Apple Rejoins Green Electronics Registry

Apple has placed its products back on the EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) registry, reversing last week’s decision to remove 39 computers from the definitive green standard for electronics.

 

The tech company published a statement from Bob Mansfield, Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering at Apple, explaining the reversal.

 

“We’ve recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system,” said Mansfield in the open letter to customers. Though he stated that Apple had always been a strict environmentally-conscious company, he stated “I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.”

 

Among those products are the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. 

 

The MacBook Pro with Retina Display was recently, quietly, given an EPEAT Gold Certification, which is now listed in the computer’s specifications list on the Apple store website; it did not have the certification earlier last week.

 

The decision to withdraw from EPEAT was explained at the time by Apple that its  “design direction was no longer consistent with the EPEAT requirements.” 

 

Many speculated that the MacBook Pro with Retina Display was the reason; EPEAT focuses on recyclability, and the newest MacBook Pro has its battery glued onto its case, which made it difficult to dismantle.

 

Many government agencies use EPEAT as a standard for its computer purchases; officials of the city of San Francisco announced that it would no longer buy Mac devices, as it only purchases EPEAT-certified computers.

 

EPEAT has been criticized as outdated. Jeff Gamet of The Mac Observer noted “Assuming the Retina Display laptop didn’t meet the requirements for a gold certification before, it seems likely that EPEAT changed its standards for the rating to accomodate [sic] the new MacBook Pro model. Whether or not that change was a concession to Apple or a revision to help modernize the certification requirements, however, isn’t clear.”