How can you reduce your E-waste and carbon footprint? Last week Tamara spoke about the environmental impact of cellphones, and revealed some huge secrets about the impact of our overconsumption of tech goods. As we continue to advance in AI technology, more and more devices will need to be updated for relevance or go obsolete completely, forcing us to dispose of our old products. So what can we do to remedy this ongoing but necessary problem?
A number of tech conglomerates have recently published their sustainability reports and their goals for carbon reduction, among these have been Samsung, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook.
Apple has made the impressive announcement of their goal to make entirely sustainable products, or as they put it “make products without taking from the earth”. While this sounds like an idealistic projection, Apple has actually followed through on many of their environmental goals. In 2012, Apple promised that they would use 100% renewable energy in their data centres, and by 2016 this goal was achieved across all operations. They are also currently moving towards carbon free smelted aluminium and have started using small amounts of recycled aluminium in two products. We can expect them to continue working towards sustainability with their goal to be carbon neutral by 2030.
And by 2030, we should also expect Microsoft to be at net-zero carbon, water positive, and zero waste. That seems like an overarching goal but Microsoft has been carbon neutral since 2013 through their extensive offset programs. They have also begun to take responsibility for their land footprint, by planting over 600 trees and creating other green spaces for biodiversity on their campus. So we can look forward to Microsoft making their Surface devices completely recyclable, eliminating single use plastics in their works by 2025, and providing waste collection services for their devices by 2030. And in addition to their goal for net-zero carbon by 2030, they also hope to erase all carbon emissions since their inception by 2050 by offset.
Meanwhile Samsung and Facebook are barely catching up to these two sustainable pioneers. While Facebook is mostly software based, they have only pledged to reach a carbon neutral state by 2030. Samsung also as of 2020 only uses 1% renewable energy, and has given no concrete evidence of any effort to move towards sustainability.
Our use of technology has a much bigger environmental impact than most of us would have expected. In fact, sending twenty emails produces the same amount of carbon dioxide that a car driving for 1000km would. Remember when we switched to emails to save paper and protect the trees? Minimizing the impact of our internet usage, the way we dispose of our devices, and the way these devices are created, are all essential to moving forward if we want to hinder climate change. The work of these companies has begun a chain reaction and has prompted the creation of the Climate Challenge.
The Climate Challenge is a group of over 100 companies thus far, working to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement ten years early. On this list are Microsoft, Amazon, Unilever, CocaCola, Mercedes Benz, Uber and others. They are coming together to make the commitment to switch to renewable energy and invest in effective carbon offset projects. They will also make regular reports to the group detailing their greenhouse gas emissions to ensure that everyone remains in check.
We all saw Virgin Atlantic’s and Jeff Bezos’ quick trips to space. And thus far Elon Musk has launched over eighty eight satellites through SpaceX. More than ever we need corporations to understand the impact they have on climate change and the ways they are responsible for fixing it. We need to keep recycling and making energy efficient swaps in our daily lives, but we also need to make sure that companies are held accountable for their actions and work with us to solve the climate crisis.
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