Material Profiling Our products use many materials. To determine which to tackle first, we created Material Impact Profiles. They break down the environmental, social, and global supply impacts of 45 materials in our products. As a result, we’re prioritizing 14 materials that would benefit from transitioning to recycled or renewable sources first: aluminum, cobalt, copper, glass, gold, lithium, paper, plastics, rare earth elements, steel, tantalum, tin, tungsten, and zinc. As we close the loop on each material, we’ll continue updating the list until we’ve reached our goal to only make, not take. View the Material Impact Profiles white paper (PDF)

Material Innovation We aim to make the best products in the world with the highest-quality materials. But sometimes the scrap materials available don’t meet our high standards for purity and performance. So we invent new methods to address those issues. Like developing a custom aluminum alloy for the enclosures of MacBook Air, Mac mini, iPad, and Apple Watch that is 100% recycled but doesn't compromise quality. And to prove that 100% recycled tin is just as functional as virgin tin, we tested it and then used it in the solder of the main logic boards in our most popular devices.

Improved Packaging Packaging is important to our environmental impact. We’re working to eliminate plastics, increase recycled content, and reduce our packaging overall. When we switched from plastic trays to molded-fiber alternatives in iPhone 7 packaging, it led to the majority of our packaging being fiber-based today. We also transitioned all plastic shopping bags in our retail stores to 100% fiber bags made mostly of recycled content. Continuing to improve our packaging will help change the planet for good.