Do Apple Really Care About Climate Change?

Image by Cei Willis

It isn’t easy being Apple. On any given day, its leaders have to contend with cheap Android knock-offs plaguing the market; haughty PC fans screaming at their users; having to install nets at their factories to stop workers from committing suicide; and their own fans.

Worse than all that, however, is the fact that Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, is wrong about climate change, and all the company’s investors are going to disappear as a result. We know this thanks to the brave work of a right-wing – hardcore American right-wing, not the pink-hearted, softy Tory right-wing we have in Britain – lobbying outfit called the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), who own shares in the company and attended Apple’s annual shareholder meeting recently.

The NCPPR appear to regard climate science as liberal bullshit, unsupported by data, and have a history of pushing shareholder proposals that target Apple’s green credentials or board member Al Gore. At the meeting last Friday, for example, NCPPR project director Justin Danhof asked two questions that got Tim Cook a little riled up: were Apple’s investments in green energy only worth it because of government subsidies, and would Cook commit to only pursuing policies that were profitable? The subsequent rant was documented by Mac Observer’s Bryan Chaffin:

“What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR's advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.

"When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." He said the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety and other areas where Apple is a leader.

"As evidenced by the use of "bloody" in his response – the closest thing to public profanity I've ever seen from Mr Cook – it was clear that he was quite angry. His body language changed, his face contracted and he spoke in rapid fire sentences compared to the usual metered and controlled way he speaks.

"He didn't stop there, however, as he looked directly at the NCPPR representative and said, 'If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.'"

The NCPPR responded with a press release, moderately-titled: "Tim Cook to Apple Investors: Drop Dead", which adds a little more colour to the account. Apparently Danhof’s questions were “greeted by boos and hisses from the Al Gore contingency”.

"The company's CEO fervently wants investors who care more about return on investments than reducing CO2 emissions to no longer invest in Apple,” Danhof declared, adding: "Maybe they should take him up on that advice."

When I e-mailed them, I found out that neither the NCPPR or Danhof seemed particularly keen to take Cook up on his advice. “Neither the National Center for Public Policy Research nor its top executives have any plans to sell our shares in Apple. We've been an Apple-only office since 1985 and do not intend to abandon the company in any respect, despite CEO Tim Cook's invitation to do so,” they replied. “Cook does not have the authority to determine who is allowed to be a shareholder.”

Tim Cook’s comments earned him a lot of favourable headlines, and plenty of brownie points with liberal, metropolitan elites. Left-leaning pundits have tended to treat his outburst as some kind of victory for ethics over red-toothed capitalism, but is Cook really a green-blooded ecowarrior, battling the denialist hordes? Or could it be that the truth is more complicated than what all the simplistic headlines have suggested?

Apple CEO Tim Cook (photo via)

After the clash – if you can call an invitation to fuck off a "clash" – Danhof asserted that, “investors can be certain that Apple is wasting untold amounts of shareholder money to combat so-called climate change. The only remaining question is: how much?"

Later, though, the think-tank performed an abrupt U-turn on this point. “In fact,” they told me, “while we asked that Apple undertake no projects specifically to fight global warming that are unrelated to business goals – a very reasonable pledge we were able to get from General Electric – we actually have no evidence Apple is doing any such thing.”

Aside from the fact that this leaves Danhof’s argument completely shredded, the oddest thing about the NCPPR’s demand is that, by their own admission, it’s pretty unnecessary. In fact, their email to me contained a lengthy ramble accusing their golden goose of "greenwashing", echoing what economics writer Tim Worstall has said in a blog post earlier this week.

“What constitutes a 'green' company is subjective, but it is hard to imagine that Apple qualifies,” they suggest, citing Apple’s temporary withdrawal from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, their Chinese manufacturing deals and the supposedly disposable and non-repairable nature of their products. “Apple is extremely good at looking green. This is what the famous environmental groups call 'greenwashing'. Why is Al Gore on its board? Because of his technology and innovation expertise or because he helps make Apple look green?

“Tim Cook didn't get paid some $40 million [£23 million] in 2013 because he's an environmentalist, but he is more valuable to Apple when he plays one on TV. As such, Tim Cook's statement may simply have been public relations. He looked nice and green, standing there, indignant that someone might think one of the world's most successful companies should focus on… business success.”

Worstall, who used to have the thankless task of being UKIP’s science spokesman, wrote that “[Apple] is being run for profit as it only does that amount of greenery that improves the profit margin, and it most certainly doesn’t do anything that actually costs”. But was that a fair accusation? To find out, I contacted Apple and asked them to give me any example of the company pursuing a loss-making environment initiative, one that cost them a significant amount of money.

Apple hadn’t responded at the time of publication (if they do, I’ll add their comment here), but if I’m honest it was a pretty unfair question in the first place. Initiatives aimed at reducing electricity or resource use are naturally going to save money, while initial investments in the use of solar power are likely to pay dividends in the longer term as they remove some of the company’s dependency on volatile fossil fuel prices.

That’s before you take into account the rising costs that climate change will inflict on all large companies over the coming decades – the millions of tiny taxes I’ve spoken of previously, affecting everything from insurance costs to supply chain volatility to the viability of increasingly important developing world tech markets. Protecting the environment and protecting profits are often pretty much the same thing, but NCPRR don’t seem to believe it, and Apple don’t seem to want to admit it.

The weird thing about this story is how much it feels like you’re watching a carefully choreographed martial arts performance. All good narratives need a conflict, and Apple and the NCPPR have dutifully supplied one, resulting in hundreds of inches of coverage in blogs and columns like this one. The NCPPR get valuable media exposure and the opportunity to flex their lobbying muscles, while Tim Cook gets to play liberal warrior, coaxing big green erections out of the assembled left-leaning press.

The more carefully you examine the posturing, though, the more theatrical it seems. For all the talk of opposing worldviews, the two sides don’t really seem that different. NCPPR, climate nonsense aside, want Apple to put profits first. Tim Cook, as Apple’s CEO, seems pretty wedded to the same principal – and really, how could he not be?

What’s surprising is how willing people are to buy into the story they desperately want to hear. Mind you, I suppose it says something when the only people to challenge Cook’s environmental credentials in the last week are a conservative lobbying outfit and a former UKIP campaigner.

Follow Martin on Twitter: @mjrobbins