It's faster, it's cheaper, it's just as beautiful, and now it's greener--at least its packaging is. Apple, the same company that got bruised in its fistfight with Greenpeace last year, literally just announced that its new iPhone 3G, in all of the glory of its already unprecedented demand, will arrive next Friday outfitted in green packaging.
According to the Register, Apple has ordered millions of potato starch paper trays from PaperFoam, the same Dutch company that supplies Motorola with packaging its products. The result--a 90 percent reduction in carbon footprint over plastic and a tray made entirely from a natural resource, as opposed to the visually appealing but environmentally appalling Styrofoam my MacBook Pro arrived in.
Since the Greenpeace attack, Apple Chairman and CEO Steve Jobs personally committed to delivering a "Greener Apple" and to ridding the company's products of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), and its flat-panel displays of arsenic by the glass by the end of 2008. Apple is talking more about its products and their impact on the environment than ever before, and this announcement's convenient appearance just over a week before the new iPhone 3G's big launch is sure to keep the 3G's July 11th launch date in iPhone lovers' calendars.
Ryan Mickle is a regular writer for Triple Pundit who works with many of the consumer brands you know to advance their social responsibility through engaging stakeholders online. He lives in San Francisco and can be reached at ryan at triplepundit.com.
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Regarding that Greenpeace campaign: it was proven essentially baseless and inaccurate:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/ABC6DFDA-9DE9-4EA8-A269-65EAAB628676.html
Greenpeace is a wonderful organization; don't get me wrong. And they sure succeeded in putting pressure on Apple and other companies, so it's hard to describe this campaign and "bad", but I hate to see statistics and biased reporting anywhere, and I hold the organizations I actually admire to a higher standard than most.
@Allan: I totally agree on your points above and was aware that the validity of Greenpeace's claims was put into question. Perhaps I should have said "the sucker punch Apple received from Greenpeace."
I was actually impressed with the lack of "over packaging" when I bought a Mac a couple of months ago. Compared to other products the packaging did not fill a garbage bag.
I know that Apple and a few other companies are in the process of changing what their laptop shells are made out of to make them a little more green.
First... Hi Ryan!
Second... this is great to hear. I'm commenting on Digg, too... but just had to say I'm super pleased and inspired to hear they are doing away with the brominated flame retardants (BFRs) especially! It ain't easy being green, but I sure appreciate hearing they're trying.
As if the iPhone didn't already have a huge magnetic pull on me. Now this. Aagh! Must...buy...iPhone! But seriously, great to hear, thanks for sharing.
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