There's a worm in my apple

...or, Two darlings of my crowd fall short

The board of directors of Apple, Inc. unanimously voted April 16th to reject two proposals that call on Apple to strengthen their policies on toxic chemical use and ewaste recycling. One of those board members is Al Gore.

Even as other computer companies have started to address the waste problems inherent in rapid hardware obsolescence and the chemicals and heavy metals used in their products, Apple has dug in its heels, earning itself a 2.7 out of 10 points in a recent Greenpeace study. You can say, sure, this is Greenpeace we're talking about, the folks that drive Zodiacs in front of whaling harpoons and all that, but Dell and the majority of other companies surveyed scored a 5 or higher. So why not Apple, embraced as a quintessential new economy company? They even tout their store's green roof (in Chicago or NY?) - given their persistent support of irresponsible dumping is that mere green wash?

And what in the world is Gore's motivation? It's easy to brush off the squawking finger-pointing of the naysayers toward his 50 gajillion-square-foot house that has a larger carbon footprint than mine; really rich people have big houses, after all, and he probably runs a number of organizations out of his, as well as using it as a convention center. But how could Mr. Green justify the inconvenient fact that he just voted down these two proposals, especially after he promised last year to help strengthen Apple's environmental policies?

I hope we will hear more on this - Steve Jobs will be making an announcement before this month's shareholders' meeting, but given his board's vote, it likely won't be good. Why hasn't a company that basically transformed its core skill into design rather than computing used the environmental challenge to showcase its design skills, when that's a growing industry ripe for the domination?