Apple excels in the 2024 Retailer Report Card from Toxic-Free Future that looks at how North American retailers work to reduce plastic and protect customers from toxic chemicals.
Apple tops the list with a score of 84%; it’s the only company with an “A” grade. Sephora is second with 69%, with Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Target following with 65%.
Here’s what Toxic-Free Future has to say about Apple:
- Corporate Commitment: Apple has a comprehensive safer chemicals policy that addresses both its products and manufacturing and includes an explicit preference for safer alternatives. Apple has collaborated on safer chemistry projects with various organizations including ChemFORWARD and the Clean Electronics Production Network and has supported implementation of the California Safer Consumer Products Program by co-chairing the Green Ribbon Science Panel since 2014.
- Transparency: Apple requires its suppliers to participate in its Full Material Disclosure program, where manufacturers report on material compositions through Apple’s secure data collection system. It aims to catalog and map each chemical in the materials used in its products. For iPhone, iPad, and Mac products released in 2023, the company collected detailed chemical information of 93 percent of each product by mass, on average. Additionally, in 2022, more than 1,000 Apple supplier facilities shared their chemical inventories through its Chemical Safety Disclosure program.
- Ban the Bad: Apple has restricted numerous chemicals and plastics of high concern in its products over the years, including PVC plastic, phthalates, and brominated flame retardants. Apple has set a goal to restrict PFAS by October 2025 and to remove plastics from packaging by 2025. In recent years, Apple has eliminated carcinogens, mutagens, reproductive toxicants, and other toxic chemicals from cleaners and degreasers used at supplier final assembly sites. The company has also begun to make progress replacing PFAS in certain new formulations of plastics, adhesives, and lubricants.
- Safer Solutions: Apple uses a definition of safer alternative that is consistent with Washington state and has integrated this criterion into its product design and development process to avoid regrettable substitution. In 2024, Apple provided seed funding for the Safer Chemistry Investment Fund, which aims to raise at least $15 million over the next five years to accelerate industry’s transition to safer chemistry. Apple has also contributed or sponsored chemical hazard assessments for the ChemFORWARD solvents and flame retardants databases, to help the electronics industry identify safer alternatives to toxic solvents and flame retardants.
Toxic-Free Future is an organization that “works to create a healthier tomorrow by fostering the use of safer products, chemicals, and practices through advanced research, advocacy, grassroots organizing, and consumer engagement.”
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