Apple has made significant investments in its goal of significantly reducing its carbon footprint in manufacturing its various products. Apple’s Green Bonds project has gulped about $4.7 billion since 2019 when it commenced and some great dividends are now becoming visible. It has been announced that the Cupertino-based company will be deploying aluminum produced through a new and carbon-free smelting process in the manufacture of the iPhone SE.
According to Apple, the new technology will produce aluminum without creating any direct carbon emissions, unlike the current aluminum smelting processes. The new aluminum production process is being powered by Elisys at its Quebec facility. The production process is itself driven by hydropower. Elisys is a joint partnership between Rio Tinto and Alcoa. Apple says it is committed to leaving the planet better than it met it and the Green Bonds project is a key tool for achieving its environmental renewal efforts.
The Green Bond investment is advancing leading to breakthrough technologies needed to reduce the carbon footprint of materials used in production. Apple says its goal is to use only recyclable and renewable materials in production and there are already great gains in that direction. An Apple facility in Denmark is using renewable energy for the entire production process.
The potential of producing commercial purity primary aluminum that is carbon-free is quite remarkable for the environment. The byproduct of the production process is oxygen, unlike current smelting processes that yield a raft of greenhouse gases. There are therefore possibilities that the Elisys production process could make lasting changes to the environment by fundamentally altering how aluminum is produced. Apple ha$1s not put any timeline yet on the potential release date of the iPhone SE produced from carbon-free aluminum.
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