Apple to grow trees as it aims for carbon neutrality

Apple has announced a $200 million initiative that will see it invest in timber-producing forests, which will be carefully managed to remove carbon from the air, whilst at the same time being run as a profitable enterprise.

This can be seen part as of an overall strategy which Apple announced last year whereby the company set itself a target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. It also expects its main suppliers to follow suit and achieve the same goals.

When it announced its targets, it stated that 75% of it would be achieved through emission reduction, a large part of this is by switching to green energy such as solar and wind. The further 25% would be achieved through schemes aimed at scrubbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

This venture is aimed at the latter segment.

Apple has teamed up with the nonprofit organization Conservation International, with Goldman Sachs acting as the fund manager. Known as the “Restore Fund” it will aim to make a profit by investing in commercial forestry properties. These will then be managed to produce commercial timber at a profit, whilst scrubbing around a million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually. This amount equates to the carbon emissions of 200,000 passenger vehicles.

In an interview with Reuters, Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, social and policy initiatives said – “Our idea here is that if you can show it’s profitable and doing what we need to do in terms of climate risk reduction, then you can scale up investments in forest restoration and management, which is what’s really needed.”

She is also quoted on the Apple website as saying – “Nature provides some of the best tools to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Forests, wetlands, and grasslands draw carbon from the atmosphere and store it away permanently in their soils, roots, and branches.”

Apple will seek advice from groups such as Verra and the Forest Stewardship Council as to which projects to invest in, and how to establish its carbon accounting framework. To make sure the carbon stored in their forest is permanently locked from the atmosphere, groups like Verra and the UN Climate Convention will oversee the application of international standards that need to be adhered to.

It has also said it intends to prioritize investments in working forests that promote biodiversity.

The company has declined to say how much the returns target is for the fund. However, they did say that they will consider current returns on investments in forests as a way of proving that carbon scrubbing can be a profitable business.

Lisa Jackson added that – “Working forests do make money because they produce products our economy needs. And so, there’s an opportunity here, just like with clean energy, to show there’s a sustainable economic model that matches the sustainability of the forests. The opportunity here is for Apple to bring our rigor and, frankly, our work in carbon quantification to the problem.”