Apple iPhone SE gets eco-friendly, to be built using low-carbon aluminum

Apple is purchasing direct carbon-free aluminum following a major advancement in smelting technology to reduce emissions, which it plans to use in its iPhone SE models. The aluminum is the first to be manufactured at industrial scale outside of a laboratory without creating any direct carbon emissions during the smelting process. 

The company behind the world’s first direct carbon-free aluminum smelting process, ELYSIS, said that it has produced the commercial-purity primary aluminum for Apple. Unlike traditional method that produces greenhouse gases, this breakthrough technology produces oxygen. 

And the achievement marks a major milestone in the production of aluminum, one of the world’s most widely used metals. This aluminum was produced by ELYSIS at its Industrial Research and Development Centre in Quebec using hydropower and Apple will purchase this first batch of commercial-purity, low-carbon aluminum. Apple helped spur this revolutionary advancement in aluminum production through an investment partnership with Alcoa, Rio Tinto, and the governments of Canada and Quebec that began in 2018. The following year, Apple purchased the first-ever commercial batch of aluminum resulting from the joint venture, using it in the production of the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

“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. “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.”

Since 2016, Apple has issues three Green Bonds and  $4.7 billion to accelerate progress toward the company’s goal to become carbon neutral across its supply chain by 2030. Its first two bonds in 2016 and 2017 are now fully allocated. The 2019 Green Bond is supporting 50 projects, including the low-carbon aluminum breakthrough. These 50 projects will mitigate or offset 2,883,000 metric tons of CO2e, install nearly 700 megawatts of renewable energy capacity around the world, and promote new recycling research and development says the company.