A Greenpeace campaign to highlight the environmental impact of planned obsolescence has slated iPads and MacBooks for their poor repairability scores, but praises the iPhone 7.
It follows a separate report earlier this year in which Greenpeace labelled Apple the most environmentally friendly tech company in the world …
The previous report, Clicking Clean, focused on energy use, where Apple beat other tech companies thanks to its high use of renewable energy and the steps it takes to encourage suppliers to follow its example.
Rethink-IT looks instead at the repairability of products.
Greenpeace used iFixit scores combined with the availability of repair manuals and spare parts to reach its assessments of products sold between 2015 and 2017.
Making devices that can be easily repaired and are designed to last is the most significant step that companies can take to reduce the environmental impacts of making our electronics.
Apple got scored just 1/10 for the 13-inch MacBook Pro and 2017 Retina MacBook. Both failed requirements for battery and display replaceability, access without special tools and availability of spare parts. For the MacBook Pro, Greenpeace didn’t specify the model, but the illustrative image was of a non-Touch Bar model.
Two iPads fared only slightly better, scoring 2/10. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, however, each scored 7/10 on the basis of the ease of display replacement.
The company has a petition asking Apple, Samsung and LG to sell repairable and long-lasting products.
