Tim Bradshaw in Los Angeles
Apple and some of its largest suppliers, including Pegatron, Wistron and Jabil, are teaming up on a new $300m “China Clean Energy” fund, the iPhone maker announced on Thursday.
The fund is designed to channel investment towards renewable energy sources as part of Apple’s drive to clean up its supply chain.
DWS Group, Deutsche Bank’s rebranded asset management arm, will manage the China Clean Energy Fund, as well as investing alongside Apple and its suppliers.
The four-year plan is to pool resources for extra leverage to bring online more than 1 gigawatt of renewable energy in China.
Under social policy chief Lisa Jackson, the former head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Apple has set itself ambitious long-term goals for reducing its environmental impact. Last year, Apple said that it hoped to one day manufacture all its devices entirely from recycled materials and “stop mining the earth altogether”, although it did not set any deadline for achieving this.
Apple has previously invested in wind and solar energy projects in Oregon, Nevada and Iowa in the US, as well as in Japan and China. Earlier this year, Apple said that its global facilities were powered by “100 per cent clean energy”.
However, while that includes Apple's offices, data centres and retail stores, the milestone did not include third-party manufacturing partners, which generate far higher emissions to produce devices such as the iPhone.
Ten Apple suppliers, including Corning in the US and Taiwan-based Compal and Catcher, have said they will participate in the new China Clean Energy fund. Foxconn, Apple’s largest supplier, is not currently listed among the participants.