Reaching its green milestones

As recently as 2020, 6 gigawatts of green energy powered Apple's global operations. Today, that's up to three times that amount - 18 gigawatts of green power. What's more, it has reduced its carbon footprint by 55 percent since 2015, bringing it closer to its goal of being carbon neutral by 2030. In addition to its environmental protection activities, it aims to achieve this goal by reducing emissions by 75 percent from 2015 levels.

Maximises recycling

The company is increasingly using recycled feedstock in its facilities. In 2023, up to 56 percent of the cobalt in Apple's batteries came from recycled sources, more than double the previous year's total. In addition, it uses 24 percent lithium and up to 100 percent copper from recycled sources. It's also reducing the amount of plastic in packaging, with plastics making up only 3 percent of all packaging in 2023. Interestingly, the MacBook Air with M3 is the first Apple product ever to be made with at least 50 percent recycled material. 

The push for energy efficiency

Apple's Clean Energy Supplier Program is currently delivering more than 16.5 gigawatts of renewable energy worldwide. Thanks to Apple's push for energy efficiency, more than 100 suppliers saved over 2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity last year. Along with other energy savings, primarily heat-related, suppliers avoided nearly 1.7 million metric tons of carbon emissions, a 25 percent increase over 2022.

Working with OpenAI

On Monday, June 11, Apple CEO Tim Cook opened a new chapter for the company when he announced an agreement with OpenAI, specifically incorporating its powerful artificial intelligence model into its voice assistant Siri. The company's stock rose sharply above the $200 mark following the announcement. Prior to the opening of trading during Friday, June 14, their value was in doubt at $214 per share.* Looking at the chart, we can see that the stock's five-year performance has been fairly stable and has been in the green for a long time.

Apple's value evolution over the last 5 years. (Source: Google Finance) *

Partnership with Google

In a technical document later published by Apple, it states that Google also benefits significantly from the Open AI deal. Apple's engineers used their own framework software to create the basic AI models, but the hardware, specifically the GPUs, will use Google's cutting-edge devices, which have been in development for about 10 years. These fifth-generation chips that can be used to train AI are a cocurrency for Nvidia's chips.

Challenges for the future

The future of Apple's two key investments appears to be on track. In addition to the, currently high-growth AI segment, the company has also set very ambitious sustainability goals that it wants to meet by 2030. Namely, it has announced the elimination of 1 million tons of carbon, the annual energy capacity is to be increased by 3 gigawatts of green energy, and more than 200 direct suppliers have committed to use green energy for production for this tech giant. This shows the seriousness of Apple, and other companies, in reducing their carbon footprint and striving for sustainability[1].

Olivia Lacenova, principal analyst at Wonderinterest Trading Ltd.

* Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

[1] Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and current expectations, which may be inaccurate, or on the current economic environment, which may change. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance. They involve risks and other uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by any forward-looking statements.