Apple released its 2024 Environmental Progress Report on April 18, 2024, four days before Earth Day. Covering primarily fiscal-year 2023 activity, the report said Apple had reduced its overall greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 55% from its 2015 baseline.
That was substantial reported progress, but it did not mean Apple had eliminated its emissions or that its products were impact-free. Apple’s longer-term Apple 2030 plan calls for a 75% reduction from 2015 levels, followed by measures to address remaining emissions and achieve carbon neutrality across its value chain by 2030. Because Apple has since published later environmental disclosures, the figures below should be understood as historical 2024-report data rather than Apple’s latest performance.
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What Apple announced before Earth Day
Apple’s announcement combined its 2024 Environmental Progress Report with Earth Day-related initiatives across its services, devices, retail operations and recycling programs. The central corporate claim was that Apple had cut its overall greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 55% since 2015.
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Apple’s stated Apple 2030 objective is carbon neutrality across its entire value chain by 2030. Its interim strategy is to reduce gross emissions by 75% from 2015 levels and then address residual emissions through carbon-removal measures.
The report was a disclosure by Apple. It was not, by itself, an independent finding that Apple had solved its environmental impact or that the 2030 target was certain to be achieved.
Read Apple’s April 18, 2024 announcement.
The 55% figure: important progress, but not zero emissions
Apple’s headline number is best understood as a reported reduction against a 2015 baseline. It does not mean that 55% of every product, component or factory became emissions-free, nor does it mean the company had reached its 2030 target.
The calculation involves different emissions categories, including:
- Scope 1: direct emissions from sources Apple controls.
- Scope 2: emissions associated with purchased electricity, depending on the accounting method used.
- Scope 3: value-chain emissions, including supplier manufacturing, materials, transportation, product use and end-of-life activities.
Apple’s environmental methodology explains how it models product life-cycle impacts, electricity use and other parts of its footprint. Changes in boundaries, emission factors, sales assumptions or calculation methods can affect comparisons over time, so a percentage reduction should be read alongside the report’s methodology rather than treated as a simple physical measurement of pollution avoided at every site.
Apple’s supplier renewable-energy figures also involve avoided emissions. Those estimates compare renewable electricity with a baseline or alternative electricity scenario. Avoided emissions should not be added mechanically to the separate 55% overall reduction, because the figures may describe overlapping parts of Apple’s accounting.
Apple’s environmental methodology answers
Why suppliers were the biggest lever
Apple said the majority of its progress came from electricity used in its global supply chain. According to the company, more than 320 suppliers had committed to using renewable electricity for Apple-related production. Those suppliers represented approximately 95% of Apple’s direct manufacturing spend.
Apple said its Supplier Clean Energy Program supported more than 16.5 gigawatts of renewable-energy capacity and generated more than 25.5 million megawatt-hours of clean energy in the preceding year. The company estimated that this avoided more than 18.5 million metric tons of carbon emissions.
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These numbers describe a supplier program and its attributed energy and emissions benefits; they do not mean Apple owned all of that generation or that every supplier facility operated entirely on physically traceable renewable electricity every hour. Renewable-energy procurement can involve project attribution, contracts or other accounting instruments, and the relevant facility, geography and time period matter.
Apple also reported progress on reducing energy demand. More than 100 supplier facilities achieved over 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity savings in the preceding year. Including additional savings, primarily associated with heat, Apple said the facilities avoided nearly 1.7 million metric tons of carbon emissions—25% more than in 2022.
Switching electricity sources and reducing electricity consumption address different problems. Renewable electricity can lower power-related emissions, but it does not automatically eliminate emissions from industrial processes, materials, logistics or product use. Apple was also working with display suppliers to reduce fluorinated greenhouse gases released during manufacturing.
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Recycled materials and product design
Apple highlighted several material milestones from the reporting period:
- 56% of the cobalt shipped in Apple batteries came from recycled sources.
- 24% of the lithium shipped in Apple batteries came from certified recycled sources.
- Apple described the M3 MacBook Air as its first product made with 50% recycled material.
- Apple used 100% recycled copper in selected thermal applications in the iPhone 15 and 16-inch MacBook Pro, as well as in Taptic Engines and printed circuit boards across several product lines.
- Across products shipped in 2023, 22% of material by weight came from recycled or renewable sources.
“Made with 50% recycled material” is a material-content claim. It does not mean half of every component was recycled, half of the product’s carbon footprint disappeared, or that the product was 50% recyclable.
Recycled content and recyclability are separate issues. A product may contain recycled material while still being difficult to repair or disassemble. Conversely, a more repairable product may contain little recycled content. Durability, repair access, reuse and end-of-life recovery all matter independently.
Packaging progress
Apple said the Apple Watch lineup and Apple Vision Pro received its first 100% fiber-based packaging. Across products shipped during the year, only 3% of packaging was made from plastic.
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Reuse, recycling and waste reduction
Apple said nearly 12.8 million devices and accessories were sent to new owners through AppleCare and programs such as Apple Trade In during the preceding year. Its stated hierarchy was to reuse a device or pass it to another user first, trade it in through Apple’s programs, and recycle it when it no longer had useful resale or reuse value.
Reuse can be environmentally valuable because keeping a device in service may defer production of a replacement. The benefit depends on what the second user would otherwise buy, how long the device remains in use and what happens when it finally reaches end of life. A reused device is not automatically a replacement for a newly manufactured device in every case.
Apple also highlighted its recycling machinery:
- Daisy: at the time of the 2024 announcement, the iPhone-disassembly robot could take apart 29 iPhone models into 15 discrete components.
- Dave and Taz: recycling machines deployed with a partner in China.
- Asset recovery: a new product sorter at Apple’s California facility and autonomous mobile robots for moving products and components.
Apple’s environment site later described Daisy as supporting 36 iPhone models. That is a later capability and should not be substituted for the 29-model figure when describing the April 2024 announcement. Neither figure proves that every Apple product is easy to recycle or that all returned devices are processed through Daisy.
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Apple reported that reusable air filters had been installed at every Apple data center worldwide. The company said the program avoided sending approximately 25 tons of dirty filters to landfill each year and cut fan energy use by 35%. Data-center waste diversion rose from 64% to 90% over five years.
Apple also said more than 100 retail stores, offices and data centers had LEED or BREEAM certification. It was developing more than 18 million square feet of green-building space, while its Battersea campus and retail store diverted 99% of construction waste from landfill. Building certifications measure performance against specified criteria; they do not establish that a building is carbon-neutral over its full life cycle.
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Apple said it prioritized direct emissions reductions and used carbon-removal projects for residual emissions that were difficult to eliminate with available technology.
The report discussed the Restore Fund, including sustainable-forestry projects developed with Goldman Sachs and Conservation International, a second phase with Climate Asset Management, and participation by suppliers including TSMC and Murata. Apple also described regenerative-agriculture and ecosystem-restoration projects in Portugal, Spain and Australia.
Three concepts should be kept separate:
- Emissions reduction: less greenhouse gas is released.
- Carbon removal: carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and stored, often in biological systems.
- Avoided emissions: emissions are estimated to have been prevented compared with a counterfactual scenario.
A forest project does not erase the same emissions in the same way as eliminating fossil-fuel use at a factory. Nature-based projects also involve questions about additionality, measurement, permanence, leakage, land-use effects and reversal risk. Forests can burn, be cut down or lose stored carbon through changing conditions. Consequently, Restore Fund investments should not be described as equivalent to eliminating Apple’s remaining operational or supply-chain emissions.
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Water, communities and Earth Day activities
Apple’s Earth Day communications also covered clean-energy investment in underserved communities, water and sanitation programs, watershed restoration and water-efficiency initiatives. Apple described a planned solar project in Spain with ib vogt that was expected to generate 105 megawatts when operational by the end of 2024.
These projects may provide meaningful community or environmental benefits, but they are not automatically one-for-one reductions in Apple’s reported carbon footprint. They should be evaluated separately from Apple’s core emissions accounting.
The Earth Day campaign also included an Apple Watch activity recognition, environmental education and discussion materials, curated environmental content across Apple services, and consumer recycling and device-reuse options. Those activities were promoted alongside the report, but they are not equivalent to measured corporate or supply-chain emissions reductions.
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| Apple reported | That does not necessarily prove |
|---|---|
| More than a 55% reduction in overall emissions since 2015 | That Apple has zero emissions or has already met Apple 2030 |
| More than 16.5 GW of supplier renewable capacity | That every supplier factory runs on renewable electricity at every hour |
| More than 18.5 million metric tons of emissions avoided | That avoided emissions can be added directly to the 55% reduction |
| 22% recycled or renewable material by weight in products shipped in 2023 | That products are equally repairable, durable or recyclable |
| Carbon-removal investments through the Restore Fund | That nature-based removals permanently cancel all residual emissions |
| Nearly 12.8 million devices and accessories sent to new owners | That every reused device displaced a new purchase |
The remaining challenge
Apple reported more than halfway progress toward its 75% gross-reduction goal, but the remaining work is not necessarily easy. Supplier process emissions, lower-carbon materials, logistics, product manufacturing, customer electricity use and growth in the number of devices sold can all affect the result.
The final portion of a reduction target can be particularly difficult because it may involve emissions that are technically or economically harder to eliminate. Carbon removal can address residual emissions, but it does not replace the need for continued gross reductions, transparent accounting and credible safeguards for land-based projects.
For readers evaluating Apple’s claims, the most useful questions are: What metric is being reported? What is the boundary? Which baseline and year are being used? Is the figure a reduction, an avoided emission, recycled content or waste diversion? Is it independently assured? And what trade-offs or risks remain?
How current are these figures?
Apple released this report in April 2024 and primarily reported fiscal-year 2023 activity. By August 2026, Apple’s environment site listed later progress reports, including 2026 material. Therefore, the 55% figure and the associated supplier, materials and recycling statistics are best treated as a historical account of what Apple reported in 2024—not as Apple’s latest environmental performance.
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See Apple’s current environment disclosures and its environmental reports archive.
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