Apple Accused of Misleading Consumers With Apple Watch 'Carbon Neutral' Claims

Apple is facing a class action lawsuit alleging it misled consumers by falsely claiming certain Apple Watches were carbon neutral, as the carbon offset projects it relied on did not effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Verge reports: Apple said in 2023 that 'select case and band combinations' of its Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, and Apple Watch SE would be the company's first carbon neutral devices. The suit was filed on behalf of anyone who bought those watches. It alleges that the products were not really carbon neutral because they relied on faulty offset projects that didn't actually reduce the company's greenhouse gas pollution.

The company's carbon neutral claims were false, and the seven plaintiffs would not have purchased the Apple Watches or paid as much for them had they known that, the lawsuit alleges. 'Apple's false advertising may lead [consumers] to choose its products over genuinely sustainable alternatives,' the complaint (PDF) filed in a California federal court on Wednesday says.

Apple is standing by its assertions. 'We are proud of our carbon neutral products, which are the result of industry-leading innovation in clean energy and low-carbon design,' Apple spokesperson Sean Redding said in an email. Redding says the company reduced Apple Watch emissions by more than 75 percent. The company focused on cutting pollution from materials, electricity, and transportation used to make the watches, in part by getting more of its suppliers to switch to clean energy. To deal with the remaining pollution, Redding says Apple invests in 'nature-based projects to remove hundreds of thousands of metric tons of carbon from the air.' That's where the new lawsuit finds problems.

To offset their emissions, many companies buy carbon credits from forestry projects that represent tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide that trees and soil naturally trap. Apple primarily purchased credits from the Chyulu Hills project in Kenya and the Guinan Project in China, the suit says. It alleges that neither of the projects met a basic standard for carbon offsets, which is that they capture additional CO2 that would not otherwise have been sequestered had Apple not paid to support the project.

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