San Francisco says no EPEAT certification, no Apple purchases

The 28,000 employees that make up the 50 departments of San Francisco’s city services will no longer be able to use city funds to purchase Apple displays, desktops and notebooks, following news that the California company had withdrawn its products from the EPEAT registry, used to track the environmental impact of electronics.

That is according to San Francisco’s chief information officer, John Walton, when speaking to the Telegraph. He said the purchase of Apple computers amounts to around $45,000 of the $200 million IT budget. “I’m just hopeful that we can have a dialog with Apple so we can continue to work with them.” The decision won’t affect the purchase of iPhones

and iPads as they aren’t subject to EPEAT criteria.

The move could have a broader impact on Apple in the government and university sectors as they rely on the EPEAT registry when making purchases. According to Bill Allison, head of campus technology services at the Berkeley campus, the University of California, the largest US public higher-education system is also considering whether to suspend Apple computer purchases because of the change.

“When something like this happens, it’s a significant change in the landscape,” said Allison. He added that the school will take two weeks to work with the retailer as well as administrators in the university system before a decision is made on how to proceed. “We’re reviewing the impact of this.”

Following EPEAT’s announcement Apple has taken steps to clarify its decision to remove its products from the registry, despite helping to create it several years ago. The Cupertino-based firm pointed out that it still conforms to many environmental standards including the governments Energy Star program.

“Apple takes a comprehensive approach to measuring our environmental impact, and all of our products meet the strictest energy-efficiency standards backed by the US government,” Apple’s spokesperson Kristin Huguet said in a statement. “We also lead the industry by reporting each product’s greenhouse gas emissions on our website, and Apple products are superior in other important environmental areas not measured by EPEAT, such as removal of toxic materials.”

Apple pulls products from EPEAT green electronics registry

Apple has withdrawn all of its products from the US government backed EPEAT environmental rating system it helped create. The move will have immediate effect and the Cupertino-based company will no longer submit devices for approval in the future, according to an announcement on EPEAT's website. 

The idea behind EPEAT, which stands for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, is to ensure electronics are as kind to the environment as possible. Before a product is granted with a seal of approval many factors are considered, including energy consumption, recyclability, reparability and the environmental impact of processes and materials used to manufacture the device. It covers various consumer products including displays, notebooks and desktops.

"They said their design direction was no longer consistent with the EPEAT requirements," EPEAT CEO Robert Frisbee commented. "They were important supporters and we are disappointed that they don’t want their products measured by this standard anymore."

Electronics teardown site iFixit believes the move is likely the result of new design paradigms favoring smaller and lighter notebooks and longer battery life. For example, the latest Retina MacBook Pro is nearly impossible to disassemble and has a glued in battery that iFixit says would likely leak the highly toxic innards if removed incorrectly. The difficulties with reparability and recyclability would likely prevent certification of the new rMBP.

It is also possible Apple asked that previously certified models be removed from the national registry as the newer models now replacing them are unlikely to gain certification. Regardless of the reasoning it will prevent most federal agencies from purchasing non-approved products though, as around 95% of all electronics purchased are required to conform to the EPEAT standards.

Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee speaking to the Wall Street Journal said he believes Apple is putting design first in its latest products. "They are not trying to purposely make it hard to open, they are just trying to pack as much as they can into a small space–it's a design decision." He also thinks Apple is likely to release alternative standards for its own products in the near future.

The US retailer's iPhone and iPad devices will likely remain unaffected by the decision as neither is subject to EPEAT approvals. Apple did not respond to requests for further comment.