City officials may be banned from buying the computers after the technology company pulled out of a green scheme

San Francisco is planning to ban its city officials from buying Apple computers after the technology company, headquartered nearby in Cupertino, dropped out of a green certification scheme.

The move, in response to Apple pulling out of the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) last week, is of symbolic rather than financial importance, as the city reportedly only spent $45,579 on Mac laptops and desktops in 2010. Apple reported profits of $11.6bn (£7.2bn) in April.

Melanie Nutter, director of San Francisco's Department of Environment, said: "We are disappointed that Apple chose to withdraw from EPEAT, and we hope that the city saying it will not buy Apple products will make Apple reconsider its participation."

Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman, said: "Apple takes a comprehensive approach to measuring our environmental impact and all of our products meet the strictest energy efficiency standards backed by the US government, energy star 5.2. We also lead the industry by reporting each product's greenhouse gas emissions on our website, and Apple products are superior in other important environmental areas not measured by EPEAT, such as removal of toxic materials."

Electronics companies pay to be a member of the EPEAT scheme, which measures products on several criteria including energy efficiency and how easy products are to disassemble for recycling. The scheme does not cover tablets and smartphones, such as the iPad and iPhone.

Apple's environmental performance has increasingly come under pressure from campaigners, with the company recently releasing details of the carbon footprint of the US-based data centre that powers its iCloud service in response to a critical Greenpeace report.