Apple Shrunk the iPhone’s Carbon Footprint. There’s a Way to Shrink It Even Further
Ensuring users can hang onto their phones as long as possible would help reduce the biggest source of emissions: producing phones in the first place.
Apple iPhone 15 smartphones on sale at the company's Fifth Avenue store in New York. The tech giant has shrunk the phone’s carbon footprint in part by relying on recycled materials, though there’s still much work that remains to be done if Apple is to reach its climate targets.
Photographer: Gabby Jones/BloombergApple has announced a dizzying array of products this year, though none more central to its business than the iPhone 15. At first glance, Apple’s latest iPhone seems to have hit all the marks from a sustainability standpoint.
The iPhone 15 Pros’s carbon footprint shrunk by nearly 30% compared to a company-defined baseline (though it’s up 1% from the iPhone 14 Pro), and Apple largely eliminated plastic packaging. There’s also a wide array of 100% recycled materials in the phone, from the copper foil in its inductive charger and gold in its USB-C connector to cobalt in its battery, all firsts for the Silicon Valley technology giant.