Apple shrinks carbon footprint by 3 per cent

Apple reduced its carbon footprint by 3 per cent between 2012 and 2013, the company has announced.

It is the first time the footprint has declined year-on-year since Apple began monitoring the figures back in 2009. Its 2013 data will appear in the CDP's (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) next autumn report.

The company's carbon footprint from energy use also fell by 31 per cent from fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2013, despite overall energy use rising by 44 per cent.

A total of 145 US retail stores are now fully powered by renewable energy, alongside all 21 Australian outlets.

Moves are being made to ensure Apple's future second corporate campus HQ, currently under construction in Cupertino, California, is the more energy-efficient building of its kind.

The campus will use 30 per cent less energy than a typical research and development office building, and will be set within a site with more than 6,000 trees, the company said.

Apple's most recent Environmental Report claims the company's data centres are powered by 100 per cent renewable energy, and claims to be the only company to do so.

In April Greenpeace named Apple as the number one tech company leading the way towards a greener, more sustainable internet.

The report concluded Apple was “the most innovative and most aggressive” in achieving the goal of 100 per cent renewable energy, and declared the company had “helped set a new bar for the industry”.

Greenpeace had previously criticised Apple for using coal power for services such as iCloud and the voice-controlled “personal assistant", Siri, more than its rivals.