Jobs Announces 'A Greener Apple'

Steve Jobs just broke Apple's relative silence about its environmental policies, a move that will either hearten or frustrate the company's critics, who contend that Apple is not sustainable enough. One of the larger bones of contention over time has been the company's unwillingness to declare public goals for its electronics recycling programs. That unwillingness is gone, and Steve's personal letter to the world even explains why it was there in the first place.

It is generally not Apple’s policy to trumpet our plans for the future;
we tend to talk about the things we have just accomplished.
Unfortunately this policy has left our customers, shareholders,
employees and the industry in the dark about Apple’s desires and plansto become greener. Our stakeholders deserve and expect more from us,
and they’re right to do so. They want us to be a leader in this area,
just as we are in the other areas of our business. So today we’rechanging our policy.

The rest of the letter details what Apple has done for the environment and intends to do in the future. It's pretty much a point-by-point rebuttal to their critics, including public pledges to remove the use of polyvinyl chlorides form all Apple products by next year, and audacious recycling figures that ramp up to 28 percent of weight of products sold by 2010. The company claims that figure will surpass HP and Dell in the next three years.

At any rate, this is a stunning announcement. Next thing you know, Apple will pre-announce one of its flagship hardware products more than five months before it ships. Oh, wait...

What do you think? Has Apple finally gone far enough? What additional environmental commitments do they still need to make? Will Greenpeace stop showing up with giant worm-ridden apples at major conferences?

Thanks, Andrew!
Image via Greenpeace.