hmmm I must be "no one" then since I care about the fact that we are destroying the natural world at an astonishing pace and I want us to preserve this planet for the generations to come
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Apple Can No Longer Call Apple Watch 'Carbon Neutral' in Germany
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hmmm I must be "no one" then since I care about the fact that we are destroying the natural world at an astonishing pace and I want us to preserve this planet for the generations to come
Planting a tree doesn't offset the carbon footprint straight away, it takes decades to get the full benefit, so if the leased land is handed back to the owner and they deforest it, the carbon neutrality is gone, hey, but at least the owner can lease the land to someone else for a couple of years, let them claim carbon neutrality, deforest and repeat ad infinitum.
When they first announced that at the keynote, my first thought was that it was greenwashing humbug, when they started talking about carbon credits and planting trees to offset the manufacturing and distribution process.
By all means claim you have improved the process and reduced emissions and the use of harmful chemicals, carbon etc. That is all good, but don't ruin it by claiming "carbon neutrality" by using credits or planting trees...
By all means claim you have improved the process and reduced emissions and the use of harmful chemicals, carbon etc. That is all good, but don't ruin it by claiming "carbon neutrality" by using credits or planting trees...
... so what you are saying is that Apple should be allowed to lie in their advertisements?
Apple broke the laws for misleading and false advertising, and got dragged to court for it.
I don't know why you think that means Apple is getting "attacked" (by whoever "they" are) - they could have chosen to be truthful about their efforts to be carbon-neutral, but they didn't. That's the whole problem.
No, no other smartwatch manufacturer rates themselves that high. But still, it's kind of meaningless and suspect if apple does that - except for marketing purposes - isn't it?
Which doesn't help s*** if the trees don't persist for many years (no significant carbon offsetting will be happening in the first 10-15 years) or if climate tipping points are reached before that.
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They are repairable. Apple does it all the time. If you send your watch to Apple for a repair, Apple typically sends back a different watch to get you a replacement quickly. Apple, however, works on repairing your old watch, if possible (meaning if the case wasn't destroyed). This is done by replacing the screen, battery, etc. If it's not really repairable or worth Apple's time, Apple recycles it -- separating components to use in future devices.
Also, I suggest that rather than dispose of it when you are done with your Apple Watch you send it to Apple to recycle it. Apple will do that for free for you.
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So at least the other companies are not claiming they're something they're not. People with your attitude will be the first to whine when the droughts arrive.
The only proper CO2 compensation is with carbon capturing like Climeworks does https://climeworks.com/direct-air-capture
of all companies, it was originally British Petroleum that first created the concept of a corporate carbon trading system, and they didn't actually do it to protect the environment but to greenwash their environmentally disastrous actions so that governments would be less likely to regulate them tighter
personally, I think the whole concept of carbon offsetting is a crock of 💩
personally, I think the whole concept of carbon offsetting is a crock of 💩
Yes, but they are still disposable. Nearly everything, especially anything tech related these days is disposable, we are a consumer society.
My mother had a Sunbeam mixer as a wedding present in the early 60s. She used several times a week and the motor burnt out around 2003. I've had 5 mixers, that we have used a couple of times a month, that have broken over the last 25 years. Tech is even worse, what you buy today will be "obsolete" next year, according to the manufacturer, people and governments are rebelling against this, with the EU saying all devices have to be supported with spare parts for 10 years, but if they stop getting security updates after 5, they are still useless, if they have to be connected to the Internet.
Our Sony Bravia from 2015 is still going strong, but it hasn't been online since early 2017, when Sony stopped issuing security updates. Since then it has had 3 Amazon FireTVs and, currently, an Apple TV providing the "smart" part of the equation, so that has actually done fairly well, if you ignore the Internet and "smart" side of the equation.
It is the same for furniture, I bought a kitchen when I moved to Germany in 2002 and it still looks like new, but we moved into a new flat, where the landlord installed a kitchen, it is a year old and looks shabby, the doors are hanging etc. the same with the kitchen at work (which wasn't cheap, it is 3 years old and looking shabby around the edges). Wardrobes and lounge cabinets, when I was a kid, were made of solid wood, built to last, I had a pre-war wardrobe in my house in the UK, it was built like a bombshelter, the current wardrobes we can buy at Staas, Porta, Jysk or Ikea are all MDF sheets screwed together and covered in laminated plastic...
I'm on my second Apple Watch, but my Seiko from the 1990s is still going strong, as is a Casio I bought for motorbike riding around 2000. The Apple Watch SE I had stopped getting updates, the 10 will stop getting updates at some point as well, they are disposable, you might see the Seiko on an antiques TV show in a hundred years time, working, you won't be able to say that for an Apple Watch bought today.
This was almost twenty years ago when I had direct experience of how the credits were used, but one of the dubious issues with carbon credits was that actual emissions ( quite accurately calculated) being pumped out now by businesses could be offset by potential carbon reduction (not as accurately calculated, only predicted) which will happen in the future, by biomass plantations.
That's a problem. Potential and actual are not the same thing. It's like assuming your credit card limit is equivalent to cash in your pocket.
Because it is not as much as a direct equavalence ( carbon out - carbon in) as it is presented. To put it very simply, location of emission, location of the green area / biomass ( the carbon out does not happen close to the carbon in) and time ( the "carbon out" is not occurring at the same time as the "carbon in").
I commend Apple for its leading efforts to become carbon neutral by 2030.
Evidently, 75% of the emissions associated with its “carbon neutral” products have already been neutralized. Offsetting the remaining 25% with carbon credits is an important but challenging goal, yet how can one ensure that a newly planted forest will not eventually be cut down? If it is, the stored CO₂ would simply be released again. A concern that has been raised prominently in Germany.
I am confident, however, that Apple will use this challenge as an opportunity to develop more lasting and verifiable solutions for its sustainability efforts worldwide.
Evidently, 75% of the emissions associated with its “carbon neutral” products have already been neutralized. Offsetting the remaining 25% with carbon credits is an important but challenging goal, yet how can one ensure that a newly planted forest will not eventually be cut down? If it is, the stored CO₂ would simply be released again. A concern that has been raised prominently in Germany.
I am confident, however, that Apple will use this challenge as an opportunity to develop more lasting and verifiable solutions for its sustainability efforts worldwide.
The reduction of carbon in the air (for want of a better word) is a good and essential thing but, in reality "carbon neutral" is spin, as is really isn't possible to say a company, process or product is "carbon neutral' as 'carbon neutral' cannot be accurately quantified. You can't accurately calculate offsets in this way to the point where you can scientifically say "0%". Because of this "Carbon Neutral" is a aspirational marketing term, not a quantifiable number.
A bit like the red ring on an Apple Watch (to bring the thread back to where it started). It is motivational, but it should not be taken as fact, as it cannot accretive enough reading to be "fact".
As @klasma rightly pointed out earlier in the thread, this method of calculating "carbon neutral" is going to be dropped, and instead companies will have to focus on "carbon cost" of the specific life-cycle of a product, which is far more realistic.
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I appreciate all this. I was simply objecting to the implication that an Apple Watch must be thrown away when it stops working or that it can't be fixed at all.
Great idea. We should just not have crime, poverty, or suffering too!
“Don’t pollute” but there will be absolutely no downsides other than having literally nothing!
Obviously having no pollution isn't completely possible but it seems like many companies are not concerned about pollution as long as they can spend some money buying these credits.
You can’t really repair an Apple Watch for long. After just a few years Apple itself will refuse service because the device is labeled an “obsolete product.”
This weekend I was going through some family belongings and found something amazing: a Longines wristwatch dating back to before WWII. It must have belonged to my great-grandfather, since my late father (who passed away a decade ago) didn’t wear it. The watch had certainly not been wound or maintained for decades. Out of curiosity, I adjusted the time and strapped it on my wrist… and to my surprise, it worked flawlessly. Built 90 years ago, untouched for ages, yet still alive. Of course, if I wanted to wear it regularly it would make sense to service it—but the beauty is that any competent watchmaker could still take care of it.
That contrast really struck me. This isn’t a problem with Apple specifically—it’s the entire industrial system. Planned obsolescence is, in my view, one of the biggest hidden drivers of pollution. Instead of building things to last, every force in the market pushes in the opposite direction. And what’s worse, consumers have been convinced to play along.
Today, “new” is considered automatically better. Instead of valuing something proven—tested by time—we’re told to crave the thinnest, sleekest, most seamless design. People even prefer flimsy plastic panels that snap with hidden clips (risking breakage every time you open them) rather than solid pieces held by visible screws. Batteries? Forget standard, swappable ones. No, they must be custom, glued, non-removable—just to shave off a millimeter of thickness. Doors, compartments, screws: all sacrificed at the altar of design purity.
It’s a rotten mindset. And I don’t blame Apple in particular—I blame the hypocrisy of the whole system. We talk about being “green,” yet our industrial logic is the exact opposite, so stop to bother me with “green”. If we were serious, the rule would be:
- build products for maximum durability and reliability,
- invest R&D not in yearly performance bumps, but in standardization and long-term support,
- define a path of evolution where each technological improvement comes as a retrofit or upgrade, compatible with the older product.
Or think of when all batteries were just standard AA cells, not proprietary packs. I recently pulled out a 40-year-old toy from my childhood. Back then, its fatal flaw was that the batteries died in no time. This time, I dropped in modern Eneloop Pro cells—and suddenly it felt like it had infinite battery life! The product itself was fine; it just needed the benefit of newer battery tech.
Instead, everything today is disposable. Even cars. I drive a 1971 sports car that still works beautifully. But I can’t imagine any 2025 car still running in 2080. Not a chance.
If we truly care about sustainability, we need to completely flip the way we think about design: not towards endless replacement, but towards products that live endless —just like my great-grandfather’s watch still does today.
And let’s be honest: Apple carries more blame than the others. They were among the very first to push the sealed, non-upgradeable, non-repairable model — soldered RAM, glued batteries, all-in-one desktops where the screen dies with the computer, the removal of simple access doors… they pioneered this path and, more importantly, convinced consumers it was the “right” way forward. Everyone else simply copied. That’s why Apple’s sustainability narrative feels almost comical — like a professional hitman volunteering as an ambulance driver on weekends.
But the system itself is broken. Decades ago, you could buy a $1000 product and keep it alive with $100 repairs for 20 years. Today, you buy a $500 product and a single $250 repair already feels uneconomical once the device is slightly dated. This isn’t just “planned obsolescence” in the conspiratorial sense — it’s the byproduct of cheap mass production combined with the high labor cost of manual repair.
Maybe, in a distant future, AI-driven robots will repair our devices and 3D-print spare parts on demand, making it viable again to design for true long-term durability and cost effective repairs. Until then, we’re stuck in a cycle where replacement trumps repair — and yes, even steel recycling isn’t the infinite loop we like to imagine. Some high-grade alloys can’t simply be reused for the same purpose, so new extraction and new mining remain inevitable (again, performance vs. environment)
The biggest issue here, I think, isn't the items themselves becoming "old and useless", it is the lack of legacy support.
Your grandfather's watch is functional because he had a wrist and you have a wrist and wrists haven't changed that much. In the same way, if in good condition, a 50 year old bicycle will be fully usable because roads ( concrete or asphalt) are fundamentally the same then as now.
But an analogue mobile phone is now useless, even if the device is still fully functional, because there few, if any, analog phone networks still available for consumer use.
I have quite a few old Macs and other gear. The biggest problem is not that they are too old or too slow in and of themselves, a suitably old version of Word, say, doesn't run slower on a 68k Mac than it used to, so it's still usable, but it is extremely difficult to get these machines working effectively on modern networks and the internet.
I have a Mac Pro 5,1, where the latest version of MacOS that I can officially use is Mojave. That itself isn't a problem - I like Mojave and it runs very well on the machine. The problem is 3rd party software and security updates.
The best way to keep tech running longer is for companies to provide more legacy support for them. The devices themselves are often not the problem.
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Yep. A great example of this is the Mac Pro. With the AS Mac Pro, the major nail in the coffin is that Apple are not (s0 far) offering chip upgrades (they could, by offering to replace the whole logic board). The only reason to by a Mac Pro over the Mac Studio is the case itself ( if we include PCIe slots and cooling system as part of the case), but why would anyone pay a $3000 for a case that cannot be reused?
Well, my Apple Watch 7 will not even boot in 90 years because custom battery (impossible to find in a distant future, because today each single product, even the same product one year later has a different battery due very minimal design optimisation) but…
Yes. Many modern systems don’t fail just because the hardware wears out, but because of the ecosystem they depend on.
When I was a kid, computers weren’t connected to the internet. My father used a 286 to do accounting, run some offline programs (including a spreadsheet that no longer exists), and print results. Nothing stopped him from using it forever if it served its purpose. Today, keeping forever same computer would be effectively unusable for many tasks: if your goal is to browse the web, eventually it becomes slow, security bugs are discovered, hacking risks increase — and that’s not a conspiracy, it’s just a different context of use.
But many of the issues I mentioned affect all modern objects, it is not only the ecosystem. My aunt has a Vorwerk Thermomix from the 1970s that still works perfectly; my Thermomix from the 2000s turned out far less durable. Cars last less and are harder to repair. People care less about longevity. And the fact that objects are connected inherently reduces their lifespan — something we should think about very carefully.
Today, we want to connect everything. Eventually, even your toilet might be connected. So maybe we should connect only what really needs it. Do cars really need over-the-air updates? If updates stop or the manufacturer disappears, you’re exposed to bugs and attacks. A safer approach could be a closed system (updated via USB if needed), no infotainment but only permanent APIs to use cockpit screen. Then your phone handles all new features — no need to replace the car. In that sense, I actually appreciate Apple Car: updating the phone gives you new capabilities without touching the vehicle itself.
The problem is that, paraphrasing: the price of connection is eternal servitude.