Apple's new custom emoji come with climate costs
What steps has Apple taken to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in recent years?
Apple has made significant progress in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. According to its 2024 Environmental Progress Report, the company has decreased its overall greenhouse gas emissions by more than 55% since 2015. This achievement marks important progress toward Apple's ambitious goal of becoming carbon neutral across its entire value chain by the end of this decade – a goal known as Apple 2030.
To achieve these reductions, teams across Apple and its global supply chain have contributed to the Apple 2030 goal and the company's environmental efforts. This has involved driving innovations in clean energy and energy efficiency, materials, carbon removal, water stewardship, zero waste, and recycling.
In addition, Apple has made strides in using recycled materials in its products. For instance, the MacBook Air with M3 is the first-ever Apple product to be made with 50% recycled material. Furthermore, 24% of the lithium shipped in Apple batteries last year came from certified recycled sources. The company has also started using 100% recycled copper in key thermal applications in iPhone 15 and the 16-inch MacBook Pro, as well as the Taptic Engine and printed circuit boards across many product lines in the last year.
Apple has also called on its global supply chain to take new steps to address their greenhouse gas emissions and to take a comprehensive approach to decarbonization2. The company evaluates the work of its major manufacturing partners to decarbonize their Apple-related operations, including running on 100% renewable electricity2.
These actions demonstrate Apple's commitment to environmental protection and its efforts to inspire others, including its customers, to do the same.
What are the names of the AI image features Apple is expected to launch with iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia?
Apple is expected to launch two AI image features with iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia: Genmoji and Image Playground. Genmoji allows users to create custom emojis based on their text prompts, while Image Playground enables users to generate custom images with the help of AI. These features are part of Apple's new "Apple Intelligence" suite of AI tools, announced at WWDC 2024, which are designed to enhance various aspects of users' digital lives, from sorting notifications and assisting with email writing to improving Siri's capabilities.
What is Apple's overall climate goal for 2030, and how might the new AI features affect its ability to meet this target?
Apple's overall climate goal for 2030 is to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle. This includes reducing emissions by 75% and developing innovative carbon removal solutions for the remaining 25% of its comprehensive footprint.
The new AI features, such as Genmoji and Image Playground, might affect Apple's ability to meet this target as generative AI is notoriously energy-hungry, leading to a significant amount of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions. Image generation, in particular, is one of the worst offenders in terms of energy consumption and emissions. Data centers used to train and run AI models have an even more voracious appetite for electricity than other data centers used for sending and storing digital messages and photos.
Each of these moves comes with energy and climate costs, making it more challenging for Apple to achieve its carbon neutrality goal by 2030. However, Apple has not yet provided specific information on how much energy the new AI features are expected to use, nor has it addressed how these features align with its climate goals.