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Apple Carbon Removal and Restore Fund will Receive an Additional $200 Million

April 11, 2023
minute read

Apple today announced a substantial expansion of its Restore Fund, doubling its total commitment to developing high-quality, nature-based carbon removal projects as part of the Restore Fund. It was first launched in 2021 with a commitment of up to $200 million, along with Conservation International and Goldman Sachs. Now, the Restore Fund is set to grow with the addition of an additional fund, including new investment from Apple, as well as a new portfolio of carbon removal projects. In order to protect and restore critical ecosystems, and to scale natural carbon removal solutions globally, Apple created the Restore Fund to encourage global investment. As a result of this approach, businesses are also able to address residual emissions that they cannot yet eliminate or reduce by utilizing existing technology.

With the expansion of the fund, Apple will make an additional investment of up to $200 million, which will be managed by Climate Asset Management - a joint venture between HSBC Asset Management and Pollination - as part of the expansion. A key objective of the new portfolio is to remove one million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year at its peak, while also generating a financial return for investors. It will also allow Apple suppliers that become partners in the fund to incorporate high-impact carbon removal projects into their decarbonization plans in a way that is not currently available to them.

"The Restore Fund is an innovative investment approach that aims to benefit the planet in real, measurable ways while targeting a financial return at the same time," said Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president of the Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives group. "The path to a carbon neutral economy requires deep decarbonization as well as responsible carbon removal, and innovations such as the ones described above can help accelerate the pace of progress toward a carbon neutral economy."

Taking a broader approach to prospective projects, Apple and Climate Asset Management are pooling two distinct types of investments to invest in prospective projects. Agricultural projects focused on nature that generates income from sustainably managed farming practices as well as projects focused on restoring critical ecosystems that remove and store carbon from the environment, are examples of nature-forward agricultural projects. In utilizing this unique blended fund structure, investors are aiming to achieve both financial and climate benefits, while also advancing a new model for carbon removal that is more likely to be able to address the full potential of nature-based solutions at the global scale. A rigorous set of social and environmental standards applies to all investments made by the Restore Fund.

Apple has already become carbon neutral in all of its corporate operations, but last year, Apple called on its suppliers to become carbon neutral in all of Apple's business operations by 2030, including all of their direct and electricity-related emissions, also referred to as Scope 1 and Scope 2. By offsetting any direct emissions that cannot be avoided or reduced, high-quality carbon removals will be able to help the world achieve this goal. First and foremost, suppliers are expected to reduce emissions through the use of renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and reducing direct emissions. In an announcement earlier this month, Apple announced that over 250 of its manufacturing partners have committed to powering their Apple production with 100% renewable energy by the year 2030.

It is estimated that Apple's three initial investments in Brazil and Paraguay, in partnership with Conservation International and Goldman Sachs, will lead to the restoration of 150,000 acres of sustainably certified working forests, as well as the protection of 100,000 acres of native forests, grasslands, and wetlands. Combined, these two projects are expected to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by more than one million metric tons per year by the year 2025. Leading scientific bodies such as the IPCC have stressed the importance of removing carbon from the atmosphere in order to address climate change and meet global climate goals.

It is Apple's intention to develop a habitat and forest carbon map of the project areas using innovative remote sensing technologies to accurately monitor and measure the impact of Restore Fund projects - such as Space Intelligence's Carbon and Habitat Mapper, Upstream Tech's Lens platform, and high-resolution satellite imagery from Maxar - in order to build the habitat and forest carbon maps. With these detailed maps, we will be able to determine whether projects meet our high standards prior to investing in them, and we will be able to quantify and verify the projects' carbon removal impact over a period of time. There are also further studies being conducted by Apple in order to enhance the ability to monitor on the ground using the LiDAR Scanner on the iPhone. 

Restore Fund is the company's comprehensive plan to become carbon neutral for its entire supply chain and product life cycle by 2030, which is part of the company's long-term vision to become carbon neutral. It is estimated that Apple will be able to reduce 75 percent of all its emissions by 2030, and balance the remaining emissions by removing high-quality carbon from the atmosphere.

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