San Francisco turns its back on Apple after green registry pull-out

[DainBramaged]

The City of San Francisco will no longer be buying Macs following Apple's withdrawal of its products from the eco-friendly EPEAT registry. Officials from San Francisco's Department of Environment confirmed the move to the CIO Journal on Tuesday, saying that purchases of Apple's MacBooks, iMacs, Mac Pros, and other products would no longer be allowed among the city's 50 agencies because they "no longer qualify" for city funds.

EPEAT is a national registry of environmentally sound electronics, including desktops, notebooks, and displays. The standard used by EPEAT was developed by participating electronics manufacturers in conjunction with green groups and requires a certain level of recyclability. One of the standards is the ease of disassembly using common tools. Although Apple has increasingly touted its green efforts in recent years, some of its products—including the current third-generation iPad and Retina MacBook Pro—have received criticism for being particularly unfriendly to end user repairs.

Membership in EPEAT is voluntary, but numerous schools and government agencies require the products they buy to meet EPEAT certification. When it came out last week that Apple had withdrawn all of its 39 products from EPEAT's list, various city and local governments began examining their pending Apple purchases. Observers have pointed out that a tiny percentage (around 1-2 percent) of municipal PC purchases are Macs, and the number of governments that require 100 percent EPEAT compliance is also relatively small, so the impact on Apple's bottom line may end up being minimal.

Still, the City of San Francisco has apparently already decided not to use its funds on non-EPEAT-compliant products. As such, Apple's new products won't be appearing in city offices anytime soon. Several universities—University of California-Berkeley and Cornell included—said they are reviewing their impending purchases as well.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/san-francisco-turns-its-back-on-apple-after-green-registry-pull-out/

[onehandle]

1. Analysts are saying that EPEAT's days are numbered.

It's a 'feel good' voluntary standard that is difficult to maintain due to trends in technology for more in smaller spaces. Apple is just being ahead of the curve, as usual.

Some associations that are married to it have little choice, but most will ignore it and buy Apple anyway.

Additionally:

Greenpeace ranks Apple as greenest electronics maker

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/07/greenpeace_ranks_apple_as_greenest_electronics_maker.html

http://www.apple.com/environment

[DainBramaged]

2. oh

One of the greenest

Want to talk about Foxconn??


Apple GROSSES 40% at retail so you the consumer can love them


I feel about Apple they way mst DUers feel about GM

[GeorgeGist]

3. Not always ...

Greenpeace Ranks Apple Lowest

Greenpeace released results from its first-ever report on energy sources used by technology companies today, and while the rankings are interesting, the study itself points to the challenges in evaluating the "greenness" of technology companies.

The "How Dirty is Your Data" report ranked Apple dead last on dependence on fossil-based and nuclear energy sources, followed by Facebook, IBM, HP and Twitter. On the flip side, Yahoo was lauded for its clean energy index -- geothermal power and wind farms -- followed by Google and Amazon.

http://www.mobiledia.com/news/87776.html