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Apple announced today that its business is now powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources. The news is a major victory that the iPhone maker has been working toward for years through the purchase of green energy bonds and other renewable investments in its supply chain and physical infrastructure. The company’s last milestone, announced two years ago, was 93 percent of its worldwide operations running on clean energy.
The announcement comes just one week after Google announced that it now purchases enough renewable energy to offset its global energy consumption. Similarly, Apple’s global operations, including some suppliers in China and facilities in places without access to clean energy, are not technically 100 percent renewable, meaning not every single joule or electron used is initially created by wind, solar, or other green energy plants and farms.
For instance, Apple Stores that are powered by municipal power grids cannot reliably use clean energy because once electricity enters the grid, you can no longer determine its source or cleanliness. As a way to account for that, Apple purchases what are known as Renewable Energy Certificates, or RECs, which are a tradable commodity that guarantee the cleanliness of an energy source. (Think of it like the opposite of a carbon tax.) Apple also invests in wind, solar, and other clean energy facilities around the globe, builds its own energy sources, and ensures that any new offices and plants it constructs do actually run on 100 percent clean energy, like the newly opened Apple Park campus. The company says it also puts excess green energy into the grid, so it can be used by others.
Apple says its approach differs from others in the tech industry in some key ways. For one, the company says it always seeks to fund and build its own energy projects, and does so for around two thirds of all of its energy needs globally. “Where it’s not feasible to build our own generation, we sign long-term renewable energy purchase contracts, supporting new, local projects that meet our robust renewable energy sourcing principles,” reads the company’s 58-page Environmental Responsibility Report published last year. “In cases where we aren’t able to create new renewable energy projects ourselves due to local constraints, we directly purchase renewable energy from newer projects in nearby markets, or through available utility green energy programs. Apple says that when it purchases REQs, “we require that they are Green-e Energy certified and come from the same power grid—and preferably the same state — as the Apple facility they support.”
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