Tim Cook speaks to Brut

Brut America

Their products are everywhere, but what exactly is Apple doing for the environment? We had the opportunity to meet Tim Cook, the CEO of the brand, so we asked him directly.

Transcript

00:00Do you think we really need a new iPhone every year?

00:02I think having an iPhone every year for those people that want it is a great thing.

00:07And what we do is we allow people to trade in their phone.

00:11And so we then resell that phone if it's still working.

00:15And if it's not working, we've got ways of disassembling it

00:19and taking the materials to make a new iPhone out of.

00:22For the first time, you're allowing European journalists,

00:30including us, to visit your data center and photovoltaic installations

00:34like here in Europe, in Denmark.

00:37So why did you allow our presence here?

00:39We are a very secretive company with our products.

00:43So we want to keep our products to ourselves until they're ready to announce

00:46and then announce those to the world and describe those.

00:50But environment is different.

00:52With our initiatives like the environment, we want to be very open

00:58because we want to be copied.

01:00We want people to be able to look at this field that we're in today and say,

01:05I can do that too.

01:07And we want people to be able to look at our recyclable materials and say,

01:12I can do that.

01:13And so all of these projects we're being very open on

01:16because we want to be the ripple in the pond that other people can look at and copy.

01:22And it makes much more effect from an environmental point of view.

01:26What environmental issues would you like to see the company tackle further?

01:30Well, we've got more work to do.

01:31We've got more solar and wind installations to install around the world.

01:37We've got more materials from a recycled point of view

01:41to recycle and become part of our products.

01:44The watch now has 30 percent recyclable content, but it will be higher in the future.

01:50We've got to continue to have our transportation footprint be lower.

01:57But today, we're incredibly proud that the Apple Watch,

02:02certain SKUs of the Apple Watch are now carbon neutral.

02:05And this is seven years before our target of having all of our products carbon neutral.

02:10The term carbon neutral is widely criticized

02:13by experts who believe that it's impossible to be truly carbon neutral.

02:18There's even talk of banning the term within the European Union in the coming years.

02:23What is your definition of carbon neutral?

02:25Well, I'd invite anybody to look at how we're defining it on our website,

02:30because what we're doing is doing the hard work to lower our footprint dramatically.

02:37And then whatever is left over after doing all of these actions,

02:41we offset with high quality offsets like managed forests and managed grasslands

02:50that pull carbon from the atmosphere.

02:53But what our objective is, is to eliminate as much as possible prior to doing that.

03:00When we post videos about Apple products on Brute,

03:03the comments from our community often touch on greenwashing,

03:06the use of rare metals and calls for more restraint, consuming less.

03:11What is your response to them?

03:13Well, greenwashing is reprehensible.

03:15And so if you think about what we're doing,

03:18we're doing the work and then saying what we're doing.

03:22And you're standing in part of the work today.

03:24So there's a real proof point.

03:27The fact that there's 30% recycled material on the watch, that's a proof point.

03:32The fact that we took air transportation down dramatically

03:35to see transportation on the transportation footprint.

03:39This is an action.

03:40The fact that we're shrinking packaging, so more of these things will fit on one pallet.

03:46This is a key action.

03:49We're eliminating plastics.

03:52All of these things are actions that we've taken,

03:54and they all add up to now a carbon neutral watch.

03:59And by 2030, a carbon neutral products across the board.

04:03What do you hope to leave for future generations

04:06who will likely face the consequences of climate change their entire lives?

04:10Yeah, we want to leave the world better than we found it.

04:14That's our objective.

04:16And so that's the reason we've set such a comprehensive

04:20and challenging objective to do this by 2030, 20 years before the Paris Accord.

04:26If you think about it, this is a massive challenge and a very aggressive target.

04:33But we want to leave the younger generation something that they're proud of

04:39and something that they're proud that we worked on and worked on together.

04:43What would an iPhone look like in 20 or 30 years?

04:46Do you think innovation and technology can save the planet?

04:50I think it'll be carbon neutral.

04:52I think and obviously it will be way ahead of where it currently is,

04:57but I wouldn't want to give you all of our secrets in that regard.

05:00I'll just say from an environmental point of view, it'll be carbon neutral.

05:04And on a personal level, what are your ecological efforts?

05:07I do drive an electric car.

05:09I try to avoid plastics and plastic bottles.

05:13I recycle.

05:15I compost.

05:17All of these things I try to do, everything I do,

05:20I try my best to do something that has a lower carbon footprint.

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