Key takeaways
- A transition to recycled sources additionally pays off in emissions reductions.
- Recycled content material represented 24 % of the supplies (by mass) in merchandise shipped to clients in 2024.
- Obstacles to recycled content material embrace commerce treaties, restricted origin knowledge and scarce provide chain capability.
Apple’s push to supply 15 precedence supplies totally from recycled or renewable sources — together with aluminum, uncommon earths and lithium — is paying off in considerable emissions reductions for its manufacturing processes.
Apple has diminished its greenhouse gasoline emissions by 60 % since 2015, on its solution to a 75 % minimize by 2030, in keeping with the 2025 Apple Environmental Progress Report printed April 16. (Emissions had been 15.1 million metric tons, down from 22.6 million within the baseline 12 months.) Throughout the interval in query, Apple’s income grew 65 %, to $391 billion.
A lot of Apple’s reported discount got here from renewable electrical energy investments, however sourcing recycled and different lower-carbon supplies helped the corporate keep away from 6.2 million metric tons of emissions in 2024. Averted emissions, typically referred to as Scope 4, are calculated by estimating the quantity of greenhouse gases that weren’t emitted due to manufacturing modifications or different measures and subtracting them from historic emissions tendencies.
Apple claimed 41 million metric tons in averted emissions for 2024. Transferring to recycled supplies accounted for 15 % of that claimed discount. For context, product manufacturing actions symbolize 54 % of Apple’s general carbon footprint.
Recycled content material from sources licensed to ISO 14021 specs accounted for twenty-four % of the supplies in Apple merchandise in 2024. The product containing essentially the most recycled supplies was the MacBook Air, at 55 %. An in depth second is the most recent Mac mini: 50 % of its elements come from recycled sources and it’s manufactured utilizing renewable vitality, making its footprint 80 % smaller than a mini created utilizing a business-as-usual situation, Apple mentioned.
The corporate is prioritizing 15 supplies in its recycled content material transition, representing 87 % of its manufacturing by mass: aluminum, cobalt, copper, glass, gold, lithium, paper, plastics, uncommon earth components, metal, tantalum, tin, titanium, tungsten and zinc.
“Our technique is to transition to supplies which can be manufactured utilizing low-carbon vitality and recycled content material,” the corporate mentioned in its environmental report. “We’ve prioritized the supplies and elements that make up a big a part of our product carbon footprint to maneuver us nearer to our objective of carbon neutrality.”
Highlight on aluminum
Living proof: Apple used recycled sources for 71 % of the aluminum it purchased in 2024 — a technique that would show prescient as producers reckon with Trump-era aluminum tariffs.
Recycled aluminum is used for the enclosures of just about each Apple product: the most recent Apple Watch sequence and Mac mini fashions, MacBook Air and MacBook Professional, iPads and iPhones. Apple reclaims a portion of that aluminum from outdated Apple merchandise that it takes again by trade-in applications and procures the remainder from different post-consumer and post-industrial sources.
That initiative has diminished aluminum-related emissions 76 % since 2015. The fabric represented 7 % of Apple’s product manufacturing footprint for 2024, in contrast with 27 % within the baseline 12 months.
Apple can be investing in a Canadian enterprise, referred to as Elysis, commercializing a course of to smelt aluminum with out emitting direct greenhouse gases. The fabric isn’t but obtainable at industrial scale, however it’s been utilized in some iPhone SE fashions, circa 2022.
Work in progress
Apple has a number of different near-term objectives for recycled metals and uncommon earth components that it’s near assembly. They embrace:
- Recycled cobalt for all Apple-designed batteries: It’s at 99 % for the batteries; 78 % of the cobalt sourced for all merchandise in 2024 was recycled, in contrast with 52 % in 2023.
- Recycled sources for all tin soldering and gold plating in sure circuit boards: They represented 99 % in 2024.
- Recycled uncommon earth components for all magnets: They symbolize 99 % of what’s utilized in Apple batteries and 80 % for all of Apple’s uncommon earth wants.
As well as, Apple’s progress on sourcing recycled gold — utilized in circuit boards, connectors and chips — accelerated from 2021 to 2024. In 2024, recycled gold was used for 40 % of fabric in all merchandise, up from 1 % in 2021. The corporate doubled the variety of suppliers licensed to fabricate these supplies over the previous 12 months.
Challenges to future will increase in recycled supplies utilization embrace overcoming technical considerations akin to sturdiness and potential contamination; constrained provide availability; restricted knowledge that traces origins; and worldwide rules which will inhibit cross-border shipments. “Addressing these takes a collective response,” Apple mentioned.