Because the majority of Apple’s greenhouse gas emissions are a result of the power our products consume, we design those products to be as energy efficient as possible.
Reduced energy use.
The energy a product consumes when you plug it in and use it contributes significantly to the environmental footprint of the company that made it. It also contributes significantly to your environmental footprint. That’s why Apple designs products to be energy efficient. Lower energy consumption both reduces your utility bills and lessens the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
ENERGY STAR qualification and beyond.
Every product Apple sells not only meets but exceeds the strict guidelines for energy efficiency in the ENERGY STAR specification. No other company in our industry can make that claim. In fact, we go well beyond the ENERGY STAR specification, offering products that are at least twice as energy efficient as the specification — and in the case of Mac mini, over six times as energy efficient. It’s because we design both the hardware and the software for our products that we can make them so energy efficient. And we're continually investing in technology to make our products even more efficient and minimise their environmental footprint.
Energy efficiency built in.
There are three ways to reduce a product’s energy consumption: Use more efficient power supplies, use components that require less power and use power management software. We use all three of these methods in our product design. Here are just a few examples of how we put them to work on our products.
Ambient light sensor.
The MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, 27-inch LED Cinema Display and Apple Thunderbolt Display all have an ambient light sensor built in. This sensor intelligently adjusts the brightness of the display to your environment, giving you the perfect brightness for the condition in which you find yourself while minimising the use of energy.
Wake on demand.
With OS X, you can share your music, files, printers and even your screen with other computers on your network. Even if your Mac is asleep. A service called Bonjour Sleep Proxy running on your AirPort base station or Time Capsule and the Wake on Demand feature make it possible. Once the request to access a shared item is complete, your Mac goes back to sleep at its regularly scheduled interval. This saves energy while still ensuring full access to all your shared files and devices — even remotely across the Internet.
Power supply efficiency.
Apple custom-designs highly efficient power supplies to reduce the amount of power wasted when bringing electricity from the wall to your computer. All Mac products ship with power supplies that exceed the efficiency standards set by the ENERGY STAR for Computers specification. And with MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, Apple engineers have gone even further and designed a power adapter that minimises the amount of power drawn when not in use.
Automatic graphics switching.
The 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro models come with automatic graphics switching. This breakthrough technology switches graphics processors on the fly to give you performance when you need it (when you’re playing the latest 3D game, for example) and better battery efficiency when you don’t (like when you’re reading email). It’s another way Apple products save power and extend battery life behind the scenes.
Standby power.
Unlike a lot of Windows-based PC systems, Mac systems use energy-efficient hardware components that work hand in hand with the operating system to conserve power. OS X spins down hard drives, automatically activates sleep mode and places systems in an ultra-low power mode when off. In fact, OS X never misses a power-sa ving opportunity, no matter how small. It even regulates the processor between keystrokes, reducing power between the letters you type.
