Apple had already accomplished this goal with all twenty one of its Australian retail stores together with one hundred and forty of its US stores, its latest data centres as well as its forthcoming Apple Campus 2 headquarters. Its solar array supplying most of the powerthat is used at the data centre at Maiden, North Carolina is the largest privately owned array in the country.
According to the document posted to the company’s latest environmental Responsibility webpage, Apple had placed its focus on three key areas in the year 2013 namely reducing impact on climate change with the use of renewable energy sources as well as directing energy efficiency in its products, adopting the use of greener materials in their products and processes thereby conserving the resources.
Aim on Achieving `Net Zero Energy’
Major section of Apple’s environmental efforts are aimed on achieving `net zero energy’, wherein efficient energy use, generation of energy using renewable resources together with purchase of renewable energy from appropriate providers would be involved.
Maiden, North Carolina, iCloud data centre is used as the `net zero energy’ example and with the nation’s largely owned solar array which generates from 60 percent to 100 percent of the daily energy requirement, with remaining that needs to be purchased in the form of biogas, Maiden is thus 100 renewable. The solar array on its own produces 167 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy per year onsite which is enough to power around 13,837 houses.
It has also been reported that the company has plans to build a third solar array, an indication that may be intended to manage with future expansion to the data centre, near Maiden property. Apple has already purchased a 200 acre of land to build a second solar array nearby.
Efforts to Shrink Packaging Size/Transportation Costs
Under, Lisa Jackson, the new Environmental Initiative chief, Apple was successful in converting the U.S. Apple stores together with the Australian stores to 100 percent renewable energy and to achieve this, the company either purchased green energy from third party provider or participated in utility green tariff programs which ensured that electricity was generated from renewable energy source.
Its forthcoming Apple Campus 2 which has been designed to be environmentally friendly was brought into focus with Apple commenting that the campus would be powered by 100 percent renewable energy with one of the largest corporate solar energy installation in the world while to cut down on HVAC costs, advanced architecture will enable air to flow through specially designed vents. Besides this, Apple also plans to have more than 1,000 shared bicycles made available to Campus 2 employees together with other transport alternatives which includes ride sharing, carpooling and incentives to use eco-friendly forms of transportation.
Apple states that more than 2,100 employees have access to the free biodiesel powered buses per day to travel from corporate offices in Sunnyvale and Cupertino thus avoiding 6,377 metric tons of carbon dioxide emission. The company also states that they will continue their efforts to shrink packaging size to cut down on wastage of material together with transportation costs.
