Apple Suppliers Towing the Green Line

Apple announced this morning that Lens Technology Co., one of its major Chinese supply partners, has committed to the tech giant’s ambitious renewable energy standards. Lens Technology, which supplies all of Apple and Samsung’s touch screen covers, will begin to purchase wind energy to cover 100 percent of the energy consumed producing Apple products in two of its facilities by 2018, avoiding nearly 450,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, equivalent to the energy use in 380,000 Chinese homes.

Lens Technology HQ in Southern China

“Our power purchase agreement is the first of its kind in southern China and we hope it will serve as an example for other companies looking to transition to cleaner, more economical sources of power,” said Lens CEO Zhou Qunfei. “We’re pleased to be the first supplier to commit to covering all of our Apple production with renewable energy, and proud to source from local Hunan wind farms to power our facilities in Changsha.”

Apple is working with suppliers to help transform the environmental landscape in China, recently announcing that all 14 of its final assembly sites in China are now compliant with UL’s Zero Waste to Landfill validation. This standard certifies all manufacturing waste is reused, recycled, composted or converted into energy.

Through its clean energy program, Apple will partner with suppliers in China to install more than 2 gigawatts of new clean energy in the coming years, avoiding over 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution in the country between now and 2020.