M4 Mac Mini is Apple's First Carbon Neutral Mac

[GrantNeufeld]

It’s good that Apple are taking some concrete steps to improve things. But, as various others here have pointed out, there is still a long way for them to go to get to a fair position in relation to the environment.

Even if this were a real “net zero” (which others here have already pointed out is a fallacy when using “carbon credits” and such), that wouldn’t be enough.

“Net zero” might have been a reasonable goal a couple decades ago, but now we need “net negative”—both stopping new harm, and repairing past harms.

Folks here have already raised the issues of unnecessary obsolescence of functional equipment, of the unrepairability and unexpandability of most of Apple’s products, and the severe ecological costs associated with producing “Large Language Models” (never mind the massive ethical/legal violations also involved in the creation of those models).

There are also the decades, and decades, of environmentally harmful practices Apple (and our whole industry) have engaged in. If they are to truly be a “Green” business, they need to clean up—and atone for—the messes they have made.

 

[Stiksi]

The world’s still going to end regardless of whether or not it’s carbon neutral

The world will be fine. Humanity will be in hot water, though.

 

[BabyBoii]

It makes Shareholders feel better I think

agreed. and I think the fact that they have nets on their factories should be a higher priority...

 

[UnusedLoginID]

“…shipped using non-air modes of transportation, like ocean freight, from the factory to their next destination”
Ocean freight from inland China to the next airport??? I’m sure when I order my Mac Mini that it will not come via ocean freight to San Francisco or I might not get it for Christmas!
Why all this BS seriously…?

 

[im_to_hyper]

does anyone actually care about this?

The most important people of all to any corporation: the investors.

(And others who would prefer the planet not die before they’ve tripled their ROI)

 

[Chuckeee]

I care but I strongly suspect the Apple's claim is just Greenwashing. Yes they probably do use renewable energy in their assembly process, and yes using recycled materials is a good thing. But still the vast majority of the energy is related to the manufacturing of the components used for assembly. I strongly doubt that renewable energy is powering the fabrication of the chips or the recycling of the metals used (both very energy intensive tasks). To say nothing of the energy being consumed for all this LLM based AI nonsense.

As far as avoiding air transport, yes that saves energy but it also saves Apple a ton of money too.

 

[magicvash]

You know what would actually be carbon neutral (or negative!) and super environmentally?

User upgradable RAM and Storage using standard components to allow us to extend the life of our machines.

 

[osxster]

In fairness, carbon credits only make up a small portion of Apple’s carbon neutrality claim for this product. They claim to have reduced their own manufacturing emissions by more than 80%, which is no small feat.

If that is true, and I doubt it, that would make this no where even close to being slightly carbon neutral. Even if they use 100% recycled plastic for the case, their case would be 30% carbon neutral or likely less. Plastic needs to be melted down to be reformed. The process to do that requires a lot of fuel. Chips aren't recycled, nothing carbon neutral there. Gold could be recycled, so the gold needs to be melted down to be reformed, that would be 30% carbon neutral. Components need to be shipped across the world on boats, boxes need to be shipped, case, everything else. At most this thing is 10% carbon neutral.

 

[osxster]

I care but I strongly suspect the Apple's claim is just Greenwashing. Yes they probably do use renewable energy in their assembly process, and yes using recycled materials is a good thing. But still the vast majority of the energy is related to the manufacturing of the components used for assembly. I strongly doubt that renewable energy is powering the fabrication of the chips or the recycling of the metals used (both very energy intensive tasks). To say nothing of the energy being consumed for all this LLM based AI nonsense.

As far as avoiding air transport, yes that saves energy but it also saves Apple a ton of money too.

Also keep in mind recycling is not carbon neutral. Anything recycled is melted down and reformed. Sometimes recycling is carbon positive as it can require more carbon to reform the material than it does to make it fresh.

 

[Tago]

Used to do a bit of upgrading and stuff, but it simply makes no sense compared to selling off HW to someone happy with the performance and get something new / fresher 2nd hand. Replaceable batteries? I could always replace it on my iPhone (and MacBook Pro) but the cash is better spent on new hardware, moving the obsolete stuff on to recycling.

As far as carbon neutral energy for production, that`s fine. The caveat is that the "green energy" causes massive damages to nature. I`m all up for it if the plants makes sense. Trouble is, that the "green energy movement" believe one problem/issue shall be fixed no matter which consequences it has. Naive, and a huge mistake.

Recycling of what we have and dispose of, and new stuff made by those minerals/metals/++ is highly beneficial. If you couldn`t care less about the environment and climate (you probably should), it will at least help reducing the impact of PRC having secured control over a.o. rare metal resources whilst the western politicians have been busy minding their own profits ehh... business..

Recycling in combo with lower energy consumption for both production of hw and as a user is a good thing.

 

[Tago]

“…shipped using non-air modes of transportation, like ocean freight, from the factory to their next destination”
Ocean freight from inland China to the next airport??? I’m sure when I order my Mac Mini that it will not come via ocean freight to San Francisco or I might not get it for Christmas!
Why all this BS seriously…?

Well, if e.g. 80% of the stretches from factory to your desk is done by modern container ships, that`s pretty great.

"Your unit" can be (is) produced a long time before it`s allocated to you. Apple are pretty darn great at logistics.

 

[BGPL]

This is really the only redeeming thing that Apple does, and ultimately it makes sense for them financially, otherwise they wouldn't do it. They're not bragging about all the jobs they're adding in the US and Europe, because that would be expensive.

 

[AlexJaye]

This is a marketing scam. If Apple truly cared, we could upgrade the internals like RAM ourselves.

 

[Palliser]

The only thing being made lighter is my wallet.

 

[tim_apple]

Greenwashing! Yuck. No way this has a carbon footprint of zero. You telling me all the energy used in mining and running the whole manufacturing operation had no carbon footprint? What bollocks. Even renewable energy sources like wind and solar have a carbon footprint.

 

[Rustus Maximus]

Only the ones that pat themselves on the back.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Apple claims that the electricity that was used to manufacture the Mac mini is sourced from 100 percent renewable electricity, and the company says that its worldwide clean energy projects address 100 percent of the electricity that customers use to power their Mac mini devices.

This part is more greenwashing than actually being green.

I have an array of 40 panels generating 20 MWh per year in my backyard. This doesn't quite cover my annual power consumption (more like 25-30 MWh), but I receive $400 in "Renewable Energy Credits" each year from companies that want to claim that they had anything to do with the power coming from my panels.

But... they don't. I didn't put up the panels so I could receive this paltry sum for them (they cost me $40K... they won't last long enough for the RECs to cover the cost basis, nevermind the time-value of money). I put them up so I could use the power they produce. And I do - all the power is consumed by my house/cars.

Anyways, I accept their money for nothing. And they put out PRs about how they're carbon neutral or whatever, even though they did nothing. Unless Apple is actually building/using solar panels themselves, it's empty platitudes.

 

[GhostLodes]

I appreciate it, but until we can upgrade and repair said devices ourselves, it’s mostly lip service.

Not to mention the batteries in the disposable AirPods.

 

[maxoakland]

These are all great things

 

[maxoakland]

I appreciate it, but until we can upgrade and repair said devices ourselves, it’s mostly lip service.

That's a very good point. In a lot of ways newer Macs are a step down because we can't upgrade or repair them

 

[Adora]

Since they aren’t really doing much meaningful change on iPhones, how about they introduce a new design where the battery is the entire back and can quickly and easily come off and be swapped?

That’s the kind of environmental move and innovation I would readily applaud.

Keeping the environment clean would be even a good reason compared to religiously thinking producing less carbon in the air or even paying taxes to compensate it will prevent us from any temperature change in the future.

This is the best anti-ad. They already got too much money from me in the last two years.

 

[polyphenol]

That's a very good point. In a lot of ways newer Macs are a step down because we can't upgrade or repair them

I was thinking about my drawer full of ancient DIMMs - mostly removed from older machines in order to upgrade. Especially when the original RAM filled all sockets so upgrading required existing RAM to be removed and individually higher capacity DIMMs installed.

Upgrading feels like a good idea, I want the option. But if I have to chuck out what was originally installed, or keep it in drawers for decades, I'm not sure how much benefit it really is.

 

[svish]

Good to know. Expecting future Macs to be carbon neutral as well.

 

[kid1230]

glorified apple tv

 

[oldmacs]

Good start, but a long long way to go. Upgradability/repairability and putting an end to arbitrary software requirements are needed.