I have found out recently that Greenpeace have filed a suit against Apple’s new iPhone. The question that I think us business minded people are asking is: how will this kind of negative word of mouth effect the toxic iPhone? Even though it’s clear to me that the phone violates laws and as a result could have major problems for the future of the planet, people seem to showing support for the iPhone. When I read this I thought… why is this the case?
What we have here is a clash of value systems. The first is based on materialism and the other is based on environmentalism. A materialist philosophy puts ’stuff’ ahead of people and other concerns, whereas an environmental philosophy puts the planet and it’s concern to the fore. In my book materialism wins hands down and always will. Why? Because largely we are a materialistic society. Economics come before the environment. However, this environmentalist concern against the iPhone is a business problem. What can they do to appease environmentalist concerns? Should they even bother?
Yes they should, I think, make some kind of statement about the toxic chemicals and how it can be best dealt with, environmentally speaking. I say this for two reasons. I think that a company has to show a human face (which Apple do regularly). It would be consistent with their marketing strategy for the mac as well as for their iPhone product. Secondly, people are much more aware of environmental concerns these days thanks to the constant coverage it gets in the media. We are having an election here in Australia in a short while and what each party thinks of a pulp mill project in Tasmania is a source of hot debate.
This is a business problem for Apple. Granted, not a major one but I think they need to show their customers that their values are appreciated and that they take the environment problems seriously. After all this is one of their promises to their clients is it not? How they do this could be in the form of an impact statement, a plan to recycle old iPhones that leads to their safe disposal, an reduced price upgrade option for iPhone users if they want a version that’s less toxic and so on. Companies cannot afford not to take such issues lightly in modern times. More importantly for a greener Apple, there needs to be some decisive action on their part.
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