Two new smartphones hit stores in the past month, triggering very different responses from customers:
The iPhone 6 came out to great fanfare, earning high marks from critics and record sales from customers.
The Amazon Fire, the online retailers first and much heralded foray into the smartphone market, is threatening to become the Amazon Fizzle.
Its clear at this point which phone has earned higher marks from customers and critics. But which phone is greener? Before explaining the answer, its worth remembering that the greenest smartphone is the one you dont buy. Electronic devices can provide incredible services, but they can also create large amounts of electronic waste and use a lot of energy to produce, so its important for all of us to buy only what we need. If you are in the market for a new smartphone, here are some things to consider when weighing the iPhone and the Fire:
The cloud behind the phones
Customers buying a smartphone today arent just buying a device, but an entire ecosystem supporting it. Companies clouds host all of the music, photos, videos, and other data that we consume on our smartphones. These clouds store your data in massive data centers, some of which can use as much electricity as 80 or 100,000 homes.
When that electricity is powered by dirty energy like coal and gas, it can drive demand for those power plants through the roof, polluting communities and the climate. If companies instead power their cloud with renewable energy, they can help drive the wind and solar revolution we need to combat climate change.
The iPhone 6 beats the Amazon Fire handily on this front. Apple has committed to power its data centers with 100% renewable energy, and is currently doing so, employing wind and solar power to bring you a green iCloud.
Amazon, on the other hand, has made no commitments to power its data centers with renewable energy. One of the few features of the new Fire that critics have embraces has been its free, unlimited photo storage. However, all of those photos do come at an environmental cost if Amazon continues its current dirty energy trajectory. Amazon refuses to release any data about its energy use, but a recent Greenpeace analysis showed that only 15% of its electricity comes from clean sources, a far lower number than leaders like Apple, Facebook and Google.
The energy mix behind the Fires cloud could get even dirtier if the company decides to site its next data center in Ohio, as is currently rumored, a state whose energy grid is dominated by coal power and features almost no renewable energy.
The phones themselves
Apples cloud is clearly greener than Amazons. But what about the phone itself?
Apple has led the way on removing toxic chemicals like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from the iPhone and all of its accessories. Thats important, because those chemicals can end up in e-waste dumps in the global South, threatening the health of local communities there.
As for Amazon, its lack of transparency extends to the Fire phone itself. When asked by Greenpeace this summer for information about the environmental impact of the Fire phone, Amazon did not respond.
Amazons lack of transparency makes it hard to assess them, but some independent arbiters have taken a crack at the Fire phone anyway. iFixit, an organization that promotes making devices more repairable, which can help phones last longer before being tossed, tore down the Fire and gave it a repairability score of 3 points out of 10. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus earned a 7 out of 10.
Apple still has issues to address with all of its devices, including trying to decrease the large carbon footprint of its iPhones assembly, and to ensure that the manufacturing process does not expose workers or the environment to toxic chemicals.
Those are big challenges, and Apple has said it plans to address both, and has started on some fronts. On both fronts, Amazon is – as you may have guessed by now – completely silent.
Are Amazons dirty energy habits costing it in sales?
Though Amazons secrecy makes it hard to evaluate the Fire, its clear that the iPhone 6 is greener than the Amazon Fire on all counts.
Its probably naive to think that Amazons poor environmental performance probably has not been a leading factor in the phones poor reception. On the other hand, it sure wont help matters. Part of why so many people around the world love Apples products is because of Apples powerful brand, and what that brand stands for. Apple products have always represented ideals of being cool, progressive, cutting-edge, and creative. Apple is smart enough to recognize that clean energy, which is modern, good for the world and widely popular, fits squarely into that brand.
In the long term, Amazons marketing division must know that its stubborn adherence to old, polluting energy is weighing down the companys brand, and thats not going to sell a lot of smartphones.
If Amazon wants to join Apple as an environmental leader, it can start by committing to a goal of powering its data centers with 100% renewable energy, and immediately publishing information about its energy use.
You can help make sure Amazon knows that its customers want to see it embrace clean energy. Ask Jeff Bezos to bring Amazon out of the stone ages, come clean about the companys energy use andcommitto renewable energynow.
