I would welcome everyone to look at EPEAT's standards so that we all can better guess why exactly Apple has decided to pull its products from EPEAT. But they will be guesses regardless until Apple divulges their exact reasons.
Some of you will decide it's because Apple is doing the wrong thing and others will, myself included, decide that it's because the standards were created (and agreed to even by Apple) at a time when manufacturing processes were different than they are today and because the standards haven't changed, while Apple's production processes and business has.
If you review the ieee 1680 standards, you'll note that it includes things like the requirement for upgradability (with common tools), a 3 year service contract, product life extension (up to 5 years) and easy disassembly of external enclosures.
Most of these things sound reasonable, but they also sound like things that were created years ago. You can argue that you want to be able to pull and replace ram or an ssd or whatever, but tech, like with automobiles, is moving beyond the days when you could swap out parts (easily) at home. Life is full of examples where you used to be able to fix things yourself, but times change. Should we all be expecting that our cars are made using phillips head screws and carburetors that we can take apart ourselves?
My issue with EPEAT and to a greater extent ISO and other groups like this, including one that I've been dealing with for years in the paper industry, FSC (forest stewardship council), is that they misinform the general public what exactly they are, whether that is on purpose or not. ISO certification doesn't make a company greener or better for the environment - 14001 for example "does not state requirements for environmental performance, but maps out a framework that a company or organization can follow to set up an effective environmental management system." But companies tout their 14001 certification as if that makes them a green company and the general public (if they know anything about ISO 14001) thinks the company is all good. The same goes for 9000 or 9001 certification. Do you know what 9001:2008 certification represents?
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be certified to any standards certification body, but it's not what most people think it is and may in fact have no real bearing on whether a company is doing the right thing, be it for the environment, the customer or the company stateholders.
FSC has done a great job in marketing to designers of printed pieces - check out your latest copy of just about any major retailer catalog you get in the mail for the FSC logo on the back. Consumers (or in this case designers and the companies they work for) think that an FSC certified paper means it is some magically better paper for the environment (a paper not made with redwood or some other Amazonian rainforest trees). They don't know that FSC allows trading of the FSC badge to occur and if a company is willing to pay the money, can be certified regardless of whether they're effectively tracking chain of custody of the paper/pulp/wood product. So when my company produces a product that isn't FSC certified (because we're the only company in the world doing what we do and FSC would need to charge us extra to create a category for us), we may lose out on getting a piece of business with a company that demands FSC certification. Of course when we tell people the reality behind what we produce, how we have from the beginning gone so far beyond what FSC requires (simple tracking of the wood through the system) it is an eye opener for them.
Some of you will decide it's because Apple is doing the wrong thing and others will, myself included, decide that it's because the standards were created (and agreed to even by Apple) at a time when manufacturing processes were different than they are today and because the standards haven't changed, while Apple's production processes and business has.
If you review the ieee 1680 standards, you'll note that it includes things like the requirement for upgradability (with common tools), a 3 year service contract, product life extension (up to 5 years) and easy disassembly of external enclosures.
Most of these things sound reasonable, but they also sound like things that were created years ago. You can argue that you want to be able to pull and replace ram or an ssd or whatever, but tech, like with automobiles, is moving beyond the days when you could swap out parts (easily) at home. Life is full of examples where you used to be able to fix things yourself, but times change. Should we all be expecting that our cars are made using phillips head screws and carburetors that we can take apart ourselves?
My issue with EPEAT and to a greater extent ISO and other groups like this, including one that I've been dealing with for years in the paper industry, FSC (forest stewardship council), is that they misinform the general public what exactly they are, whether that is on purpose or not. ISO certification doesn't make a company greener or better for the environment - 14001 for example "does not state requirements for environmental performance, but maps out a framework that a company or organization can follow to set up an effective environmental management system." But companies tout their 14001 certification as if that makes them a green company and the general public (if they know anything about ISO 14001) thinks the company is all good. The same goes for 9000 or 9001 certification. Do you know what 9001:2008 certification represents?
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be certified to any standards certification body, but it's not what most people think it is and may in fact have no real bearing on whether a company is doing the right thing, be it for the environment, the customer or the company stateholders.
FSC has done a great job in marketing to designers of printed pieces - check out your latest copy of just about any major retailer catalog you get in the mail for the FSC logo on the back. Consumers (or in this case designers and the companies they work for) think that an FSC certified paper means it is some magically better paper for the environment (a paper not made with redwood or some other Amazonian rainforest trees). They don't know that FSC allows trading of the FSC badge to occur and if a company is willing to pay the money, can be certified regardless of whether they're effectively tracking chain of custody of the paper/pulp/wood product. So when my company produces a product that isn't FSC certified (because we're the only company in the world doing what we do and FSC would need to charge us extra to create a category for us), we may lose out on getting a piece of business with a company that demands FSC certification. Of course when we tell people the reality behind what we produce, how we have from the beginning gone so far beyond what FSC requires (simple tracking of the wood through the system) it is an eye opener for them.
