all accumulate them and can also find a way or another to plug the cable somewhere else.
Hi Martijn,
Really good post! I’ve also started to notice that companies are now following the ‘trend’ of becoming a ‘green’ company. There are already many companies that are trying to appear more eco-friendly, such as BP who promise to move towards greener alternatives of energy production, despite the fact that vast majority of planned investment will be directed towards fossil fuels.
When it comes to Apple, we certainly would like them to take bigger steps in this direction, such as eliminating their “buy one every year” promotion model of selling their smartphones or use more recyclable materials in the production of their products, it does not seem that this would happen any time soon. The pressure from society is not yet large enough to force these companies to rethink the strategy. Until this starts to hit their bottom line, Apple will most likely have no intention to adjust their strategy to become more environmentally friendly.
When it comes to the changes in its cables, I think that it is a move in the right direction to move towards USB-C. Since Apple are considered to be the industry leaders and industry disruptors, other companies will follow them if they decide to change their cables. This has already happened with the 3.5mm headphone jack. Furthermore, despite the frustrations generated by Apple for their customers, customers have adapted to this change, as Apple users are quite loyal to the brand.