Apple exec: we don’t pass on our carbon reduction costs to customers

Apple doesn’t charge more to account for its carbon reduction efforts on its widely-used consumer technology products, its top executive for sustainability said on Wednesday at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York.

“We don’t factor in a premium to take care of the work that we’re doing,” Apple Vice President Lisa Jackson (pictured) said in an interview with Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni.

Apple, with a roughly $2.8 trillion market capitalization, which makes it the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, wants to show a way forward that can apply to other businesses, Jackson said. Apple CEO Tim Cook has set the tone, according to Jackson.

“I want to do it in a way that other businesses can say this isn’t because they’re Apple,” she said, referring to Cook’s direction. “It’s because they understand how to make clean energy and (recyclable) materials work in the manufacturing chains and drive emissions down.”

Apple is the best among six IT brands studied when it comes to climate progress and commitments, according to Stand.Earth’s “Pathways to Decarbonization” report. Stand.Earth is an organization dedicated to delivering “large-scale solutions to climate and environmental problems worldwide.”