Apple Environmental Responsibility Report

Safer Materials
How do we make sure our products stay
safe for people and planet?
We run our own environmental
testing lab.
Learn more about how Apple is
integrating toxicological assessments
into our materials selection process.
Download the white paper ↓ ⃝
To protect people and the planet, we set strict standards on the
materials used in our devices, often going far beyond what’s required
by law. We also built the Environmental Testing Lab, where our chemists
and toxicologists look for any potentially harmful substances rather than
waiting for a third party to identify them for us. One process we use
involves laser-based instruments—just like the one used by the Mars
rover to analyze soil samples—to ensure that our products are free of
beryllium. The lab also uses tools like inductively coupled plasma mass
spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and ion, liquid, or gas
chromatography. If we find an issue, we work with the supplier to correct
it. Since creating our Cupertino Environmental Testing Lab in 2006, we’ve
grown it to over 20 times its original size, and have regularly updated it
with state-of-the-art equipment. We’ve also been building out testing labs
at our manufacturing facilities to test and validate products throughout
the manufacturing process.
Our scientists have cataloged and analyzed more than
20,000 individual parts.
We started our Full Material Disclosure program to identify all the
substances we use in all the parts we use. We’ve already looked at more
than 20,000 individual components out of the 40,000 present in all our
products, prioritizing materials that come into frequent skin contact and
those present in greatest quantity, and we get data on more parts every
day. We assess the different chemicals in those components using
18 different criteria. This helps us understand their effect on people’s
health and on the environment.
Environmental Responsibility Report | 2017 Progress Report, Covering FY2016
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