Apple's Creative Approach to Sustainability Reporting: Gimmick or Groundbreaking?

In a world where consumers demand transparency and responsibility, Apple recently made waves with an innovative approach to communicating its sustainability report. Last week, the tech giant released a video titled "2030 Status" to update stakeholders on its sustainability strategy, pledging a "zero carbon" footprint by 2030 for all its products.

In the tongue-in-cheek film, Apple's CEO Tim Cook and the board took an unconventional route by directly addressing "Mother Nature". This approach quickly captured audiences' attention, garnering half a million views on YouTube within just a day of being uploaded.

Apple's video challenges the conventional approach to sustainability reporting, prompting questions about whether it will establish a new standard for how companies communicate their environmental performance. This departure from the traditional model, which often involves lengthy annual reports laden with infographics and dense text, offers a refreshing alternative that is far more accessible and engaging for stakeholders. The clip is a compelling case study in sustainability communications, setting a dynamic precedent for others to follow.

Apple's innovative approach to sustainability communication deserves plaudits for several reasons: -

• Accountability: Apple's leadership, including its CEO and board members, are put front and centre of the video, and it shows each of them individually being held accountable by Mother Nature for delivering action – something we don’t see nearly often enough from C-suite executives. ?
• Engagement: The entertainment factor and star power of Octavia Spencer means the video has reached far beyond Apple's traditional sustainability audience, allowing the brand to reach a wider group to start a conversation about the company’s environmental performance.
• Alignment with Consumer Concerns: The focus on areas like recycling, water use, renewable energy and carbon footprint aligns with issues consumers are increasingly concerned about and, crucially, areas where consumers can also take action in their own lives, creating a sense of kinship.
• Personifying Nature: The portrayal of "Mother Nature" as a stakeholder demanding action helps consumers connect human activities with nature's response, emphasising the need to protect our planet.
• Annoying the Right People: Predictably, the film was roundly attacked by right-wing newspapers opposed to meaningful climate action. This ensured added exposure, neatly aligning Apple with the scientific and political consensus, away from the divisive and widely ridiculed climate denial agenda.

However, while the video maintains Apple’s slick signature style that we’ve come to expect from its advertising, to be truly groundbreaking the video needed to go even further and see Mother Nature asking much tougher questions to differentiate Apple’s offer to the world.

There are a number of areas where the film could have been more robust:

• Biodiversity: Apple made no mention of its work to protect or even support biodiversity – a rising priority for many companies. Looking at the language used in the video, it’s clear that despite highlighting its investment in nature-based solutions (NBS) across the globe, this decision is motivated by climate outcomes, removing all carbon from the atmosphere, rather than Apple expanding its sustainability strategy to protect biodiversity for the inherent value it provides to humanity.
• Water Usage: Of all the figures highlighted, this was the only area not to show Apple’s progress as a percentage improvement data set. It’s a common tactic with big businesses who deploy big numbers (here, Apple emphasises its figure is in the billions) that don’t often represent as significant a shift as might be assumed. Its omission has led some to question Apple’s work in this area, and its report shows that it’s an area that the company is still grappling with. Indeed, Apple reports that it still uses 90% freshwater for its corporate facilities.
• Raw Materials: Another glaring omission was around the firm’s work to increase the use of more sustainable or recycled raw materials. This is a growing area of concern for companies, especially those in the tech world who rely on a number of precious metals for their products, and its inclusion would have set Apple apart from others and represented a real step change in terms of companies communicating areas where there is still work to be done.?
• Greenwashing Concerns: “Carbon neutral” is also a somewhat bold term for Apple to deploy for its new product line. It’s garnered growing criticism in recent years, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out and whether it falls foul of any of the new greenwashing regulations in the UK and the EU.

Apple's video also leads us to consider broader issues around corporate green promises. Many companies, including Apple, have faced criticism for lack of transparency, exaggerating or misreporting their environmental contributions and providing scant detailed information to back up their claims.

The film is clearly a noble attempt to shake off this reputation. However, it is noteworthy that the video's release came just after the publication of the latest Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor by the New Climate Institute, a nonprofit group that tracks corporate green promises. Whilst Apple was a relative standout in the report, the company was still knocked for not cutting emissions more aggressively, for relying too much on offsets and for not setting a longer-term target for emissions reduction. This latest report has addressed the latter issue by promising a 90% emission reduction by 2050.

Despite these challenges, Apple's innovative way of communicating about its sustainability report could set a new benchmark for the industry. Its approach will reach a much wider audience than traditional reporting ever could and demonstrates that creative communication can drive debate beyond sustainability echo chambers and create greater accountability for companies.

That said, it remains crucial that sustainability reporting and communication are robust and firmly anchored in science and facts. Apple’s wider sustainability communications that supported the video, including the publication of its sustainability report and the launch of a new microsite, ensured that while the video delivered entertainment for its viewers, the stats it shared could still be substantiated. Its 100+ page report is still somewhat cumbersome to navigate, and while its microsite allows you to dig into some of the details, it’s clear that there is still some fine-tuning required for users to really feel that Apple has revolutionised sustainability reporting and embraced the transparency many stakeholders want to see from their favourite brands.

But let’s end on the positive: Apple's video shows storytelling is a potent tool, proving that sustainability reporting can be both serious and entertaining when approached with creativity backed by facts. It’s a yes from us.