Apple’s ambitious clean energy plan has positioned the company as a leader in the tech industry’s fight against climate change. With a clear goal of becoming carbon neutral across its entire supply chain by 2030, Apple is accelerating its data centers’ transformation while aligning with its broader net-zero emissions strategy.
Will the company make it and reach its bold carbon neutrality goals? Let’s take a closer look at how the iPhone maker plans to achieve its ambitious climate targets.
Apple’s Bold Path to a Cleaner, Greener Future
Apple’s journey to 2030 revolves around reducing its emissions across Scope 1, 2, and 3 categories by 75%. The tech giant will then offset the remaining emissions with carbon removal initiatives.
Apple has already achieved significant milestones in reducing its emissions, cutting them by over 55% since 2015. The company’s approach involves decarbonizing its three main emission sources: materials, electricity, and transportation. By addressing these three areas, Apple aims to achieve a balance between reducing its footprint and supporting renewable energy solutions.
A critical component of Apple’s clean energy strategy is its shift toward 100% clean energy across its facilities. The company reached a significant milestone in 2018 by sourcing 100% renewable energy for its offices, retail stores, and data centers. This progress laid the foundation for Apple’s broader commitment to become carbon neutral throughout its supply chain, setting an example for other companies to follow.
Quenching Data Center’s Thirst for Power
Data centers are among the most energy-intensive operations for tech companies. Apple’s data centers require substantial resources to cool the servers and IT equipment, making them a key focus for the company’s clean energy initiatives.
One of Apple’s key efforts is optimizing its server designs for improved energy efficiency, saving over 36 million kilowatt-hours annually in 2023 alone. The tech giant’s data centers consumed 2.344 billion kWh of electricity in the same year, up from the previous year’s 2.14 billion.
Despite the massive energy use, 100% of this electricity came from renewable sources, including solar, wind, biogas, and low-impact hydropower. Additionally, its colocation data center energy use dropped slightly to 483 million kWh, though overall colocation power consumption increased.
To sustain its clean energy goals, Apple is building its own renewable power projects and collaborating with utilities. The company’s data centers have been powered by renewable energy since 2014, leading to a 54% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Supporting services like iCloud and Siri, Apple serves one billion users globally.
The company’s energy-efficient cooling systems also play a significant role in minimizing energy usage, further boosting the overall efficiency of its data centers.
Apple’s data center acceleration plays a crucial role in the company’s overall net-zero emissions plan. By maintaining 100% clean energy at its data centers, Apple reduces the carbon footprint associated with its digital infrastructure. This combination of clean energy and energy efficiency is essential to Apple’s broader goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.
Green Inside and Out: Recycled Materials and Product Energy Efficiency
A key part of Apple’s clean energy plan involves the transition to using 100% recycled and renewable materials in its products. The iPhone maker has made significant progress in this area.
In 2023, 22% of materials in shipped products were from recycled or renewable sources. By 2025, Apple plans to use 100% recycled cobalt in all Apple-designed batteries and 100% recycled gold plating in its circuit boards. It also aims to use recycled rare earth elements in magnets.
The company has prioritized 15 key materials, including aluminum, cobalt, gold, and lithium, based on environmental, social, and supply chain impacts. These materials represented 87% of the total product mass shipped in 2023, advancing Apple’s sustainability goals.
Product energy efficiency is another critical element of Apple’s carbon emissions reduction. As the use of Apple products accounts for 29% of its gross carbon footprint, the company continues to innovate in product design to enhance energy efficiency. Since 2008, Apple has cut overall energy use across its product lines by more than 70%.
The transition to Apple Silicon chips, particularly in its Mac devices, has driven significant energy efficiency improvements. For instance, the M2 Mac mini reduced energy use while enhancing performance, and the A15 Bionic chip eliminated the need for internal fans, further reducing energy consumption.
Apple’s efforts have led to all eligible products receiving ENERGY STAR ratings, reinforcing their superior energy efficiency.
How Apple’s Supply Chain Partners Are Going Green
Apple’s net-zero emissions plan goes beyond its internal operations, extending to its supply chain. The Supplier Clean Energy Program, launched in 2015, is a cornerstone of Apple’s decarbonization efforts. This initiative encourages suppliers to transition to 100% renewable electricity in the production of Apple products.
- As of March 2024, over 320 suppliers, representing 95% of Apple’s direct manufacturing spend, have committed to using 100% renewable electricity.
To further accelerate progress, Apple has integrated renewable energy requirements into its Supplier Code of Conduct, requiring all direct suppliers to adopt clean energy practices. This shift is not only a critical step toward achieving Apple’s 2030 carbon neutrality goal but also serves as a blueprint for other companies aiming to reduce their carbon footprints.
Apple’s commitment to driving industry-wide change makes its supply chain decarbonization a model for global corporate sustainability efforts.
Carbon Removal Credits: The Final Piece in Apple’s Climate Puzzle
While Apple’s primary focus is on reducing emissions, some emissions remain unavoidable with current technologies. For those emissions, Apple is investing in carbon offset projects, including nature-based solutions like forest restoration and mangrove planting. These projects aim to sequester carbon, with an emphasis on transparency, permanence, and measurable impacts.
In March 2024, Apple’s initial $200 million investment in carbon removals through its Restore Fund has grown to $280 million. The fund focuses on supporting nature-based carbon removal projects.
The company’s roadmap includes a clear vision for achieving long-term sustainability goals, including a 90% reduction in emissions by 2050. Though challenges remain, Apple’s leadership in clean energy, data center acceleration, and net-zero emissions serves as a powerful example of how corporations can drive meaningful change in the fight against climate change.
The post Can Apple Win The Race to Net Zero With Its Bold Clean Energy Plan? appeared first on Carbon Credits.
EU Directive: Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (ECGT)
The EU Directive, Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (ECGT), takes effect on September 27, 2026.(1) The goal of ECGT is to protect consumers by ensuring that environmental claims are fair, understandable, and reliable. This regulation does create a new compliance requirement for businesses, but it also provides sustainability and marketing teams with important guidance that helps create consistency in sustainability communications.
Key takeaways
- ECGT takes effect September 27, 2026, and prohibits claims that a product or service has a neutral, reduced, or positive environmental impact based on offsetting alone.
- Named example phrases the regulation prohibits include climate neutral, CO2 neutral certified, carbon positive, climate net zero, climate compensated, reduced climate impact, and limited CO2 footprint.
- ECGT does not want to deter investment in carbon credits. It wants companies to communicate the real benefits of the projects they support instead.
- SBTi’s guidance recommends framing carbon credits as taking responsibility for ongoing emissions, not as making a product or company neutral.
- Voluntary carbon projects deliver real climate progress: reducing super-pollutants, protecting and restoring ecosystems, and supporting communities.
Regarding carbon credits specifically, voluntary carbon projects deliver important climate progress and environmental benefits that provide many talking points for companies. They reduce climate super-pollutants by removing industrial emissions like methane, N2O, HFCs and others. They protect and restore valuable ecosystems and carbon sinks like forests, mangroves and grasslands. They help communities by reducing local pollution, creating employment opportunities, improving access to healthcare, and more.
The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), a global leader in business climate action, concludes that alongside aggressive decarbonization, we should also use high quality carbon credits to take responsibility for our ongoing emissions. SBTi recognizes that carbon credits are important “to help limit temperature overshoot, mitigate transition risks, and support climate solutions.”(2)
ECGT language on carbon offsetting says that they do not want to deter investment in carbon credits. They just want companies to focus on communicating the benefits of the projects they support and avoid claims beyond the scope of carbon credits, which is good for everyone, companies and consumers alike.
The regulation reinforces that carbon credits do not change the sustainability of your products, so carbon credit buyers should not suggest that their products are more sustainable because of carbon credits. Instead, companies need to promote their climate contributions as a way to compensate or take responsibility for their carbon emissions by supporting projects that do great things like reducing global carbon emissions, reducing pollution, preventing deforestation, restoring forests, and more.
ECGT language related to carbon offsetting
The regulation is particularly focused on prohibiting claims, based on offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, that a product or service has a neutral, reduced, or positive impact on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. These claims are prohibited in all circumstances because they mislead consumers into believing the claim relates to the product itself, or to how it was made and supplied, or into thinking that using the product carries no environmental impact at all.
Named examples of prohibited claims include:
- climate neutral
- CO2 neutral certified
- carbon positive
- climate net zero
- climate compensated
- reduced climate impact
- limited CO2 footprint
These claims are only allowed when they rest on a product’s actual lifecycle impact, not on offsetting emissions outside that product’s value chain, since the two are not equivalent. This prohibition does not stop companies from advertising their investments in environmental initiatives, including carbon credit projects, as long as they present that information in a way that is not misleading and that meets the other requirements of Union law.(1)
SBTi also provides guidance on climate contribution language in its Corporate Net Zero Standard Version 2.0 Draft for Second Public Consultation, November 2025. While the SBTi language is fairly technical, it has a good framework for crafting a climate contribution message.
SBTi Language for Carbon Credits(3)
- Take responsibility for ongoing emissions by delivering mitigation impact contributions
- Carbon credits certify the mitigation outcomes of projects that reduce, avoid, or remove carbon emissions
- Activities that reduce emissions from emission sources not located within the company’s value chain
- Activities that conserve, protect, and enhance natural carbon sinks
- Activities that capture and store carbon in storage pools
SBTi’s draft standard also walks through sample claim language for this kind of contribution. In general, the samples move from a simple percentage statement, to naming a specific verified tonnage tied to that percentage, to a fuller statement that breaks the tonnage into reductions versus removals. Across all three, the framing stays consistent: a company took responsibility for a defined share of its ongoing emissions over a set period, by funding a specific, verified amount of mitigation, achieved through emission reductions or removals.(3)
FAQ: ECGT and Carbon Credit Claims
When does the ECGT directive take effect?
The rules apply across the EU from September 27, 2026, after member states transposed the directive into national law by March 27, 2026.
Does ECGT ban carbon offsetting?
No. It bans specific marketing claims that a product or service is environmentally neutral, reduced impact, or positive based on offsetting. Advertising investment in carbon credit projects themselves is still allowed if it is not misleading.
What phrases does ECGT specifically prohibit?
Named examples include climate neutral, CO2 neutral certified, carbon positive, climate net zero, climate compensated, reduced climate impact, and limited CO2 footprint, when those claims are based on offsetting rather than a product’s actual lifecycle impact.
How should a company describe its carbon credit purchases instead?
SBTi’s guidance recommends stating the specific verified tonnage of emissions reductions or removals funded and describing that as taking responsibility for a defined share of ongoing emissions, rather than claiming the company or product is neutral.
Does this rule apply to company level sustainability claims too?
ECGT is focused on claims about specific products and services in consumer marketing. Broader company level sustainability communication is a separate matter still governed by other existing rules.
While ECGT does add a new compliance burden for businesses, it helps create consistency in sustainability messaging that is important to building confidence in voluntary carbon projects and scaling the industry to help us achieve progress on global carbon emissions.
Disclaimer: Terrapass does not provide legal or regulatory advice. Any interpretation of regulation must be approved by your legal representative.
References:
(1) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2024/825/oj
(2) https://files.sciencebasedtargets.org/production/files/Corporate-Net-Zero-Standard-version-2.pdf
(3) https://files.sciencebasedtargets.org/production/files/CNZS-V2-Second-Consultation-Draft.pdf
The post The EU’s New Green Claims Rules and Carbon Credits appeared first on Terrapass.
Most businesses that decide to act on their net-zero targets reach the same point of friction. Buying carbon credits has meant tracking down brokers, sitting through sales calls, and requesting a quote just to learn a price, sometimes with limited proof of what you are buying.
The earnings calls that quietly reframed climate from sustainability question to operating risk.
Three earnings calls in the last 18 months tell the story without any help from a press release.
Hershey, May 2024: cocoa price exposure compresses margin, and the company attributes part of the cost shock to West African weather. Olam, July 2024: coffee climate exposure quantified in the annual report. JBS, January 2025: supply chain climate disclosures expanded materially in response to investor pressure and regulatory expectation. None of these companies issued the announcement as climate news. They issued it as financial news. The climate-linked supply chain risk did not arrive with a sustainability framing; it arrived as a P&L line.
You are probably reading this article because you suspect the same thing is happening to your business. This piece walks through what is showing up on which earnings calls, how procurement and finance leaders are quantifying the exposure, and what serious corporates are doing about it before the regulator asks.
Where climate risk has already appeared in earnings
The pattern is consistent across resource-intensive sectors. A weather event compresses supply, the price spikes, the cost flows through the income statement, and the analyst on the call asks whether the event is anomalous or structural. Increasingly, the honest answer is the second one.
Cocoa is the cleanest example. The 2023 to 2024 West African harvest fell sharply on the back of erratic rainfall and disease. Cocoa futures more than tripled. Companies with concentrated West African sourcing absorbed the cost; companies with diversified sourcing absorbed less. The exposure was not climate as ESG topic. It was climate as cost of goods.
Coffee follows the same pattern. Brazilian and Vietnamese harvests have moved on weather more sharply across the last several seasons. Roasters with long-tenor supplier relationships and origin diversification have managed the volatility; roasters with spot-market exposure have not. Wheat, sugar, palm oil, beef: the same dynamic in different commodities, a pattern the IPCC AR6 Working Group II report projects will intensify across agricultural systems through mid-century.
What this means: climate risk is no longer a footnote in the 10-K. It is a line item the CFO has to explain on the call.
The three commodity exposures that hit margin first
For most companies with material Scope 3 exposure, three exposures dominate the near-term P&L risk.
- Concentrated single-origin sourcing in a climate-vulnerable region. If your tier-one supply for any material commodity sits in one geography, you have a concentration risk that climate amplifies. Diversification across origins is the obvious hedge, but it takes years to build and requires relationships you cannot acquire by tender.
- Supplier financial fragility under climate stress. Smallholder farmers, who supply a large share of the global cocoa, coffee, and palm oil market, do not carry the balance sheets to absorb yield shocks. When yields collapse, they exit. When they exit, your supply base shrinks, and the surviving suppliers raise prices. The risk is structural, not cyclical.
- Logistics and storage exposure to extreme weather. Hurricane disruptions to Gulf shipping, drought-driven Panama Canal restrictions, flooding in European inland waterways: each of these has moved input costs in the last three years, a pattern documented in Munich Re’s natural catastrophe data. The exposure shows up as a one-quarter event in the financial press but accumulates over time on the cost line.
TCFD and ISSB disclosure changes
The disclosure architecture has now caught up with the risk. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, whose recommendations are now embedded in the ISSB’s IFRS S2 climate standard, requires companies to disclose climate-related risks across physical and transition categories, with quantification where possible.
For physical risk specifically (the climate-linked supply chain risk you are reading about), the disclosure must address both acute exposures (extreme weather events) and chronic exposures (gradual changes in temperature, precipitation, and growing seasons). The disclosure must address the time horizon over which the risk is material, the parts of the value chain exposed, and the financial impact under different scenarios.
The CSRD imposes similar requirements under European law, with double materiality (both financial and impact materiality) embedded in the assessment. The practical effect: your auditors and your investor relations team now need a defensible answer to the climate-linked supply chain risk question, and the answer needs to be quantified.
What procurement and finance can do now
Three actions matter near-term.
Map your exposure. Most companies do not have a clear view of which tier-one and tier-two suppliers sit in which climate-vulnerable geographies. Without the map, you cannot quantify the risk, and without the quantification, you cannot disclose it credibly. The map is the foundation, and World Resources Institute climate risk research provides useful public tooling to start.
Diversify and deepen, in that order. Diversification across origins reduces concentration risk, but the deeper move is to invest in the resilience of the suppliers you already have. Regenerative practices, agroforestry, soil health interventions: these reduce yield volatility under climate stress and protect your input cost trajectory.
Embed the climate spend inside procurement, not outside it. Treating climate risk as a sustainability cost line subordinates it to the ESG budget. Treating it as a procurement and resilience investment puts it in the budget that matters, which is the cost-of-goods budget that the CFO defends quarterly.
Nature-based supply chain investments are the asset class designed for exactly this purpose. They sit inside the value chain, they reduce climate-linked supply risk, they generate verifiable Scope 3 reductions, and they produce the documentation an auditor and a regulator can both test.
If you are quantifying climate-linked supply chain risk in advance of the next earnings cycle or the next disclosure period, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you map your exposure and structure a Dual-Value Model response that addresses reduction, resilience, and disclosure-readiness in a single program. Schedule a consultation.
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