So last week, Apple decided it was leaving the EPEAT registry, a listing of ‘green’ products that meet certain conditions and are classed into 3 groups depending on the level of coverage. Apple was one of the originators of the EPEAT registry and so it was surprising that they decided to leave. A number of government and prviate concerns immediately indicted they would be removing Apple products from their list of preferred procurement partners.
But fear not, they quickly did an about turn citing disappointment from Apple customers. Or could it be that suddenly, many would not be buying Apple products anymore?
An interesting development in this saga is that Apple has given itself ( yes that is not award by EPEAT ) a Gold status passing grade for the new Retina MacBook Pro. Considering that this product fails many of the EPEAT requirements for Gold status, this is surprising. It’s been mentioned that the extra strong glue used to fix the battery to the body would make the MacBook unfit for any level of EPEAT accreditation.
Another area of concern is the “Easy disassembly of external enclosure” which is as a result of the MacBook’s almost maniacal removal of any option for repair in the unit. The battery is glued in, memory is fixed and the SSD is removed from any sort of housing and mounted directly into the chassis.
I suppose this is just Apple at its best again.
