Congratulations on hitting $1 trillion Apple, now it's time to clean up your act

The tech giant's power should come with greater responsibility, argues Michael Holder

Whichever way you measure it - culturally, politically, financially - there are few more powerful entities in the world right now than Apple and the other tech giants. The business founded in Steve Jobs' garage in 1976 has won the race to become the world's first public company worth $1 trillion, beating Silicon Valley rivals Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft to the title.

It is hard to overemphasise the scale of this milestone. To put Apple's market size and profitability into perspective, the company is alone worth more than the economies of most nations, including Switzerland and Turkey, last year raking in net profits close to $50 billion. Together, the top five tech firms are worth more than $3 trillion.

Stuffed with cash, this small corner of the United States has over the past two decades provided the drum beat to which the rest of the planet dances. The planet, though, is paying a heavy, heavy price.

For a start, it is estimated 90 per cent of all humanity's digital data has been generated in only the past two years, and if we have learned nothing else from Cambridge Analytica, that data means power.

Less often highlighted, though, is the sheer amount of power required by that data. The data centres that hold all the world's cat videos, memes and Love Island repeat streams are overwhelmingly fossil fuelled and contribute to more than two per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and growing, which is roughly on a par with the global aviation sector.

Sending a single email with a large attachment has a carbon footprint of around 50g CO2e, or the equivalent to boiling a kettle.

And that's just energy. The iPhones, iPads and MacBooks - for which Jobs is revered as a genius of modern design - have built Apple into the behemoth it is today. But while these products continue to be coveted the world over for their sleek, simple ergonomics, their environmental credentials are problematic.

I would place a hefty bet that almost everyone you know has experienced a cracked screen, weak battery, or sluggish operating system leading to an iPhone, iPad or MacBook replacement after a few years. Apple insists it is making progress on this front, but issues with obsolescence continue to dog the industry - numerous companies stop selling parts or offering service and support for older products in order to encourage sales of their latest products, while upgrades routinely lead to obsolence.

Containing many rare earth metals cheaply mined in China and Africa which can be toxic and damaging when they escape into the wider environment, the overwhelming majority of old gadgets still end up going to waste. There has been a raft of welcome initiatives to repair and recycle our phones and computers, but a 2015 UN report estimated as much as 90 per cent of the world's electronic waste - worth $19 billion - was still being illegally traded or dumped.

In response a 'Right to Repair' movement has emerged, with legislation that would require electronics makers to offer repair information and parts to third party repair providers and product owners gaining support in 18 US states. Yet Apple, which doesn't disclose recycling rates for old products through its own take-back scheme, is one of the companies to have lobbied against such legislation.

It would be unfair to single out Apple as the only facilitator of our consumption-driven, throwaway economy. As Lord Stern concluded 10 years ago, the failure to properly price pollution is the biggest market oversight the world has ever seen. And, to its credit, Apple has been making concerted efforts to improve its environmental footprint over the past decade. It is investing in its own renewables, and claims its core business is now 100 per cent powered by clean energy. Attempts are also being made to clean up its supply chain; Apple recently announced a $300 million clean energy fund in China.

Some other tech firms are making positive moves too. Both Dell and BT have 'net positive' strategies through which they broadly aim to put more back in to society - environmentally, socially and economically - than they take out.

The opportunities from a more-data driven economy are huge, both for the tech sector, wider society, and the environment. The Global e-Sustainability Initiative, a collaboration between major tech and electronics companies, estimates ICT solutions have the potential to maintain global CO2 emissions at 2015 levels, while enabling a whopping $11.4 trillion business benefits comprising $6.5 trillion in new revenues across key sectors and $4.9 trillion in cost savings from greater efficiencies and decreased waste.

If cleaner, more efficient means of powering data centres can be far more widely harnessed, and manufacturers collaborate across the supply chain to push more eco-friendly product design and create a much more circular economy for hardware, the tech sector can drive the planet towards a sustainable, low carbon future - at the same time as boosting and futureproofing its own business.

There are signs Apple is shifting its business model, partly in response to changes in consumer habits and partly because of its awareness of environmental risks.

It is now selling fewer iPhones but at a higher price, while diversifying its revenues more from dematerialised sources such as selling apps, cloud storage and music streaming, for example. Its investment in clean energy capacity is genuinely world-leading.

But as the newly crowned leader of the global economy, and one which professes to take its green credentials seriously, Apple has arguably more influence than almost any other company on the direction of the global economy.

So while it would be a mistake to demonise tech giants when they hold the keys to a more sustainable future, companies such as Apple can and certainly should be doing a lot more to lead as an example for its incredibly rich and powerful tech sector peers.

The signs are that as Apple embarks on the next phase of its history it is keen to take on this challenge and the hope is it can now use its epic scale to normalise more sustainable business and production models across the industry. After all, with great power comes great responsibility, certainly, but also opportunity.

Michael Holder writes for BusinessGreen. A version of this article was first published on that site.