Legit News
San Francisco Halts Apple Mac Purchases In Wake Of EPEAT Issue
As we reported earlier, Apple dropped the EPEAT green standard just a short while ago, and as we explained this meant that government agencies in the U.S. could not purchase Apple products. As of this moment, San Francisco looks to be the first to stop purchasing Macs from Apple. According to the Department of Environment officials speaking to the Wall Street Journal, 50 agencies in the next two weeks will receive letters that explain why Macs "no longer qualify" for city money. This of course is because of Apple's request to have 39 products consisting of desktops, notebooks and monitors pulled from the EPEAT-certified product list. That said, workers can still purchase Macs if they wish, but the process to do so will be "long" and "onerous" which doesn't bode well for those who prefer to use Apple computers. The underlying implications here point to other government agencies and cities possibly following suit. With only 1-2% of the cities computers consisting of Macs which equals roughly 500-700 computers, thats rather insignificant, but what happens if that spreads across the entire state and further? This could become a serious loss of revenue for Apple considering they had been making gains in government circles where 95% of all US government purchases are required to be EPEAT-certified. All this from Apple's change in design focus for thinner and thinner products causing them to be harder to repair, disassemble and recycle.
The decision to backtrack from EPEAT -- which Apple helped establish in 2006 -- is linked to the Retina MacBook Pro, EPEAT CEO Robert Frisbee tells the Journal. He explains that the computer wouldn't qualify under EPEAT standards because the computer's battery is glued to the case; an Apple staffer, in fact, is said to have informed EPEAT in June that it was leaving the registry due to a new "design direction." The organization's rules mandate that it must be easy to separate toxic components such as batteries from those that can be recycled.
Posted by | Wed, Jul 11, 2012 - 05:07 PM
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