Published April 22, 2025
By : Staff Writer
Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. To raise awareness on this day, we highlight an interview from 2021 with environmental leader Lisa Perez Jackson, featured in Women of Color Magazine.
As a young girl growing up in New Orleans, Lisa wrote a letter to President Richard Nixon urging him to establish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to safeguard public health and the environment.
That same year, during her 2021 interview, Jackson recalled the first Earth Day celebration in the U.S. By the end of 1970, the EPA officially began operations.
At that time, Jackson had no idea that she would later work at the EPA and eventually lead it or that she would one day be at Apple addressing similar issues. She noted that today’s 8-year-olds face some of the same challenges she encountered.
Jackson earned a master's degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University and a bachelor's degree from Tulane University. She was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator from 2009 to 2013.
Since joining Apple in 2013, Jackson has played a key role in transforming the company into an environmental leader and a pioneer in clean energy, recycling, and green technology.
Under her leadership, Apple achieved carbon neutrality for its corporate emissions and runs its global operations on 100 percent renewable energy. In 2021, the company announced its most ambitious target: a commitment that every Apple device will be produced with net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. Apple aims to become carbon neutral across every aspect of its business by 2030.
On April 16, 2025, Tim Cook shared on social media that the company has reduced their global emissions by more than 60% and uses more recycled materials and renewable energy than ever.
In Women of Color Magazine's 2021 cover story, Lisa Jackson spoke about how Apple minimizes its environmental impact. Below are excerpts from Jackson's interview with WOC Magazine in the spring of 2021.
I have dedicated my career to this mission and am proud to carry on that work here at Apple. Apple has dedicated our resources—and our best thinking—to considering the environment in everything we do: the energy that powers our operations, the materials in our devices, the companies we do business with, and the health and safety of those who make and use our products.
We have led our industry in reducing our environmental footprint for years, but we know there is more to do. I have found it inspiring how young people have stepped up. It gives me a lot of hope about what our young future leaders, inventors, educators, and beyond will do to leave the world better than they found it.
We announced that Apple will be carbon-neutral by 2030.
This is not just for our operations; we are already carbon-neutral in how many companies measure carbon neutrality. Our stores, data centers, and offices run on 100 percent clean energy. Our goal is to extend that progress to our entire supply chain. We have hundreds of suppliers.
In 10 years, the challenge will be to move all those suppliers to clean energy. That will be huge. We have gone one step further and said that by 2030, we also want our customers to be able to charge their devices on clean energy. We are committed to our customers being able to do that by 2030. So, that is not something we can do all alone. It is something that we can help with. We have sponsored clean-energy projects around the world.
But we also want to work with governments to ensure that there is more and more access to clean energy on grids around the world, especially in areas that, right now, have been under-invested in terms of clean energy.
By 2030, we are committing to total carbon neutrality. We are already carbon neutral for our corporate emissions—we use 100 percent renewable electricity for our facilities and invest in projects that protect and restore forests, wetlands, and grasslands.
And we are well on our way in our supply chain, bringing more clean energy sources online and innovating to reduce emissions at every stage. But we are going further to cover our entire, end-to-end footprint, down to the shipping that moves our products worldwide and the energy used to power our customers’ devices.
Five years ago, we set an ambitious goal to become carbon neutral across every part of our business by 2030.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 16, 2025
Today, we’re announcing we’ve reduced our global emissions by more than 60%—and we’re using more recycled materials and renewable energy than ever before. pic.twitter.com/UkN7RdGISo
