Bite this Apple, the truth is worse than inconvenient.
by Gene Stephan Ruda
October 1. 2023
During Q&A at an exclusive Climate Week panel event, attendee and sustainability expert Erica Löfving asked Susannah Calvin, Apple’s Director of Environment and Supply Chain Innovation some probing questions regarding sustainable design. She was culled from the room like a rotten apple...
The truth is worse than inconvenient. It can reveal masked and unspoken culpability underneath a protective cover of tribal loyalty, practiced at planetary life's, and non-privileged humanity's expense. We should question the environmental impact pass that Apple gets while it handsomely profits from simplified, if not simpleton-proof technology. Beautiful, noble, and liberating as in the iconic 1984 hammer smashing advertisement? Or has Apple actually become bourgeois fashion design, pimped elitist-priced privilege protection and seasonally released spectacular serialized fashion shows which fan the flames of NEW functionality to a fawning FOMO fan base?
Apple should be held accountable for any dreadful greenwashing, or condescending and thought controlling, if not criminal critique cancellation. The company should not pretend it's the people's choice, while it panders to the rich and privileged. Apple should not purposely lure wannabees into planned obsolescence and a wasteful, polluting and consumptive linear, throw-away, latest-and-greatest toy replacement, linear and resource extractive supply chain.
It’s time to celebrate life sustaining circular design, and love for valuable, essential, durable and regenerative products over social media marketed, limited access pop luxury status objects that are sold by hypnotic celebrity influencers. Let’s listen for and elevate authentic, knowledgeable and credible living system and circularity leaders. Heroic voices and courageous change makers, rather than automaton actors, dopey brand pushing prostitutes and media mavens hawking gotta-have-the-hottest heroin.
