31 May 2007 - This is
the story of a very different kind of Greenpeace
campaign. The story of a "people power
victory." It's the story of the Greening
of Apple.
We launched our campaign to reduce electronic
waste in 2004, with the aim to remove the
worst toxic substances from electronic products,
improve recycling policies, and to catalyze
a fundamental change in the way our electronic
gadgets are designed, produced, and recycled.
Send a message challenging the industry
to change.
In 2006, we published a ranking guide to
put pressure on individual companies to
improve policies and practices.
Companies like Dell and Lenovo responded
to the pressure, commiting to phase outs
of the worst toxic substances from their
product ranges, and in the case of Dell,
challenging the entire computer industry
to adopt a worldwide free take-back policy,
as Dell had done.
In late 2006, it became clear that the
company which had been least responsive
and falling further and further back in
the rankings was, surprisingly, Apple.
Apple fans
In considering how we might win improved
policies from Apple, we knew one thing for
certain: Apple might tune out Greenpeace,
but they would never tune out their customers.
Apple's famously loyal fan base was the
one force on the planet that was guaranteed
to get the attention of Apple CEO Steve
Jobs.
So we decided this was to be a very different
Greenpeace campaign, one in which we would
turn over the reigns to Apple's customers.
We would stand in the shoes of Apple fans,
we would speak as fellow believers in the
wizards of Cupertino, and we'd try to channel
waves of Apple Love at corporate headquarters.
The result was the launch of the Green
my Apple website in September 2006, the
first words of which were, "We love
Apple."
The site was designed to look like Apple's
own site, with in-jokes that only Apple
fans would get, and a single unifying theme:
"We love our Macs. We just wish they
came in green."
It was designed, written and promoted as
a place where Apple fans interested in a
greener Apple could learn about the call
for Apple to be a green leader and, crucially,
show their support in many different ways.
If you only had a minute you could email
Steve (Just "Steve." Apple fans
are all on a first name basis with Apple's
CEO) and you could recommend the Green my
Apple site to social networking services
like Digg, Hugg, and del.icio.us with a
single click.
If you had more time, you could blog about
the campaign, and your blog entry, whether
positive or negative, would become part
of the content of the site itself due to
the magic of Technorati and RSS feeds.
And for those with creative talent there
were "ProCreation" challenges
for people to create poster and t-shirt
designs.
In the begining
This is virtuoso activism - with the best
usage of online and digital media I have
ever seen. From a digital communications
perspective, I think that Greenpeace have
really upped the ante with this one.
Rather than responding to Greenpeace, Apple
should respond directly to their users and
fans. The message could be about how they
realise this issue is important to their
stakeholders, which is why they are reacting.
Apple can then clarify their green strategy
and future plans to improvement. --International
Association of Business Communicators Blog,
3 November 2006
At the start of the Green my Apple campaign,
we made it clear what we wanted:
We want you to run this campaign. We want
you to create the campaign T-shirt, pen
the speech in which Steve Jobs announces
the Greening of Apple, shoot the Apple Ad
that sets Cupertino talking about clean
production and take-back schemes.
The Green my Apple website has all the
information and the raw materials you need
to get you started. If you're creative,
create. If you're networked, network. There's
plenty to do, and many hands make light
work.
In a first for Greenpeace, we gave away
some of our images and videos under creative
commons licenses for people to remix and
mash up and post on the sites 'ProCreations'
page. What came back was high quality, amusing
and wonderful work.
Bloggers made and shared their own blog
buttons quicker than we could respond to
a request for them. Some people made online
merchandise to promote the campaign before
we'd even thought of it.
Take off
In fact from the day of the launch, interest
in the site was massive (the resilience
of our servers had never been so thoroughly
tested!) and soon the ProCreations were
flowing in. Apple chose not to comment;
perhaps hoping their fans would come to
their defence.
But the difference this time was that Apple
wasn't being attacked, Apple fans were asking
their favourite company to be greener. In
fact we were getting so many designs in
the first few weeks we had to make the process
to put them up much faster.
These are some of the best ones submitted:
Not content to remain online we took the
green my apple message to MacExpo in London
to talk to Mac fans in person.
The majority of people we talked to were
supportive of a greener Apple.
Unfortunately the MacExpo organisers and
Apple were not so keen on a greener Apple
message and closed our stall at the venue.
Online many Mac users were writing and
blogging about the campaign from magazine
writers to marketing and advertising executives;
even Mac media encouraged people to support
a greener Apple:
It's a campaign we should all support,
as it will only make for an even better
Apple.
- Nik Rawlinson, Editor MacUser UK.
If Steve Jobs gets up there and talks about
reducing toxic chemicals in their products,
people will applaud him for it. Make us
proud, Steve.
- Macuser.com
In-store appearances
The green my apple team also visited Apple
stores in London, Amsterdam, Austin (Texas),
and New York to spread the Green my Apple
work and have a bit of fun by sending a
message to Steve direct from the Apple store.
Default wallpapers and homepages on showroom
computers were subverted with Green my Apple
messages. People were making their own videos
for the campaign and even creating and selling
their own Green my Apple t-shirts online.
But we still needed an easy way for Apple
fans to do more to show their support. So
in November we launched the hug your Mac
action, in which Mac users could download
a desktop picture and declare their love
of their Mac, and their wish that it came
in green.
Soon all sorts of images of green Mac love
were being posted on the popular photo-sharing
site, Flickr. On the global map a spread
of pictures appeared with photos spanning
the globe from the Domincan Republic to
London, Dubai to New York, Paris to Hong
Kong.
View all the hug pictures on flickr.
The next big Apple event was Macworld in
San Francisco. We created an alternative
keynote speech (using Quicktime) in which
Steve announced the phase out of dangerous
chemicals, a worldwide take-back policy,
and a green iPod.
Spoof Steve
It was an instant hit on YouTube and by
the day of Steve's real keynote speech,
the spoof video had been viewed over 100,000
times.
In February we heard the first gossip that
Steve was considering a response, and that
he might be thinking of sending a little
green love back, appropriately enough on
Valentine's Day. Despite the fact that more
designs and hug pictures were appearing
online, Apple continued to publicly deny
it planned any changes.
We knew that Apple usually makes policy
announcements just before its annual general
meeting in May. Our US office organised
student campus groups to hold Green my Apple
days on campus which resulted in over 1000
green Apple photo messages for Steve.
Students from three continents contacted
us about running Green my Apple projects.
Meanwhile there were increasing questions
about how Apple would respond to two shareholder
resolutions calling for Apple to phase out
toxic chemicals and improve its recycling
policy.
Despite the arguments, let's hope Apple
can come to terms with stronger and more
effective policies in this delicate day
and age of increasing environmental concerns.
- The Unofficial Apple Weblog
Awards
The great work being posted on the website,
which had already generated many blog comments,
started to get more formal recognition.
The site was nominated for best non-profit
site at the SXSW web awards.
It then won a Webby award as best activist
site of the year.
Before we'd finished the champagne, though,
that same week we saw something we'd really
been waiting for:
A familiar-looking green apple appeared
on the Apple website with a very familiar
heading "A Greener Apple," linking
to an open letter from Steve Jobs declaring
a change in policy.
While it was not everything that we had
hoped for from Apple, it was good news.
Steve stepped up to be clearer about Apple's
environmental policies. He declared a phase
out of the worst chemicals in its product
range, Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs)
and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) by 2008. He
promised more transparency.
While falling short of announcing a global
take back policy, Apple did pledge to increase
its recycling rate in the future.
But apart from the details, it was clear
that Steve had got the green Apple message
loud and clear:
"Apple is already a leader in innovation
and engineering, and we are applying these
same talents to become an environmental
leader."
Given Steve's reputation for secrecy and
single mindedness it's a massive achievement
to see him echoing what so many people called
for - Apple as a green leader.
But that statement is just the first step
being a green leader - to help ensure Steve
doesn't forget who asked him for a green
Apple we've made him a nice reminder (just
in case he hasn't had time to check all
the ProCreations!) Using Apple software
we created and delivered this book of the
best of Green my Apple direct to Steve.
View the book:
This how we delivered it direct to Steve
with the help of Apple of course!
The next challenge
Clearly Steve got the message, so we have
archived our Green my Apple website and
issued a challenge to all the major computer
makers to see who will be the first to match
their promises by putting a less toxic computer
on the market.
Send your message to ask which company
will rise to this challenge.
We'll continue to monitor company commitments
and actions on our Greener Electronics Guide
every 3 months to ensure phase out schedules
and actions are kept. But we're also confident
that Apple will keep its promise -- because
it made that promise not to Greenpeace,
but to its customers.
Hopefully Steve will make a start by announcing
green features of the iPhone when it is
launched soon?
Harnessing the power of customers
This campaign was a lesson in people power.
It's not every day that the CEO of a Fortune
500 company responds to a campaign demand
on the front page of his website.
Yet over the past few years, we've found
that campaigns which harness the power of
customers are becoming increasingly effective
in moving corporate policy toward better
green policies.
Online activism has turned Coca Cola from
a climate-killer to an innovator in refrigeration
technologies. McDonald's went from a destroyer
of the rainforest to the champion of a moratorium
on new soy plantations in the Amazon.
As new web tools enable more creative online
activism, more social networking, more global
campaigns, and more collaboration from audiences
made up of customers and consumers, the
global online community is becoming an increasingly
powerful force for change.
We're all a part of the "Second Superpower"
of public opinion, and the Green my Apple
campaign is but one example of how solutions
to planetary problems can be won. All it
takes, sometimes, is people speaking up.
