Martijn Hendrikx

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For the past few months, the covid-19 pandemic has forced people to stay at home on a major scale. Working and studying from home is the new standard, and aside from grocery stopping, there were few reasons to leave home. One industry that this lockdown had a major impact on is the ride-sharing industry. Companies like Uber and Lyft saw a 70-80% drop in riders, severely impacting operations.

An april 2020 study by CarGurus found that many rideshare users would refrain from user Uber and Lyft, citing that they were afraid of getting infected. Uber and Lyft addressed this by including hand sanitizers in cars and obligatory face masks. Despite these measures, Uber and Lyft faced record losses, with Uber announcing they would lay off 14% of their staff.

One positive take for ride-sharing companies could be that people will avoid crowded public transit even more, and might choose to take an Uber or Lyft instead. Uber also launched a campaign offering free rides to essential workers during covid-19 as well, perhaps to boost awareness.

Despite all these measures, ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft will just have to resort to a ‘sit out and wait’ strategy for the remainder of the covid-19 pandemic, as rides won’t resume to normal levels after all lockdown measures have been taken away. However, the future is uncertain for Uber and Lyft.

The CarGurus study also asked respondents whether they would continue to use ride-sharing services after the resumption of economic activity, with 39% of respondents indicating they would likely reduce their ride-hailing services. Will the Covid-19 pandemic have long term influences on ride-hailing services? It is difficult to say as we are still in the midst of the pandemic. It is likely that we will continue working from home on a larger scale then before, even after the pandemic (Williamson, Colley, Hanna-Osborne, 2020). While exact numbers are not available, according to Uber, a large percentage of users use Uber to commute to work. An increase in people working from home will obviously reduce Uber rides, and might have a large impact on Uber’s operations.

What do you think about the future of ride-hailing companies after the pandemic? Can you think of more examples of factors influencing ride-hailing companies’ operations after Covid-19?

CarGurus – https://go.cargurus.com/rs/611-AVR-738/images/US-Covid19-Study.pdf
Bonacini, L., Gallo, G., & Scicchitano, S. (2020). Working from home and income inequality: risks of a ‘new normal’with COVID-19. Journal of Population Economics, 1-58.

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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.

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