Cupertino Must Stop Calling Apple Watches 'Carbon Neutral,' German Court Rules (theregister.com)
- Reference: 0178886352
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/08/26/2046239/cupertino-must-stop-calling-apple-watches-carbon-neutral-german-court-rules
- Source link: https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/carbon_neutral_apple_watch/
> A German court has told Apple to [1]stop advertising its Watches as being carbon-neutral , ruling that this was misleading and could not fly under the country's competition law. Apple has been marketing its newest smartwatches as being carbon-neutral for nearly two years now, with an array of rationales. It claims that clean energy for manufacturing, along with greener materials and shipping, lop around three-quarters off the carbon emissions for each model of the Apple Watch. The remaining emissions are offset by the purchase of carbon credits, according to Apple.
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> Deutsche Umwelthilfe (well, DUH – that's the acronym), a prominent environmental group, begged to differ on that last point. It applied for an injunction in May and Tuesday's [2]ruling (in German), which will only be published in full later this week, led it to claim victory. The ruling means Apple can't advertise the Watch as a "CO2-neutral product" in Germany. [...] The ruling revolved around the Paraguayan forestry program that Apple claimed was offsetting some of the Watch's production emissions. The project involves commercial eucalyptus plantations on leased land, where the leases for three-quarters of the land will run out in 2029 with no guarantee of renewal.
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> According to the court, consumers' expectations of carbon compensation schemes are shaped by the prominent 2015 Paris Agreement, which commits countries to achieving carbon neutrality by the second half of this century. It said consumers would therefore "assume" that the carbon-neutrality claims around the Apple Watch would mean neutrality was assured through 2050. That leaves a 21-year gap of uncertainty in this case. The Verified Carbon Standard program, in which Apple is participating, has a "pooled buffer account" scheme to hedge against this sort of uncertainty. However, the German court was not impressed, saying it would only allow Apple to monitor the situation after the leases run out, which is a far cry from definitely being able to keep offsetting those emissions if the plantation gets cleared.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/carbon_neutral_apple_watch/
[2] https://ordentliche-gerichtsbarkeit.hessen.de/presse/co2-neutrales-produkt
Ethics is not math (Score:3)
This is precisely what happens when ethics (here, being "green") becomes reduced the calculation of inputs and outputs. Ethics becomes reduced to an industry-friendly equation.
Re: (Score:1)
"Ethics" has never been nor ever will be a touchstone of the human race. It's not in our DNA.
Re: (Score:3)
My gas-guzzling SUV gets 12 miles to the gallon, but I am more ethically virtuous than you because my watch is carbon-neutral.
How is this victory for the complainants? (Score:3)
Their evidence proves Apple is currently carbon neutral on their watches now, and until at least 2029?
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, and the court assumed without evidence that people buying "green" products expect a carbon neutrality scheme to be absolutely guaranteed for at least the next 25 years.
I don't even trust my Social Security benefits to be guaranteed that long. (Friedrich Merz recently made a similar assessment of Germany's social welfare system.) It would be dumb for anyone to expect a "green" certification to have that kind of guarantee, and it's even dumber for a court to insist that a company should provide that ki
Re: (Score:2)
I was about to ask what the fuck Cupertino is.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure.
The concept even extends to politicians.
"The White House said...."
"The Kremlin promised...."
"No comment from 10 Downing Street...."
Made from unobtainium (Score:2)
That would be a far easier thing to do than to be what some government decides is "carbon neutral".
"offset by the purchase of carbon credits" (Score:2)
Apple probably bought the carbon credits [1]from this scammer [dailywire.com].
[1] https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-anti-poverty-activist-and-dem-mega-donor-pleads-guilty-to-massive-carbon-credit-scam
Carbon Lite? (Score:1)
Just don't show any LGBTQ+'s on iWatch or Kid Rock and other TalibanJelicals will shoot it.
-5 Political Troll
Re: (Score:2)
> Just don't show any LGBTQ+'s on iWatch or Kid Rock and other TalibanJelicals will shoot it.
The Apple Watch has had pride wallpapers and faces for awhile now. [1]The latest one [apple.com] looks more like Walt Disney threw up than a pride flag, but I digress.
I think what keeps most right-wingers from losing their shit over this is that no amount of screaming "go woke, go broke" at the top of their lungs moves the needle when it comes to people willing to buy Apple's various gadgets.
[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/05/apple-introduces-the-2025-pride-collection/
Tree's aren't long term carbon sequestration (Score:3)
Planting trees helps, but it is not a reliable long-term carbon vault. Forest carbon is reversible: fire, drought, pests, and logging can dump decades of stored CO2 back to the air in a single season. Climate change makes those risks worse, not better. Projects also struggle with extra accounting problems: additionality (would the trees have grown anyway), leakage (deforestation shifts elsewhere), and measurement/verification uncertainty over decades. None of this means trees are bad; protecting existing forests and restoring native, diverse ecosystems bring big co-benefits. But treating tree planting as a durable substitute for cutting fossil emissions is wishful thinking. The sensible hierarchy is: slash emissions first, protect intact forests, restore where it makes ecological sense (especially in the tropics), and use conservative buffers and long-term management. For durable storage over centuries to millennia, look to geological or mineralization approaches.
Proof that Apple users are dumb. (Score:3)
Dumb enough to think "Carbon Neutral" is valid.
Re: (Score:1)
But shuddering all their nuclear plants and bringing coal back online somehow isn't.
Re: illegal (Score:1)
Well, the German Green Party actually has power. This is the expected end result of putting greens in power. Unfortunately, politicizing science doesn't work because politics has no ability to integrate or understand science.
Re: (Score:3)
Legal means done through due process of law. There're high confidence that the decision process leading to closure of the nuclear power plants was done through the legal process.
If a company wants to claim carbon neutrality, what they have to do is to follow certifications processes such as ISO 14068-1. Affluent companies hire consulting services such as [1]https://www.carbonneutral.com/ [carbonneutral.com] (for USA) (I see Microsoft on their customer list). Then they can display a "carbon neutral" logo and move the liability to
[1] https://www.carbonneutral.com/
Re: (Score:3)
> But shuddering all their nuclear plants... somehow isn't.
I'm pretty sure shuddering a nuclear plant would be illegal just about everywhere.
Maybe you meant "shuttering"?