The Environmental Defense Fund offered a helping hand to Apple as the tech giant fights a lawsuit accusing it of greenwashing after it promoted its popular smartwatches as carbon neutral.
The green group filed a friend of the court brief last month in support of Apple’s claim that its purchase of carbon credits negated enough climate pollution to justify its assertion that the watches don’t contribute to global warming. The credits were bought through the voluntary carbon market, which isn’t subject to government regulation.
EDF’s defense of Apple, one of the world’s most valuable companies, thrusts it into a debate about the effectiveness of using carbon credits to lower global greenhouse gases. Research indicates that the role of credits in curtailing climate change is sometimes overestimated.
“High-quality carbon credits purchased on the voluntary carbon market enable companies to take immediate, economically feasible climate action,” EDF said in the court filing. “These credits can achieve meaningful emissions reductions and counter balance (or ‘offset’) a corporation’s remaining emissions.”
