By Dan Moren
December 31, 2024 12:46 PM PT
The Back Page: Getting the carbon out
Hi team, it’s Tim.
As we boldly venture forward into a brand new year, it’s a good time to update you on our pledge to make Apple carbon neutral by 2030. I have to admit, this seemed like a lock at the time, given that we had deprecated Carbon back in 2012, but I appear to have deeply misunderstood what I was promising. Thanks, Craig, for the clarification.
Regardless, we’ve made great strides in the last year, introducing a carbon-neutral version of the Apple Watch Series 10; releasing our first carbon-neutral Mac, the new Mac mini; and eliminating spaghetti carbonara at Caffe Macs. We’re not sure if it had carbon in it, but better safe than sorry.
We’ve also cut our overall greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent since 2015, which may not seem that long ago, but that is the year in which Marty McFly traveled to the future and it’s now the past, which is really doing my head in. Remind me to talk to Phil about the status of our flying car project.
None of this is to pat ourselves on the back: there’s still a lot of work left to be done. While we’ve accomplished a lot over the last decade and a half, eking out those last few bits of carbon is where the pedal really meets the (hopefully carbon-free) metal.
Unfortunately, the most significant remaining source of carbon in our business is the one that may prove most difficult to mitigate: our people. Despite our best efforts, 100 percent of Apple employees remain carbon-based lifeforms.
We’ve had a number of high-level meetings on this topic, and have discussed many bold ideas, from outfitting all employees with solar-panel-equipped headwear to encouraging them to utilize treadmills during the workday to power their devices. I have had to inform Johnny Srouji multiple times that we cannot simply replace them with Apple Silicon-based employees. He’s…uncomfortably enthusiastic about the prospect.
So this does present a challenge for us, one that we must all rise to confront, although more the rest of Apple’s workforce than me personally. Reducing carbon is a necessity, something that we must undertake in order to save the environment that we have ruined, and the only way to do that is to remove ourselves from the equation, as dispassionately as possible. I have personally promised that starting in 2025 I will replace my personal jet trips with Spatial FaceTime calls via Apple Vision Pro. Or, failing that, conversations conducted entirely via Genmoji. And Apple Park already isn’t stocking my preferred Diet Mountain Dew—we tried to decarbonate it, but frankly, it was disgusting. Not, as it turns out, unlike regular Diet Mountain Dew.
But this isn’t something I can do alone. 2025 will mark the year that we finally begin this latest transition. Fortunately, we’ve been through plenty before: from 68k to PowerPC to Intel to Apple Silicon, from Mac OS to Mac OS X to macOS to iPhone Software to iOS to iPadOS…you get the picture.
Ultimately, it comes down to a choice: we can either choose to foster our lifelong commitment to Apple intelligence or our 2024 commitment to Apple Intelligence. I know which one I’d choose, and I think you do too. Yes, it’s definitely the one you’re thinking of. We all agree.
So, a happy new year to you all, and thanks for all the hard work that you’ve done for both Apple and this world that we all share, even if I get to see much more of it than you do—have I mentioned my private jet? I look forward to a revolutionary 2025 with those of you that embrace our new radical decarbonization process. Well, those that survive anyway.
Best,
Tim
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His latest novel, the sci-fi spy thriller The Armageddon Protocol, is out now.]