As AppleInsider reports, Apple plans to use carbon-free and low-carbon aluminum produced by an innovative smelting process created by its $4.7 billion green bond investment to make iPhone SE 3 phones.
Since Apple’s green bond program launched in 2019, the company has invested $4.7 billion in research projects. Now, Apple says it will produce aluminum without any direct carbon emissions.
“Apple is committed to leaving the planet better than we found it, and our Green Bonds are a key tool to drive our environmental efforts forward,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, in a statement.
She continued: “Our investments are advancing the breakthrough technologies needed to reduce the carbon footprint of the materials we use. Even as we move to using only recyclable and renewable materials across our products to conserve the earth’s finite resources.”
Apple is buying aluminum from Elysis, which it calls “the world’s first direct carbon-free aluminum smelting process technology support.” In what it describes as “the first commercial-purity primary aluminum [manufactured on an industrial scale],” the process produces oxygen rather than greenhouse gases.
More About Low-carbon Aluminum
Apple’s original investment partnership with Alcoa, Rio Tinto helped the research. At the same time, they worked with the governments of Canada and Quebec in 2018. What they got, was used in the production of the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
As an extension of this original work, Elysis produced new aluminum using hydropower at its industrial R&D center in Quebec.
“This is the first-time aluminum has been produced at this commercial purity, without any greenhouse gas emission and at industrial scale,” said Vincent Christ, Elysis CEO. “The sale to Apple confirms the market’s interest in aluminum produced using our breakthrough ELYSIS carbon-free smelting technology.”
“Today’s announcement proves that Elysis, a joint venture between Alcoa and Rio Tinto, was able to turn an idea into reality,” he continued. “We are excited to be working alongside Apple on this advancement, which has the potential to make lasting changes in how aluminum is produced.”
Apple said the new process builds on the progress the company has made in reducing the carbon impact of product manufacturing.
And its green bonds—“one of the largest in the private sector”—are continuing to be used to develop renewable energy. This includes Apple’s data center in Vyborg, Denmark, which is powered by “the world’s largest onshore wind turbine.”
