Apple’s new “Mother Nature” video is clearly dividing the internet. If you saw the skit, chances are that you possibly belong to either of the two camps of audience: slamming Apple’s claims as greenwashing and calling it bluff, or lauding the world’s biggest tech company for at least taking the effort to try and taking the effort to spread the message to the masses. I do have to admit, while I naturally belonged to the first camp, it DID make me think; what would really happen if Mother Nature truly visited us in her persona and we ALL have to be answerable ourselves? It made me realize that while it is easy to point a finger at others, we must sweep our own porch first.
One of the biggest criticisms Apple faces is that the company’s glossy claims of releasing its first carbon-neutral product series is largely enabled using carbon credit certificates(1). Of course, carbon credits are a long-drawn debate of their own, but to summarize, carbon credits allow polluting companies to continue to pollute by being able to pay for it. In any case, in addition to the carbon neutrality claim, Apple’s video contained many other green claims that raises quite some eyebrows.
Another common criticism was, if Apple was so green-conscious, why don’t they sell less phones? And this is the point at which I feel we need to go run, get all the cleaning gear, and start sweeping that porch of ours. It is quite easy for us to point fingers at the wrongdoing of a company and even easier to mock and criticize when they try to cover their misdeed with a glossy advertisement full of greenwashing. But have we taken a critical look at ourselves as consumers? Are we truly doing what we can to help as consumers? Watching this video stirred fond memories of a paper I wrote with great passion on this incredibly relevant and pressing issue of our own role in smartphone consumption, during my Master’s.
Research shows that we often upgrade our smartphones as frequently as we change our t-shirts(2), with a smartphone being replaced every 2.2 years(3). Data show that an increasing number of individuals opt to replace their current phones, even if they are still in working condition(4) and that that consumers sometimes choose to buy new smartphones for reasons other than a broken device(5). Interestingly, this suggests that while there is growing accusation that smartphone manufacturers intentionally create products that breakdown unnecessarily fast, a phenomena known as planned obsolescence(6), a malfunctioning phone is not the sole motivation behind consumers purchasing a new one. Manufacturers are often blamed for manipulating consumers to buy more smartphones through various manifestations of obsolescence, but consumers play an important role in planned obsolescence practices too(7).
How many of us honestly get excited about a brand-new phone, whether we need one or not? Let’s genuinely contemplate. I will go first. I found myself craving a Galaxy Fold when the flagship model released and I saw a fellow bookstagrammer use one to read e-books, even though my e-reading experience is already brilliant with the iPad I love the most. I am crazy over Apple’s Vision Pro and think it’s probably the best tech invention of this decade (aside from Chat GPT ofc lol!). Truth be told, I feel like I want a new phone every time I watch an MKBHD review video, even though I have a perfectly functioning, as-good-as-new iPhone 11 right now. Of course, I do not act on my impulse, because I know my facts:
Did you know that a brand-new smartphone results in 85kg of emissions in its first year of use, with 95% of these emissions occurring in the manufacturing process?(8) Did you know that a single smartphone consumes a total of 62 different metals, 18m2 of land and 13,000 liters of water to be built? (9 | 10) The mining of gold and other rare earth elements associated with the technology sector, such as smartphones, leads to the destruction of an area of Amazon rainforest equivalent to the size of a football pitch every minute(11)! In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the cobalt for our favorite gadgets come from, the artisanal mining sector is plagued by issues of forced and child labor, undisclosed deaths, sexual assaults, and many more violations of human rights(12)
Deliberate trimming of product life cycle and the symbolic devaluation of devices is very common in electronics sector, and it contributes to growing e-waste(13); for example, this scary artificial lake in Inner Mongolia, is made of toxic, black sludge that results purely from mining done to create our tech gadgets(14). These are just a handful of the atrocious impacts that result from producing excessive amounts of electronic gadgets, including smartphones.
Just like how graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging serves as a reminder of the repercussions of smoking to the consumer, we must start publishing these facts more and spreading these horrific images as much as we can for the general public to see. So next time before you get excited about the new titanium-based iPhone 15 Pro, or Samsung’s fancy Galaxy Fold 5, just ponder on those facts and try to remember these harrowing images. Until the companies figure out sustainable ways of doing things in the long run, we can help the situation a lot by not creating unnecessary demand. Do not buy a new smartphone until you absolutely have to! The adverse environmental effects stemming from mining in low-income nations can also be mitigated by changing the consumption patterns of consumers in high-income countries, for example by prolonging the use of electronic devices and ensuring their proper recycling when they reach the end of their lifecycle(15). By shifting to modular smartphone models, and learning to repair the devices by ourselves helps extend product lifecycles and thereby resource consumption(16). Ensuring we give up our phones for recycling and buying refurbished phones also help in curtailing demand for extracting more resources from earth(17).
As we race to cap global temperatures at 1.5°C, we are seeing snowballing effects of our action on so many spheres. We have now rapidly overshot 6 out of the 9 planetary boundaries already(18). Our purchases and consumption go a long way in defining how the planet will turn out to be in the future.
We can see the repercussions of our actions all around the world, in extreme weather conditions, loss of biodiversity and worse, degraded human conditions of our own civilization. The IPCC says that our climate action falls far short from the level needed to avoid a tipping point(19), but it is still not too late if we take climate action now(20)!
We could, be the change we want to see in the world! Let’s start by doing our part. And if there’s any Mother Nature video we should go watch after this, let it be Conservation International’s one where Julia Roberts is Mother Nature(21).
References
(1) NewClimate Institute. (2023, September 14). Reaction: Apple unveils its first carbon neutral products. https://newclimate.org/news/reaction-apple-unveils-its-first-carbon-neutral-products
(2) Troeger, N., Wieser, H., & Hübner, R. (2017, February). Smartphones are replaced more frequently than T-shirts; Patterns of consumer use and reasons for replacing durable goods. AK Wien, 21.
(3) Lee, J., Voigt, N., Felde, A. M. Z., Lux, T., Feng, T., Kipot, A., & Barber, C. (2023). Don’t Throw Away the Opportunity in E-Waste. BCG Global. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2023/seizing-opportunity-ewaste-recycling
(4) Proske, M., Winzer, J., Marwede, M., Nissen, N. F., & Lang, K. D. (2016). Obsolescence of electronics - the example of smartphones. 2016 Electronics Goes Green 2016+ (EGG). https://doi.org/10.1109/egg.2016.7829852
(5) Makov, T., & Fitzpatrick, C. (2021, September 1). Is repairability enough? big data insights into smartphone obsolescence and consumer interest in repair. Journal of Cleaner Production, 313, 10.
(6) Bulow, J. (1986, November). An Economic Theory of Planned Obsolescence. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 101(4), 729-749. doi:https://doi.org/10.2307/1884176
(7) Pérez, J. L., & Nilsson, M. (2022, June 1). Planned Obsolescence: A deal-breaker for smartphone consumers or not? Uppsala University Master Thesis, 57. Retrieved from https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1678153/FULLTEXT01.pdf
(8) Deloitte. (2021). Making smartphones more sustainable: Live long and greener. Deloitte Insights.
(9) American Chemical Society. (2015, April). www.acs.org. Retrieved from ACS Chemistry For Life: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/archive-2014-2015/smartphones.html
(10) Friends of Earth. (2015). Mind Your Step: The land and water footprints of everyday products. Retrieved from https://www.twosides.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/mind-your-step-report-76803.pdf
(11) World Economic Forum. (2020, January 13). How to save the planet, one mobile device at a time. Retrieved from www.weforum.org: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/save-the-planet-one-mobile-device-at-a-time/
(12) Boyle, L. (2023, February 23). Cobalt mining for Big Tech is driving child labor, deaths in the Congo. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/phone-electric-vehicle-congo-cobalt-mine-b2277665.html
(13) Echegaray, F. (2015). Consumers' reactions to product obsolescence in emerging markets: the case of Brazil. Journal of Cleaner Production, 134, 191-203. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.119
(14) ABC News. (2015, April 7). This toxic lake of black sludge is the result of mining to create our tech gadgets. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/toxic-lake-black-sludge-result-mining-create-tech/story?id=30122911
(15) Van Der Merwe, A., Cabernard, L., & Günther, I. (2023). Urban mining: The relevance of information, transaction costs and externalities. Ecological Economics, 205, 107735. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107735
(16) European Commission. (2023, February 15). Sustainable smartphones? Modular design promotes do-it-yourself repair to extend device life. environment.ec.europa.eu. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/news/sustainable-smartphones-modular-design-promotes-do-it-yourself-repair-extend-device-life-2023-02-15_en
(17) Lee, C. (2023, February 14). A closer look at smartphone pollution. FairPlanet. https://www.fairplanet.org/story/smartphone-pollution-electronic-waste/
(18) Stockholm Resilience Centre. (2023, September 13). All planetary boundaries mapped out for the first time, six of nine crossed. https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2023-09-13-all-planetary-boundaries-mapped-out-for-the-first-time-six-of-nine-crossed.html
(19) OECD. (2022). Climate Tipping Points: Insights for Effective Policy Action. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/abc5a69e-en
(20) IPCC: It’s not too late if we take climate action now. (2023, March 20). Stockholm Resilience Centre. https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2023-03-20-ipcc-its-not-too-late-if-we-take-climate-action-now.html
(21) Conservation International. (2014, October 6). Nature Is Speaking – Julia Roberts is Mother Nature | Conservation International (CI) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmVLcj-XKnM
Comments