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The Talk Show

188: ‘Apple VP Lisa Jackson’

 

00:00:00   Hey there, it's me, John Gruber, host of the talk show.

00:00:04   And I'm here to do a little introduction

00:00:06   for what is a very special episode.

00:00:09   I have an interview with Lisa Jackson,

00:00:12   Vice President at Apple of Environment Policy.

00:00:16   Pretty much everything Apple does

00:00:17   with regard to the environment.

00:00:18   I think it went great.

00:00:20   I think it was a fascinating interview.

00:00:21   She's super smart, super funny.

00:00:23   We talked for about an hour.

00:00:25   And it is interruption free.

00:00:26   Once I get going with Lisa,

00:00:29   It's just going to go straight through.

00:00:30   It's just under an hour.

00:00:32   And how is that possible?

00:00:33   It's made possible because we've made a deal

00:00:34   to have an exclusive sponsor for this episode.

00:00:38   I'm going to tell you about them right now.

00:00:40   Give me a minute of your time to tell you

00:00:41   about Circle with Disney.

00:00:44   Circle with Disney is a beautiful little device

00:00:47   designed for families to manage content and time online

00:00:51   for the kids and the whole family.

00:00:53   It lets you, it's not about controlling everything

00:00:56   your kid does on the internet,

00:00:58   But it's about giving you, the parent, some sort of say

00:01:01   in what they do online, how long they spend,

00:01:03   and when they do it.

00:01:05   What can it do?

00:01:05   It lets parents filter content, customizing what's available

00:01:08   and what's filtered by app, platform, and category.

00:01:11   You can set time limits for things like YouTube, Minecraft,

00:01:14   Facebook, Netflix, and even Snapchat.

00:01:16   If your kids are staying up too late on the internet,

00:01:19   you can set bedtime for each kid and their devices.

00:01:22   And they have something called Insights,

00:01:24   which is sort of an analysis of what everybody in your family

00:01:27   is doing online when they do it, sort of an accounting.

00:01:32   So you can see just how much time your family

00:01:34   is spending on the internet.

00:01:36   What about 4G?

00:01:37   What about LTE?

00:01:38   They have a separate product called Circle Go,

00:01:41   which you can install on your kid's smartphone.

00:01:43   And it gives you the same sort of control over their access

00:01:46   when they're on the cellular network or any other Wi-Fi

00:01:48   network other than your own.

00:01:50   So here's the deal.

00:01:51   You buy the Circle with Disney.

00:01:52   It's this little device that plugs right in to your router.

00:01:55   works with just about any modern Wi-Fi router in your house.

00:01:58   Could not be easier to set up, and it could not

00:02:00   be easier to manage.

00:02:02   This is not something that turns you, as a parent,

00:02:04   into a system administrator setting up some kind

00:02:06   of complicated network.

00:02:07   No, it's meant for non-technical parents.

00:02:09   It's total Disney style interface.

00:02:12   Really great product.

00:02:13   You can get it at Amazon, Best Buy, Target.

00:02:18   And online, you can go to their website, meetcircle.com.

00:02:21   Now, that's not like beef.

00:02:23   It's not M-E-A-T. It's M-E-E-T.

00:02:24   like you're meeting them meet circle calm use the code the talk show at meet

00:02:31   circle calm and you'll get free shipping and $10 off your circle with Disney

00:02:36   device they're a proud sponsor of the talk show they sponsored before and

00:02:39   they're very much excited to be the sponsor of this show because Disney is

00:02:44   very encouraged by Lisa Jackson's efforts at Apple around environmental

00:02:47   policy and her work on Apple's connect ed program so they're very excited to be

00:02:53   the sponsor of the show, exclusive. So my thanks to them. And then here we go, away

00:02:59   with the show. So we met briefly a few weeks ago when I was on campus for the

00:03:06   Mac Pro thing, and the first words out of your mouth were...

00:03:11   We talked about Jekyll and baseball. You said, "How can a guy from Philly be a

00:03:17   Yankees fan. That's true. That's true. I don't understand that at all. But all right, you

00:03:24   can be if you want to. A Mets fan. Mets for life. Are there any Yankees fans at Apple?

00:03:29   I get it from Schiller. He's a Red Sox fan. Steve Dowling, Red Sox fan. And now I found

00:03:35   out you're a Mets fan. Yeah, I married into the Mets and I can't ever be without them.

00:03:40   But yeah, I don't know. If they're around, maybe they're just not holding their head

00:03:44   up too high these days. I'm sure they're all gonna come and find me after this airs, but they're here.

00:03:51   Well, if there are any Yankees fans at Apple, you should go after Lisa Jackson. Thanks. That's all I

00:03:58   need. There aren't any people in the world going after Lisa Jackson, so let's just add them to the

00:04:02   list. We won't talk baseball, but so far so good for both the Yankees and Mets. They're both off

00:04:08   to a good start.

00:04:09   So neither of us really has anything

00:04:12   to rib the other about.

00:04:14   Always about the bullpen, right?

00:04:16   But we'll see.

00:04:17   OK.

00:04:17   Well, we'll keep our fingers crossed.

00:04:19   And hopefully I won't talk to you later

00:04:21   if things go the wrong way.

00:04:23   We are talking because this episode will

00:04:26   air right before Earth Day.

00:04:29   And Earth Day is big.

00:04:31   Starting to do an annual celebration for Apple.

00:04:33   You guys have announcements that coincide with Earth Day

00:04:37   every year now.

00:04:38   Yeah, that's right. It's something we started back in 2014.

00:04:44   This year, I have notes here. Let me make sure I don't miss anything. By the time this

00:04:52   episode airs, your 2017 Environmental Responsibility Report will be out, and you have a big announcement

00:04:59   there, which is that you guys are setting a new goal, which is a closed-loop supply

00:05:05   chain. Can you tell me what that means?

00:05:07   - That sounds so technical.

00:05:09   You know, what we've said is that,

00:05:12   for years now we've said that one of our three priorities

00:05:15   is to really recognize the fact that the resources

00:05:19   that we use to make our products are finite,

00:05:22   just by definition.

00:05:23   And the world has been looking for a while at this idea

00:05:27   of trying to close the loop on supply chains.

00:05:29   So if you think about most supply chains,

00:05:31   and ours is very complex, I'm gonna oversimplify you,

00:05:35   you mine something out of the earth,

00:05:36   you source it, usually it comes from the earth somehow, it's a finite resource.

00:05:41   And then you manufacture, you produce it, obviously there are many, many people involved

00:05:45   in the manufacture of our products.

00:05:47   People use them, they buy them, they use them, that's great, hopefully they use them for

00:05:50   a very long time, they get all their software upgrades, everything's wonderful, but at some

00:05:55   point you have to discard it.

00:05:57   And Apple spent a lot of time and effort over the years, for many years, on the recycling

00:06:03   you know, being able to try to bring used electronics in and recycle them.

00:06:09   But the frustrating part of that has been, you know, that's still a line.

00:06:13   When it's time to make more products, many of our suppliers still go back to the mines,

00:06:18   if you will, go back to the earth.

00:06:20   So one of the things we've set our sights on, and I have to start by saying this is

00:06:24   a very long-term goal, and it's not like us to announce goals way out into the future,

00:06:29   but it's sort of a north star for us, is to start to close that loop, to say, "Can we

00:06:34   use recycled material, maybe our recycled material, but recycled material in general,

00:06:40   to be more of the feedstocks for our suppliers, for the components that make up our products?"

00:06:45   So if you think about that for a second, it requires all of us working together.

00:06:50   It's kind of a systems problem, everything from design to engineering to manufacturing

00:06:55   to procurement, all those relationships with suppliers.

00:07:00   But it's really something kind of cool for us.

00:07:02   We've sort of worked with a lot of the folks who

00:07:05   do the work here.

00:07:06   And I think all of us think it's just

00:07:07   a fun and really important time to focus on resources.

00:07:12   What are-- you said you have-- there's

00:07:14   three priorities, three main priorities at Apple

00:07:16   in this regard.

00:07:17   What are those three priorities?

00:07:19   So they haven't changed, and I don't think they will.

00:07:21   The first is to address climate change.

00:07:24   And I say it really broadly that way

00:07:27   because it's not to zero out our carbon footprint

00:07:31   or to become carbon neutral,

00:07:33   but really to look at climate change

00:07:35   as a problem that the world is facing,

00:07:37   really the largest environmental

00:07:38   and environmental health problem

00:07:40   and economic problem in many places.

00:07:42   We now see it's another big systems problem.

00:07:46   And so to address it,

00:07:49   obviously the way to address it is energy efficiency,

00:07:52   more renewable energy, cleaner energy on the grid,

00:07:55   moving to a low carbon world.

00:07:58   And so we take really seriously our responsibility

00:08:01   to first start at home.

00:08:03   Apple is 100% renewably powered in 24 countries,

00:08:08   including our own, I'm sorry, is 96% renewably powered.

00:08:12   I'm about to get in trouble here.

00:08:14   In 24 countries, we're 100%.

00:08:17   So in the US, we're 100% and 23 other countries.

00:08:21   but when you average it out around the world, we're at 96%.

00:08:24   And that includes our data centers, those are at 100%.

00:08:28   So all of our data centers, every time you send a message

00:08:32   or send a FaceTime video, you're using a data center

00:08:36   that's not contributing to climate change.

00:08:39   And it includes our offices, our new office, Apple Park,

00:08:42   of course, being one of those.

00:08:44   So 96%, we're really proud of.

00:08:48   So climate change is number one.

00:08:50   We talked a little bit about resources, number two.

00:08:54   And our third one kind of goes back to something

00:08:57   that's been in our history for a long time,

00:08:59   and that's to use greener materials to remove toxic materials

00:09:04   usually well ahead of the game.

00:09:07   Apple removed halogenated compounds

00:09:10   from our products years ago.

00:09:12   And so we wanted to sort of honor this history

00:09:15   that Apple has had of pioneering the use of greener,

00:09:18   safer, better materials, and then keep that as one of our priorities. Because

00:09:24   there's a lot of people here very proud of the work they do to accomplish, for

00:09:28   example, PVC free power cords. Yes, and that's become, you can bank on it,

00:09:37   a hallmark of every product introduction event is at some point

00:09:43   there's going to be that green checklist, and it's not something that gets rushed

00:09:47   through. It is, let's pause for a second. We want to tell you how awesome this product is,

00:09:52   but we want to pause right now and just say, look at this. It's PVC free, this free, that free.

00:09:59   That's become a, you can bank on it for every product.

00:10:02   Yeah, I'm almost hoping it gets to the point where everyone says it along with us. And, you know,

00:10:08   because Phil Schiller is usually the one who does it. The secretary explaining things, I call him.

00:10:17   But, you know, he usually takes the time to really explain, you know, the products and

00:10:22   all they do.

00:10:23   And it makes me really proud that he always insists that one of the things he wants to

00:10:26   explain is the time that it takes.

00:10:29   I mean, are the materials that aren't in there.

00:10:32   And I think it's partially because he realizes how much deep innovation and engineering it

00:10:37   takes to make those decisions, to take those materials out.

00:10:41   And a lot of times with pollution, it's, you know, you're talking about the stuff that

00:10:45   didn't happen.

00:10:46   So that can be a hard thing for most people to appreciate or understand, but it's always

00:10:51   really cool that Apple takes the time to do that.

00:10:55   And part of what makes it difficult for Apple in particular is that Apple has very high

00:11:02   standards.

00:11:03   What the company is known for in consumers' minds, part of the brand, is that their stuff

00:11:07   is very nice.

00:11:09   It is nice in terms of, it just looks nice, it feels nice.

00:11:14   And sometimes, I think in the past, some of the reason that some of these substances and

00:11:20   materials that were used that are not environmentally friendly were used, it was because such and

00:11:26   such thing makes the glass shinier or something like that.

00:11:29   And so it's for Apple, it's not, we can't just get rid of, it's like you can't just

00:11:32   get rid of it.

00:11:35   You have to get rid of it and still keep the standards for the devices and the quality

00:11:39   of the materials as high as possible.

00:11:42   And I think that's true.

00:11:43   True. I mean, I wasn't in the labs when work was being done.

00:11:47   I think there's also an element of sort of that's the way it's always been done.

00:11:51   So power cords is a great example.

00:11:55   You know, do you need polyvinyl chloride in the power cord in order to

00:11:59   make it strong enough and safe enough? Well, pretty much around the world,

00:12:03   Apple has worked to get certified power cords that don't have them.

00:12:07   They do feel different. They are softer. But there's a really important reason

00:12:11   why, which is that those materials are never introduced anywhere in the supply,

00:12:15   which is really sort of a prevention of pollution for our workers and for the

00:12:20   communities where manufacturing happens. I think it's also a bit of a nod

00:12:26   to the folks in the environmental testing and technologies group. You know,

00:12:31   we have an environmental testing lab here and it's grown over the years. I was

00:12:36   actually there yesterday, day before, can't even remember, the week is going by fast.

00:12:42   But you know, we also have to test the parts that we get, and one of the things we've been

00:12:47   doing is testing, so far I think it's over 20,000 individual parts, because a lot of

00:12:52   things end up in a part. We might specify how we want the part to behave and what we

00:12:57   want in it, but a lot of times there is material that are in there that maybe you don't need,

00:13:02   or maybe you don't realize, or maybe we want to make sure

00:13:05   it is substituted out.

00:13:06   And so we're also spending a lot of time,

00:13:08   it's almost like our own little DNA project,

00:13:11   you know, learning and understanding intimately

00:13:14   what are in the parts that we get from our suppliers.

00:13:17   - One of the things, I don't want to skip around too much,

00:13:21   but-- - Okay.

00:13:22   (laughing)

00:13:23   I tend to do that, so.

00:13:24   - Part, I do too, I do too.

00:13:26   But a lot of this stuff is interrelated.

00:13:28   It's like all of a sudden we're talking about

00:13:31   the materials that are used in these devices,

00:13:35   and it leads you immediately to talking about aspects

00:13:38   of the supply chain.

00:13:41   But part of the news this week is a series

00:13:44   of four short videos, animated videos, by James Blagdon.

00:13:49   And I got a sneak look at them ahead of this so I can see it.

00:13:52   But by the time the show airs, they'll be out.

00:13:54   And they're really kind of interesting,

00:13:56   but they cover different aspects of it.

00:13:59   One of them covers the goal of having no--

00:14:07   correct me if I'm wrong, but the goal

00:14:08   is to have no waste going to landfills from the supply

00:14:12   chain?

00:14:13   Yeah, right now the video covers our final assembly facilities.

00:14:17   So that's why you'll see in the video an emphasis on material

00:14:23   coming in, which is what happens at those facilities.

00:14:26   A lot of material and parts come in,

00:14:28   and then they're assembled and a product goes out the door.

00:14:31   But yeah, so the emphasis is on this idea.

00:14:34   And it's not a new idea, but I think Apple is really

00:14:37   embracing it.

00:14:38   We have facilities now, all of our final assembly facilities

00:14:43   in--

00:14:45   we have a facility in Cork.

00:14:46   We have facilities in China.

00:14:48   We have a facility in Brazil.

00:14:50   And our facility here in California

00:14:52   are now certified by UL as zero waste.

00:14:57   And it was, you know, this classic environment versus, you know, economy argument that's so false.

00:15:06   And it was so evident because the reason this started was looking at a problem and thinking,

00:15:11   oh, we just got all this material in its waste and thinking, oh, the answer is recycling.

00:15:16   But really, the answer is to think smart about why are so many things coming in but leaving empty?

00:15:22   And can they go back?

00:15:23   Can you take a pallet or can you take a tray that contains material and send it back so

00:15:28   it can be used over and over again?

00:15:31   And that saves money.

00:15:32   Some people really embraced it.

00:15:35   It's not always easy to see that path towards saving money, but everybody feels really good

00:15:41   about the idea of not having to send waste to a landfill in order to produce our products.

00:15:48   In other words, it's sort of, in the common sense

00:15:52   of the word, it's kind of like a simpler form of recycling,

00:15:55   where instead of having, and again,

00:15:58   you think about the magnitude of it,

00:16:00   and sometimes it just boggles the mind

00:16:03   where they're talking about assembly facility

00:16:06   that is turning out 150,000 iPhones a day, which is crazy.

00:16:10   And you just think, well, every single one of those iPhones

00:16:13   has a touch ID sensor, and it comes in a tray.

00:16:17   And if you can just have those trays that were used to deliver the touch ID sensors

00:16:23   in the morning go back out and the same tray is being used to deliver the touch ID sensor

00:16:29   in the afternoon, it's sort of like recycling without actually having to go through all

00:16:33   the process of actually remulching the material and turning it into a new tray.

00:16:41   Why turn a tray that was used once into another tray when you could just reuse the tray?

00:16:45   Yeah, exactly.

00:16:46   I mean, it's that old adage of reduce, reuse, and recycle is part of it, but it shouldn't

00:16:52   be the first place we go.

00:16:55   And I kind of like the way you're explaining it, because part of our thought of these videos

00:17:00   was, you know, not everyone at home has a final assembly facility, but they do have

00:17:05   the opportunity to think the same way about the waste that they might produce.

00:17:12   And we really wanted to connect our customers first to what we do, but also maybe to spark

00:17:19   in them the thoughts of, "Hey, that's a really interesting way of thinking about life in

00:17:24   general, and maybe it applies a little to me.

00:17:27   Maybe they won't make that connection."

00:17:28   But really just sort of make it simple, maybe thought-provoking, and to reach people where

00:17:34   they are.

00:17:35   But also it gave us a chance, the video you're talking about gave John a chance to tell his

00:17:41   story.

00:17:42   cool stories at Apple of people who don't have to, but want to do the right thing and

00:17:47   figure out through maybe a little bit of trial and error.

00:17:51   John has a little bit of a trial and error moment in that short video, but they figure

00:17:56   out what to do.

00:17:57   And then the beauty of Apple, of course, is once we figure out what to do, we learn how

00:18:02   to do it at scale pretty quickly.

00:18:04   Yeah, I've noticed it.

00:18:06   My son is in seventh grade, and it's not like a rule.

00:18:10   It's not like they're told everybody has to come in with it, but as far as I can tell,

00:18:13   every kid comes into school every day with a thermos or an aluminum water bottle.

00:18:21   And so for drinking water, nobody brings in the retail bottles of water.

00:18:27   Every kid comes in with a little thermos that they just fill with cold water at the beginning

00:18:31   of the day.

00:18:32   Yeah, and they don't see it, right?

00:18:34   I'm guessing your son doesn't see it as a pain or anything weird.

00:18:39   actually just thinks of it as the way to drink water.

00:18:41   Yeah, exactly.

00:18:42   No, it doesn't.

00:18:43   My son is considerably older than yours, but I was talking to him yesterday, and I said,

00:18:49   "What did you have for lunch?"

00:18:50   I didn't eat.

00:18:51   I said, "Oh."

00:18:52   So then as a mom, I'm upset.

00:18:53   But then I'm like, "What did you do?"

00:18:54   He's like, "I drank water all day."

00:18:56   I was like, "How do you do that?"

00:18:57   He said, "I brought a water bottle from home, Ma.

00:18:59   Just like, leave me alone."

00:19:01   But it's not a big deal, and it's not seen as like you don't need to buy this bottled

00:19:08   It's right there. It's for us. It's actually one of the blessings we have in this country is a

00:19:13   Mostly secure supply a clean drinking water. Yeah, but it's it that's exactly it though

00:19:18   It just seems it just comes naturally to two kids today

00:19:21   It doesn't it doesn't seem like they they don't even see it as like oh, I'm doing my good deed for the environment

00:19:26   It's just this just makes sense

00:19:28   Absolutely, and I sometimes wonder like what things what other things will be that way. I know climate change will be that way

00:19:37   So but you know you just you wonder what other things will sort of be baked in with an ethic

00:19:42   That's a lot more thoughtful about the planet and sort of your role in the planet

00:19:46   One of the other videos

00:19:50   Again, skipping around a little bit, but it's okay. It's all in your purview

00:19:54   one of them focused on the new

00:19:58   Apple Park and how the the building is

00:20:05   I don't think it's a stretch to say that it's an innovative design to cooling, that it's

00:20:13   a combination of cold water running through pipes and sort of a breathable, let the wind

00:20:19   blow through the building to circulate.

00:20:24   Can you tell me more about that?

00:20:25   Yeah.

00:20:26   You know, so these will be out and hopefully everybody will see them.

00:20:29   But if you haven't seen the building with Dan Wisenhunt, who's done a lot of the work

00:20:35   overseeing the construction of Apple Park, Dan talks about the way the building was designed

00:20:45   by Foster and Partners to be a breathing building.

00:20:48   And he does a lovely job, and Blagdon does a great job of sort of illustrating the idea

00:20:53   of here's the typical building, and here's how this one works.

00:20:57   Now, you know, we have kind of a, we have an advantage.

00:21:01   First off, we're in, you know, Silicon Valley in Cupertino,

00:21:06   and the climate here is mild,

00:21:09   although it can get pretty warm in the summer.

00:21:11   It's not New Orleans hot, like what I'm used to,

00:21:13   but it's hot, you get warm, but 75% of--

00:21:17   - I was gonna mention Philadelphia humidity,

00:21:19   but you trumped me with New Orleans.

00:21:21   - You know, I think they're almost the same.

00:21:23   It's the same as DC.

00:21:24   People say, "Oh, New Orleans is so hot,"

00:21:26   And I'm like, no, it's not as hot in the summer

00:21:28   when it's humid.

00:21:29   There's just nothing like it.

00:21:31   But you know, 75% of the time at Apple Park,

00:21:35   we're estimating that there won't be a need

00:21:37   for additional air conditioning.

00:21:39   And you're right, the building sort of is designed

00:21:41   to have this flow of air.

00:21:43   It would be sort of convection into the building

00:21:47   through these louvers and then past concrete

00:21:50   that has cool water circulating in it.

00:21:53   And that should be enough.

00:21:54   And it is also designed to have a lot of air do that.

00:21:57   And so, you know, there's lots of studies that show

00:22:01   that sort of outside air, sun,

00:22:04   sort of is actually the environment we humans

00:22:07   are meant to be in,

00:22:07   not these artificially conditioned environment.

00:22:11   And the building is on track to be certified

00:22:15   by the US Green Building Council as LEED Platinum.

00:22:18   That's their highest certification for environment

00:22:22   and energy efficiency and smartness.

00:22:25   And so we're really proud of that

00:22:26   'cause it includes the R&D facilities.

00:22:28   It's really a R&D park as much as it's an office building.

00:22:32   So it's gonna be exciting.

00:22:34   I'm thrilled for the day we actually move in,

00:22:38   although I know it's gonna be a little bit of madness,

00:22:40   but it'd be awful fun.

00:22:42   - Moving is always madness.

00:22:44   Moving the world's largest corporation across town

00:22:48   is really, I don't know.

00:22:50   - What could go wrong, really?

00:22:52   All right, here's a question that I have.

00:22:57   And I would like, explain it to me like I'm an idiot.

00:23:02   What it means, what renewable energy means in the sense of 96% of your operations are

00:23:10   running on renewable energy and in 24 countries, 100%.

00:23:14   Explain to me what that means and why I should care.

00:23:18   So, you know, we set a goal to run on 100% renewable

00:23:23   for all of our operations.

00:23:24   And I just want to say, notably, we set a goal

00:23:27   from the beginning to run data centers on renewable energy.

00:23:30   You should care because climate change is real,

00:23:33   it's happening, and any responsible company

00:23:36   ought to be thinking about its role in solving that problem.

00:23:41   It's just that simple to me.

00:23:43   I mean, you know, Tim talks a lot about companies

00:23:45   are made of people and companies have values

00:23:48   they should stand for things.

00:23:49   And this company has said very clearly that one of the things we stand for is taking care

00:23:54   of our environment.

00:23:57   I don't think that's in any way partisan either.

00:24:00   I think most people would say less pollution is good, more pollution is bad, but also the

00:24:06   idea that having the planet and having the resources of the planet around for future

00:24:11   generations is really important.

00:24:14   And then you're a parent, but I think many of us think about our obligation to future

00:24:19   generations not to leave a place that's heading to the point where the only option is to recolonize

00:24:26   or colonize another planet.

00:24:28   It just doesn't seem like a parental thing to do.

00:24:33   And so there's all kinds of reasons, and I could wax all day about climate change.

00:24:38   But what we said is, look, ideally, we are not a power company.

00:24:42   We are not a utility.

00:24:44   If the world was where we want it to be today, there'd be a utility saying, "Hey, what kind

00:24:49   of power do you want to buy?"

00:24:50   "Okay, sure, here, I'll sell it to you.

00:24:52   That would be awesome."

00:24:53   We don't have that choice everywhere.

00:24:55   So Apple has the ability to do a little bit more.

00:24:58   So in general, we know how much energy we use in a particular country, in a particular

00:25:03   region, and our goal is to put that much or more clean energy onto the grid where we use

00:25:10   it.

00:25:11   So a couple of things, the idea has to be new clean energy.

00:25:15   So we don't want to just come in and buy all the available clean energy, because then there's

00:25:19   nothing left for somebody else to buy.

00:25:21   That doesn't seem very fair.

00:25:23   And wherever possible, to displace dirtier energy.

00:25:27   So because we're there, there's this new clean energy, and maybe it means you don't need

00:25:32   as much of the more polluting forms of energy.

00:25:37   And then we try to be very fastidious about quantifying that, so we true up at the end

00:25:43   of every year.

00:25:44   So when people ask me, "Well, that means you're not always using the exact clean energy

00:25:51   electron that you generate," because we have solar powers on top of Apple Park, we have

00:25:56   solar farm at our data centers, we have wind power that we purchase here in California,

00:26:02   We even have like micro-hydro projects in Oregon.

00:26:07   We don't always have that connection.

00:26:08   It has to go through the grid, and the grid plays an important role, but it's like an

00:26:13   ATM.

00:26:14   We make sure we're putting enough clean energy, new clean energy in to cover what we have

00:26:19   to take out.

00:26:20   And although that's not the absolute optimum, to us it feels like if every company did that,

00:26:25   we'd have a lot more clean energy on the grid and demanded on the grid, and that would displace

00:26:31   brown power. Is it a source of frustration for you, either in

00:26:40   your current role, specifically at one company, Apple, or looking even broader

00:26:47   at your career and previously, for anybody who doesn't know, for the first

00:26:52   four years of the Obama administration, you were the head of the EPA. Is it a

00:26:57   source of frustration for you that more companies don't seem to have as high a priority on using

00:27:05   renewable energy?

00:27:08   You know, I think companies are moving in that direction.

00:27:11   You know, what we always knew at EPA was really clear to me here is, you know, a business

00:27:17   needs certainty and has to make decisions based on where policy is going, where it thinks

00:27:25   the world is going.

00:27:26   And it has been really clear to most big, you know, multinational companies, I think,

00:27:31   for some time that we're going to be living in a carbon-constrained future.

00:27:37   It's not clear how it's going to be constrained.

00:27:38   I mean, there's the Paris Climate Accords.

00:27:41   There are all kinds of policy discussions going on around the world about how to get

00:27:45   to lower carbon.

00:27:47   And some countries are in the middle of that transformation in a very big way.

00:27:52   So I think a lot of companies over the last eight to ten years had to decide what to do

00:27:58   and have made the decision to incorporate energy efficiency, of course, because that's

00:28:03   cheaper and cleaner, but also renewable energy.

00:28:08   And that's true in states like Texas, certainly in states like California, but we have a big

00:28:13   data center in Nevada.

00:28:15   It's true there.

00:28:17   We have a big data center in North Carolina, which is on its third solar farm now.

00:28:23   So you know, I don't...

00:28:27   When I left EPA, the one thing I thought was, because I'm an engineer, a chemical engineer

00:28:31   by training actually, around all these computer science and electrical engineers, so go figure.

00:28:37   But you know, I wanted to go back to my roots and sort of say, I believe, I've always believed

00:28:44   that business has not just a role, but a responsibility.

00:28:48   Part of the reason I became an engineer, or an environmental sort of engineer, is that

00:28:54   I remember being in school and thinking, as a chemical engineer, we make all this hazardous

00:28:59   waste.

00:29:00   Chemical engineers should be responsible as a profession for stopping this problem.

00:29:05   And so I think that's sort of how we think of it here.

00:29:08   And I think more companies are seeing it that way.

00:29:11   It is a little depressing that there's some old thinking out there still, which is you

00:29:15   can either have economic growth or you can have a clean environment, but that's old-fashioned

00:29:21   thinking.

00:29:22   We really need people to sort of look beyond that and really think about the problem and

00:29:27   innovate around it.

00:29:29   That's something, and again, I'm very much a layperson in the expertise on this, but

00:29:35   At a common-sense level, it frustrates me to hear that argument of economic growth being

00:29:44   tied to "we can't spend money on... we have to do things the cheapest way possible right

00:29:50   now," which would be to continue using fossil fuels and just spewing carbon into the air,

00:29:57   versus "it's like an idealism that we can't afford to go to cleaner and renewable sources."

00:30:04   What frustrates me with that argument is that,

00:30:07   isn't that where all this opportunity is,

00:30:10   where new companies, or even existing companies could,

00:30:13   like existing energy companies,

00:30:16   could stand to make a fortune

00:30:18   if they make major breakthroughs in renewable energy?

00:30:21   - Well, sound like an environmental and energy expert

00:30:25   to me, John.

00:30:26   I mean, it's not surprising you see it,

00:30:28   because you're also used to the thinking in the valley,

00:30:33   And it's not only in the valley, but this idea that,

00:30:36   we need to apply the same level of innovation

00:30:41   to the environment and our work to protect the planet

00:30:44   as we do to the other work that we do,

00:30:46   in Apple's case to our products.

00:30:47   And as soon as you start to see innovation

00:30:51   as the way forward, then you realize

00:30:54   that the only limitation is our imagination,

00:30:58   our creativity and our persistence,

00:31:01   the sweat you put into something.

00:31:02   So when we talk about wanting to use more recycled materials in our products,

00:31:07   it's about looking at a supply chain that right now is just not going to be sustainable over time.

00:31:12   There won't be enough, or some country might decide to, you know, control the supply of materials needed,

00:31:19   and the price just goes up. So how can we get ahead of that?

00:31:23   It's all about innovation and not looking--

00:31:27   I also like to say, because I am a little bit of a nerd, that the thing about an engineer

00:31:33   is that engineers wake up, and at Apple it's absolutely true, we wake up when you give

00:31:37   us a hard problem, and we look at it as a challenge.

00:31:41   And if I have one complaint about my profession, it's that we need to continue to include

00:31:48   the idea of ethics.

00:31:49   Like, you know, solving the problem, part of the elegant solution has to be thinking

00:31:54   about whether it's truly a sustainable one.

00:31:57   Economically sustainable, yes,

00:31:59   but who's being harmed in this solution?

00:32:02   And I think good companies are there,

00:32:03   and I hope that customers start to expect

00:32:07   and demand that of companies,

00:32:08   because right now I really believe

00:32:11   that a lot of the leadership that we're gonna see

00:32:13   on these issues has to come from businesses

00:32:15   who stand up and dispute this idea

00:32:18   that they need to pollute in order to profit.

00:32:22   - Yeah, I hope at least that it sort of changes

00:32:27   from consumers, maybe like environmentally conscious

00:32:32   consumers, a smaller niche of them if you will,

00:32:36   keeping a white list of a handful of good companies

00:32:40   who are environmentally conscious to more of a broader,

00:32:44   here's a black list of companies who are clearly

00:32:47   disregarding the environment in their actions

00:32:49   and operations, I'm not going to do business with them

00:32:52   because I find that offensive.

00:32:55   - Yeah, it's like a gray-green list, you know, khaki.

00:32:58   I think, but yeah, absolutely.

00:32:59   You know, I just, I agree with you.

00:33:01   And I also don't think, I think consumers are, you know,

00:33:06   sort of confused too, because you have companies

00:33:09   of all stripes standing up and claiming,

00:33:11   especially this week, you know, as we roll into Earth Day,

00:33:15   how, you know, sort of putting forth their green credentials

00:33:18   and Apple's no different.

00:33:20   So I think it tends to make people a bit cynical.

00:33:23   So part of the videos was also opening up a little and showing that all these claims

00:33:29   you make take work and effort.

00:33:31   And all these promises that we make, we try not to make them if we don't know how we're

00:33:37   going to get there, but in some cases, they require a lot of persistence.

00:33:43   And so one of the frustrations I've had also is, frankly, there's a lot of people out there

00:33:48   claim to say, you know, they make lists, everybody makes lists. But what I want people to know

00:33:53   is that for me, this company, Apple, is thinking, you know, years, decades ahead about how to

00:34:01   influence our sector, the tech sector, the consumer products sector, and make it better.

00:34:11   And leave the world, as Tim would say, leave the world better than we found it.

00:34:15   One of the other announcements you guys have this week is that in a partnership with the

00:34:21   WWF, which when I see it, I still think of the wrestling.

00:34:25   I do.

00:34:26   Well, they would not like to hear that.

00:34:28   I know.

00:34:29   I know.

00:34:30   Props to WWF.

00:34:31   But it's not the wrestling organization.

00:34:33   No, it's the World Wildlife.

00:34:35   Right.

00:34:36   And you guys, in partnership with them, have gotten over 300,000 acres of working forest

00:34:43   in China to be recommended for what's called the Forest Stewardship Council certification.

00:34:49   That means that Apple is now protecting and creating sustainable working forests as much

00:34:56   as is needed to cover your paper needs for the packaging that you guys make.

00:35:04   In plain English, does that mean that as much paper as you guys are using for packaging,

00:35:09   There's trees that are being regrown at the same rate that they're being used to turn

00:35:13   into paper.

00:35:14   Yeah, I like that.

00:35:16   You see, you should be in the videos because you're explaining stuff really well too.

00:35:21   Yeah, that's exactly it.

00:35:23   A while ago, actually I just started at Apple and the woman who runs packaging amongst other

00:35:29   things, Kate Bergeron, we were all at dinner having a glass of wine and she was like, "You

00:35:34   know, I've been thinking for a long time we should buy a forest."

00:35:38   And it was sort of my introduction to, you know, think different at Apple, this idea

00:35:42   that somebody who does packaging would go that far deep in her thinking, you know, really

00:35:48   analyzing the problem.

00:35:49   And of course, she was trying to get at that very problem, which is packaging is made out

00:35:54   of paper.

00:35:55   By the way, our packaging is increasingly almost entirely paper.

00:35:59   We've tried to phase out plastics, because we think paper can be a renewable resource.

00:36:05   And what if we controlled how that paper was, you know, how the wood was harvested and the

00:36:09   pulp was made?

00:36:12   And so we didn't buy the forest ourselves, but we found great partners.

00:36:17   In the U.S., we found a group called the Conservation Fund.

00:36:20   So we have 36,000 acres in Maine and North Carolina that they've worked to preserve and

00:36:25   ensure remain in sustainable forestry.

00:36:28   So working forest, yes, trees are chopped, but trees are also planted.

00:36:32   And then we found WWF in China, and there it's not a land ownership issue, it was a

00:36:38   management issue.

00:36:39   We have these big, basically paper, they call them plantations, and making sure that they

00:36:45   were being managed sustainably, which has been a goal of China's as well.

00:36:50   So we found the right partner.

00:36:51   They have some great people on the ground in China, Chinese folks who are really deeply

00:36:59   involved in working with these Chinese businesses.

00:37:02   And we're really proud of the fact that based on

00:37:05   the work they've done in just, I think about two years,

00:37:08   we've gotten to the point where those forests,

00:37:11   the three of them are producing enough sustainably

00:37:16   and responsibly managed wood to cover our needs.

00:37:19   Now we've also done something on the other end,

00:37:21   which is back to that old reduce, reuse, recycle.

00:37:24   We wanted to reduce how much virgin paper

00:37:27   we need for packaging.

00:37:29   So we've really upped our work on using recycled paper,

00:37:32   and we've also upped our work to make packaging smaller

00:37:36   and lighter whenever we can.

00:37:38   So we still have work to do.

00:37:40   You know, this is a long road,

00:37:42   and so I don't want it to sound like we're there,

00:37:44   but we're really proud of the fact

00:37:46   that this year we hit that milestone.

00:37:48   - And again, this is another one of those things

00:37:50   where the stakes are very high for Apple

00:37:52   because Apple products are known

00:37:55   for having beautiful packaging.

00:37:57   And so it's not enough to just say,

00:37:59   well, we'll take out the plastic

00:38:00   and we'll use cardboard or some kind of paper.

00:38:03   It has to be nice.

00:38:04   - Yeah, it has to be more than nice, right?

00:38:06   I mean, I think that's maybe the thing

00:38:09   I didn't emphasize enough.

00:38:10   I don't, I didn't want to come here and do this

00:38:13   in a way where people felt they were giving something up

00:38:16   in order to do something good.

00:38:18   And I don't mean that to sound, you know,

00:38:20   it's sort of like, again, back to your son.

00:38:22   You know, he doesn't, he's doing something good,

00:38:24   but it doesn't change his experience.

00:38:26   he still feels really good, he's getting the water he needs.

00:38:29   I mean, for us here at Apple, we understand that, you know,

00:38:33   our customers love our products.

00:38:35   They feel emotionally attached to the experience,

00:38:37   all the way from taking it home to unboxing it,

00:38:41   to turning it on the first time, to seeing the hello,

00:38:44   all the way through use and upgrades.

00:38:47   So none of that is what we're trying to impact.

00:38:49   And in fact, we won't allow it to happen that way.

00:38:52   I don't think anybody here would allow us to impact that.

00:38:57   What we're trying to do is make sure people understand

00:38:59   that all these really smart people here

00:39:02   are thinking about ways to make it green and better

00:39:05   and produce without harming the planet.

00:39:09   So you don't have to.

00:39:10   So you can feel really good about the purchase

00:39:13   that you make so that you know that part

00:39:16   of making the best products in the world

00:39:19   is making the best products for the world.

00:39:21   - I would like to talk, this is an area

00:39:26   where I just don't know much about, about transportation.

00:39:29   Because just going back to that basic idea

00:39:31   of like an assembly plant in China

00:39:35   that's manufacturing 150,000 iPhones a day.

00:39:40   And let's say it's September and there's a new iPhone.

00:39:44   And the day that it comes out,

00:39:47   There are millions of UPS drivers around North America

00:39:52   ringing doorbells, dropping off pre-ordered iPhones.

00:39:56   To get all those iPhones from China to North America,

00:40:01   and then once they get to North America,

00:40:03   to distribute them to everybody who purchased it,

00:40:05   there's an awful lot of fossil fuel

00:40:08   being burned on that, right?

00:40:10   - Yeah, you know, transportation as a sector,

00:40:13   for our carbon footprint,

00:40:15   It's actually a very small percentage

00:40:17   of our carbon footprint.

00:40:19   I'll get you the number, I'm looking as I speak.

00:40:22   But we do a comprehensive carbon footprint for Apple.

00:40:26   This year, for 2016, for the year just past,

00:40:29   it's 29.5 million metric tons.

00:40:33   And transportation of our product is 4% of that.

00:40:37   So do the math really quickly.

00:40:40   Included in that carbon footprint is,

00:40:44   Some people say cradle to grave.

00:40:45   We're trying to get rid of the grave

00:40:47   and make a closed loop system.

00:40:49   But right now, all the way from the mine,

00:40:51   even though we don't own mines,

00:40:53   we don't have relationship with mining companies,

00:40:56   but we estimate the extraction and processing

00:41:00   of let's say the alumina or to make aluminum enclosures.

00:41:05   All the way through a product use,

00:41:09   we actually include in our carbon footprint

00:41:12   the electricity you use as an Apple customer,

00:41:19   because you wouldn't use that electricity if it wasn't for Apple.

00:41:21   So all the way to recycling.

00:41:24   So it's not a huge part of our carbon footprint,

00:41:28   but 4% is nothing to sneeze at.

00:41:31   The biggest part of our carbon footprint is actually in the manufacturing,

00:41:34   all those suppliers that are in our supply chain.

00:41:37   And so one of the other things we're doing is spending time with them,

00:41:41   Now that we're at 96% renewable, we've learned a lot.

00:41:45   And so now we're trying to bring them along.

00:41:47   And this year, we're announcing three new suppliers who've committed to go 100% renewable

00:41:54   for all their operations, Compel, Sunwoda, and Beale.

00:42:00   And that brings us to seven suppliers.

00:42:02   And I think that number is going to keep going up.

00:42:05   I don't want to act like all of them are doing it just because of Apple, but those seven

00:42:09   have made an Apple-specific commitment, and there are others who are doing it on their

00:42:13   own.

00:42:14   So, you know, yes, transportation is a problem that we need to think about, and we can do

00:42:20   that.

00:42:21   You know, when you make a lighter product in a smaller package, it helps with transportation

00:42:26   emissions.

00:42:29   And when we think about marine, so taking it by ship versus air, that helps with transportation.

00:42:38   And so every little bit will help, but we are tackling the biggest places first, the

00:42:42   hardest.

00:42:43   But in other words, you guys aren't sweeping any aspect of it under the rug by saying,

00:42:48   "Well, that's not us."

00:42:50   Right?

00:42:52   This is what actual Apple employees are doing in Apple-owned buildings.

00:42:59   And anything that happens from the mine until it gets there, we're not taking that into

00:43:05   account.

00:43:06   to account for everything. Yeah, because you can't change the world if you stop at your theoretical

00:43:14   borders. You have to change yourself first. You have to lead by example and not demand

00:43:19   of others what you're not willing to do. But I think we're one of the few companies, I won't say

00:43:26   the only companies in the world, who take this very comprehensive look at our carbon footprint

00:43:31   and look to, we'd love to get it to zero,

00:43:35   which would mean that all those suppliers

00:43:37   would be at zero carbon footprint.

00:43:40   And we're trying to do it right now,

00:43:43   not using offsets or credits.

00:43:46   You know, there might be some places in the world

00:43:48   that it's just not possible to do that right now,

00:43:51   but that's why we're at 96%, not saying 100,

00:43:56   'cause we could get to 100 if we just bought some credits.

00:43:59   And so we're still working hard on that.

00:44:02   And yeah, it feels really good to be that expansive.

00:44:05   Because then you can inspire the energy folks, the product power

00:44:11   folks, to make the most efficient products in the world.

00:44:14   Because every time you save a wad of energy on a MacBook,

00:44:21   you're saving a tremendous amount,

00:44:22   because we sell so many of them.

00:44:24   So the more expansive you are, the more, I guess,

00:44:28   playing field you have to play with,

00:44:30   to go back to the sports analogy.

00:44:32   - Yeah, there's an old story from the '80s

00:44:36   of the creation of the original Macintosh,

00:44:39   where, I forget, somebody had a stopwatch

00:44:42   and timed how long it took the prototype to start up.

00:44:46   And Steve Jobs said, "You gotta get that,

00:44:47   "you gotta cut 30 seconds off of that."

00:44:49   And they're like, "Why?"

00:44:50   And he was like, "Well, we're gonna sell

00:44:51   "millions of these things, multiply that by 30 seconds."

00:44:55   And you get like, you know, it came out to like,

00:44:57   I don't know, 87 years.

00:44:58   He goes, there you go, you saved a life.

00:45:00   Yeah, yeah, I read that story.

00:45:01   And it's like that with energy, right?

00:45:03   You take 70 million iPhones in a quarter,

00:45:08   and if you can make them a little bit more energy

00:45:12   efficient, every little bit you multiply by the 70 million

00:45:15   that were just sold, and it adds up.

00:45:18   I think the number is something like since 2008, on average,

00:45:21   our products are 70% more efficient, more energy

00:45:24   efficient.

00:45:25   And there's been some great big technology innovations in there.

00:45:30   And I also want to be really clear, back to that idea

00:45:33   that you don't have to sacrifice.

00:45:34   Those are all things that make the experience better.

00:45:37   Energy efficiency, the flip side of that is battery life.

00:45:41   If something doesn't use a lot of energy,

00:45:43   you need a smaller battery, or your battery of whatever size

00:45:48   goes longer.

00:45:49   It goes longer on a charge.

00:45:50   So all these things tend to have sort of compounding reasons.

00:45:55   And sometimes they're even based on the customer experience,

00:45:59   but there's a happy sort of carbon benefit

00:46:02   at the same time, or environmental benefit too.

00:46:05   - You said earlier that this sort of thinking

00:46:09   shouldn't be seen as partisan.

00:46:11   And I think that the cynic's take on that would be

00:46:15   that Apple, as the most profitable company in the world,

00:46:20   can afford to be,

00:46:22   can afford to spend on this idealism.

00:46:28   But I think your argument would be that no,

00:46:32   it's Apple as the most profitable country in the world

00:46:35   can show that having a focus on this sort of stuff

00:46:38   is not at odds with being profitable.

00:46:40   - Yeah, I mean, it's the right thing to do.

00:46:45   I don't think, I think if you go back to sort of,

00:46:47   you know, core human values, you know, protecting the planet where we live, where our children,

00:46:54   you know, grow up, where we work, the places that we, you know, used to fish or swim as

00:47:00   a kid, the drinking water that we all honestly take for granted because we've, most of us,

00:47:07   haven't had the experience of, say, people in Flint where you literally have to, you

00:47:11   know, shower and wash your face with bottled water.

00:47:13   I mean, all those things are just goods.

00:47:16   And so, you know, when we think about the environment, it shouldn't, you know, our position

00:47:23   is we're not taken aside in terms of whether any political approach is right.

00:47:30   We're just saying this is something that is definitely a good.

00:47:34   It's good to have, to be efficient, to be thoughtful and careful.

00:47:39   Kind of the, you know, what my grandmother said, you know, waste not, want not.

00:47:43   idea that, you know, in a world where we have been incredibly fortunate as a country or

00:47:50   as a people to think of that as our responsibility.

00:47:55   I think, you know, for me it's sort of almost a moral thing, but yeah, it's not about having

00:48:04   the money to do it.

00:48:05   It's about figuring out the innovations that would then, you know, hopefully spread out

00:48:11   like ripples and allow others to do it too.

00:48:13   I think if you went to someone who right now has a utility bill and there was a way that

00:48:19   they could have cleaner energy that would also reduce their utility bill, they would

00:48:25   be for it.

00:48:26   And so that's a policy question.

00:48:28   I don't think it depends on what party you're in.

00:48:31   If you ask somebody, "Would you rather have solar power?"

00:48:34   I think it's kind of a cool thing.

00:48:36   Where do you see the role between the government and something in the U.S. like the EPA and

00:48:45   a business like Apple taking initiative on its own to do these things?

00:48:51   Yeah, you know, from the EPA perspective, there wasn't a ton of places where EPA and

00:48:59   Apple intersected.

00:49:01   is a regulatory agency and there are regulations that definitely affect

00:49:07   the technology sector but

00:49:10   you know regulations in many cases not all cases are meant to set

00:49:15   the floor. There's definitely, they just can't set the ceiling and in fact if they

00:49:21   set a ceiling

00:49:22   they're not doing the right thing. They should be there to help

00:49:26   innovation go forward and

00:49:29   you know, I'm not for every single piece of regulation, especially those that seem

00:49:35   to be

00:49:35   picking, you know, which innovations

00:49:39   should or shouldn't go forward. I think that requires real thoughtfulness.

00:49:43   But, you know, I think for companies like ours

00:49:49   it's not to say we don't have times when we have regulations that affect us.

00:49:52   It's not to say, you know, I don't want anybody to walk away from this thinking we

00:49:56   figured out how to do it right all the time. We will have problems

00:49:59   like any other company will, but our general orientation is to trying to do

00:50:05   the best we can to meet the goals we've set for ourselves around climate change,

00:50:10   around

00:50:11   greener materials, and around conserving

00:50:14   and being really smart and not wasteful about resources.

00:50:19   Alright, one last question I have for you.

00:50:22   Where do you think Apple is

00:50:25   least up to snuff.

00:50:27   Like where is the, where can you guys improve,

00:50:30   where do you guys have the most opportunity for improvement?

00:50:34   - Oh man, that's like the interview question

00:50:36   when they ask you for your one flaw.

00:50:39   You know, you don't answer that, but I mean,

00:50:41   there are tons of things that I wish I could snap my fingers

00:50:45   and would be done, you know.

00:50:47   I wish we could make a better connection with our customers

00:50:54   So we got more of our products back at end of life.

00:50:58   I think we have a ton of work to do.

00:51:00   I mean, we had just outlined this big hairy goal around starting to close loops for different

00:51:07   materials.

00:51:08   And so I think that's going to be a big area of focus for us.

00:51:15   I mean, it has to be done in a way that maintains all the things that Apple is.

00:51:22   - Apple is. - That's a great point.

00:51:25   Somebody buys, let's say, a MacBook Pro,

00:51:29   and they use it for the next four or five years,

00:51:31   and they get a great time out of it,

00:51:33   and they upgrade, and they take that old one,

00:51:35   and they just put it in a closet,

00:51:37   and they think, well, this old MacBook Pro,

00:51:39   it's still good, but I'm gonna get a new one.

00:51:41   They put it in a closet, and then a couple more years go by,

00:51:43   and they're like, why do I still have

00:51:44   this old MacBook Pro, right?

00:51:46   And at that point, at least that's the way my closet works.

00:51:50   At that point, you don't want them to just put it in the trash.

00:51:54   You want them to do-- like the fact that this complicated, fancy laptop is made out of recyclable

00:52:01   materials, it's not-- you can't just put it in the blue recycling bin where your aluminum

00:52:06   cans go to get it properly recycled.

00:52:09   Right.

00:52:10   What we'd love to have happen is that it comes back either to an Apple store or that you

00:52:16   go online and ask for a mailing box or envelope, we'll take back at the stores

00:52:23   any product, any Apple product you bring in. That's our Apple Renew program.

00:52:29   We, you know, we are also emphasizing in the stores the programs that we have

00:52:34   that allow you to upgrade. So if you're a tech person who does like the latest

00:52:41   technology, we want that, you know, we want last year's or the year before's model

00:52:48   back because it still has value first off. You know, a lot of the reason people

00:52:51   love Apple is that if you if you want to sell your product yourself or trade it

00:52:57   in, it has a great value. But at the end of life, and that could be, you know, a

00:53:03   long time away, I mean we have people still rocking fours and I think threes

00:53:09   out there, but you know, when the time comes, we'd still like to have it back. It is a bit of a

00:53:14   challenge, by the way, to then make sure all that material gets back in the recycling chain, because

00:53:19   it's, you know, it's very different and very diverse. We're starting to have quite a bit of

00:53:23   a catalog back behind us. But that's part of the challenge.

00:53:27   Well, that was the video that was shown when you were on stage a few events ago with the robot who

00:53:34   disassembles iPhones?

00:53:36   Yeah, Liam. Liam is actually a twin now here in California and actually over in Europe.

00:53:43   Yeah, and the idea was to think about that disassembly step and understand,

00:53:49   if you think of this thing as a chain or a big circle, every step influences the one before and

00:53:55   against. So how do you disassemble this product and do it in a way where you maximize the ability

00:54:02   to maybe get tin back, or get aluminum back,

00:54:07   or as we're starting to look at with batteries,

00:54:11   get cobalt back.

00:54:12   And so when you start to think about this challenge,

00:54:16   not to scare myself, which I can do,

00:54:21   it's material by material, component by component,

00:54:24   product by product.

00:54:26   Because the camera is different in the iPhone 6

00:54:31   than it is in the iPhone 7.

00:54:33   So those are all challenges we're willing to take on.

00:54:39   But the customer's role in that is to, wherever possible--

00:54:43   I'm not asking anybody to give up their first iPhone--

00:54:46   but wherever possible, to get those products back to Apple.

00:54:50   And the other thing that's online that's really important

00:54:53   is a lot of people have security concerns.

00:54:55   Your life is on your device.

00:54:58   And so to make sure you wipe it, we'll

00:55:00   be looking out to do that as well.

00:55:03   But a lot of people don't want to part with them

00:55:05   because of the data that's on it.

00:55:06   So there's instructions on how to do that as well.

00:55:09   Yeah, that's a good point.

00:55:11   Anything else that you wanted to talk about today?

00:55:15   No, I guess we covered it.

00:55:16   We got to give a shout out to Drexel, right?

00:55:19   Can I say hi to my son Brian, who's a dragon?

00:55:21   Hey, Drexel.

00:55:23   Go dragons.

00:55:25   Now that's an amazing connection between the two of us.

00:55:28   Your son is doing game design, game development at Drexel.

00:55:33   - Yes, yes.

00:55:34   I'm hoping that is an actual major, but--

00:55:37   - No, it is.

00:55:38   (laughing)

00:55:39   It wasn't when I was there.

00:55:41   But I actually know the program.

00:55:44   I am familiar with it.

00:55:45   And I just keep hearing.

00:55:46   - I am teasing.

00:55:47   It is an amazing program, and I am a huge fan of the school.

00:55:51   So shout out to Brian and his friends

00:55:53   and the amazing group over there in Westfall

00:55:56   and the engineering school.

00:55:57   - It would be pretty funny to imagine some college student

00:56:00   just sitting around playing PlayStation all day

00:56:03   and tells his mom, "I'm studying game design."

00:56:06   - And like, "Your son is young,

00:56:07   "but let me just tell you, beware."

00:56:10   They get real smart real fast, real, real fast.

00:56:14   - Lisa Jackson, thank you so much for your time.

00:56:16   It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you.

00:56:19   - Right back at you.

00:56:20   - Have a good Earth Day, and I hope to see you soon.

00:56:23   Thanks, happy Earth Day!