Dear John

Last year, we launched our We Don’t Buy It campaign, to challenge the unsustainable consumption that is the driving force behind our environmental crisis. Our numbers and the choices we make drive species extinctions, climate change, water shortages and so much else. The publication of our new report, iCon: Apple, consumption and the future of the planet, marks the next stage of that campaign.

Our aim is to ensure that as consumers, we all understand how the choices we make can harm or protect our planet. We must also hold to account those who try to limit our choices, including the policymakers too timid or blind to challenge overconsumption and the companies who profit from it.

Through its endless product upgrades and pervasive marketing, Apple is set on driving us to consume more and more. Over 24 pages and supported by more than 170 references, our research uncovers how Apple persuades customers to buy more than one million iPhones every two days, and what the true environmental cost of production, marketing, distribution and, eventually, waste on such a scale is.

Among its many findings are:

• Apple’s carbon footprint is greater than that of 70 nation states.
• The cost of a new iPhone could pay the salary of a midwife in Bangladesh for four months.
• Apple’s estimated marketing spend could meet all water needs for sanitation and hygiene in the 46 UN-designated least-developed countries.
• Apple’s supply chain uses more than 100 billion gallons of water a year: more than a third of its corporate use comes from areas at high water risk.

We’re calling on Apple to abandon the marketing madness and adopt truly sustainable practices. Our report also asks questions that go far beyond one company, and challenges the “more growth, more profit, more consumers, more things” lunacy that pays no regard to what is best for people and planet, and is driving us to the brink of catastrophe.

At Population Matters, we’re never afraid to follow the evidence, pose the tough questions, and demand change. We’re proud of the report, and hope you find it informative, provocative and persuasive. Please share it with as many people as you can, and join our campaign by contacting Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

As always thanks for your support, which we never take for granted,

Alistair Currie
Head of Campaigns and Communications

PS: Population Matters is sometimes accused of ignoring the impacts of unsustainable consumption because we focus on population - but we know they’re two sides of the same coin. Our We Don't Buy It campaign tackles the drive for ever more consumption head on. Sadly, many other organisations ignore the population factor entirely: rest assured that we will always campaign about our numbers too.