Want to Know the Carbon Emissions for Your Mac?

Part of the solution to climate change lies in companies being transparent when it comes to reporting their greenhouse gas emissions and Apple is a great example of how to do this right.

Straight-up information on greenhouse gas emissions helps us cut through the PR spin on climate change and get down to the real business of solving the problem.

Apple has released its 2008 environmental report and here's a handy list I've pulled together from their report on the total greenhouse emissions for each model of Mac computer, the iPhone and the iPod: (I've listed them from best to worst)

iPod Nano: total greenhouse gas emissions for the entire lifecyle of a single iPod Nano is 15 kg CO22e (CO2 equivalent). To give you an idea of how much greenhouse gas that actually is, burning a gallon of gasoline in your car produces about 11 kg C022e.

Here's the entire environmental report on the iPod Nano (pdf).

iPod Touch: total greenhouse gas emissions = 30 kg CO22e

Here's the entire environmental report on the iPod Touch (pdf).

iPhone 3G: total greenhouse gas emissions= 55 kg CO22e

Here's the entire environmental report on the iPhone 3G (pdf).

MacBook Air: total greenhouse gas emissions = 340 kg CO22e.

Here's the entire environmental report on the MacBook Air (pdf).

MacBook: total greenhouse gas emissions = 460 kg CO22e.

Here's the entire environmental report on the MacBook (pdf).

15-inch MacBook Pro: total greenhouse gas emissions = 560 kg CO22e.
Here's the entire environmental report on the MacBook Pro (pdf).

20-inch iMac: total greenhouse gas emissions = 1070 kg CO22e.

Here's the entire environmental report on the 20-inch iMac (pdf).

24-inch iMac: total greenhouse gas emissions = 1500 kg CO22e.

Here's the entire environmental report on the 24-inch iMac (pdf).

This is all very fine and good and as I mentioned at the outset, it is important that companies are open and transparent about their carbon emissions, but as Rob Knox points out, as have many others, Apple still has a long way to go before they could be considered friendly to the environment.

Follow Kevin Grandia on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kgrandia

Comments

[KillTheMessenger]

Interesting. I need to read this and see if they describe the methodology. Obviously none of the small devices make much of a dent. But the large screen adds almost a full ton over the small 15" screen. Just what I thought. But I am glad to see that Apple comes to similar conclusions.

[polyfoamworkshop]

I really never thought about this, interestingly smoggy. My grandma always said, you'll learn something everyday. How true this is! Thank you.