Apple is leaning harder into its environmental playbook and this time, it has a headline number to show for it.
The company says 30 percent of materials used across products shipped in 2025 came from recycled sources, its highest ever. The figure sits at the centre of its latest Environmental Progress Report, which also outlines steps like shifting to fully fibre-based packaging and expanding the use of recycled metals in core components.
Batteries designed by Apple now use 100 percent recycled cobalt, while magnets rely entirely on recycled rare earth elements. Printed circuit boards, too, are moving toward fully recycled gold and tin. The underlying idea is simple: reduce reliance on newly mined materials without compromising scale.
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The packaging shift is equally significant. Apple says it has now removed plastic entirely from product packaging, replacing it with fibre-based alternatives designed for home recycling. Over five years, this has cut more than 15,000 metric tonnes of plastic—roughly half a billion bottles.
Waste, water, and supply chains
Beyond materials, Apple is widening its focus to operations and suppliers. The company says it diverted 75 percent of waste from landfills across its facilities last year, with some locations—like its flagship Fifth Avenue store—crossing the 90 percent mark.
Across its supply chain, more than 600,000 metric tonnes of waste were redirected, with 400 suppliers now part of its zero-waste programme. These numbers underline a broader strategy: pushing environmental targets deeper into manufacturing networks rather than limiting them to Apple’s own operations.
Water is another front. Apple and its suppliers saved 17 billion gallons of fresh water in 2025, and the company claims it has already replenished over half of the water used in its corporate operations—a stepping stone toward its 2030 goal of full replenishment.
Innovation meets constraint
Some of the more interesting shifts are happening in recycling tech. Apple’s new “Cora” system uses automated shredding and sensors to recover more material from old devices, while its machine learning-based sorting tools aim to make recycling scalable beyond Apple’s own facilities.
On the product side, the newly launched MacBook Neo is positioned as its lowest-carbon laptop yet, with 60 percent recycled content and manufacturing tweaks that reduce both raw material use and water consumption.
Still, the bigger target looms. Apple says emissions remain down over 60 percent compared to 2015 levels but that figure has plateaued despite business growth. Hitting full carbon neutrality across its footprint by 2030 will likely demand sharper cuts, especially across suppliers and product lifecycles.
