Hmmm. This is the best argument I’ve ever heard for not using Apple products (besides the overinflated prices). Being flush with cash is probably why the CEO says he doesn’t care about the ROI (return on investment) and won’t make the costs transparent per a shareholder request. Seems like a sensible business request to me.
Some headlines/screencaps. FORTUNE magazine:
More: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/03/01/apple-cook-shareholders-sustainability/
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The Mac Observer:
More: http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rejects-politics-of-the-ncppr-suggests-group-sell-apples-s
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Press release from NCPPR:
Tim Cook to Apple Investors: Drop Dead
Apple CEO Tim Cook tells Investors Who Care More About Return on Investment than Climate Change: Your Money is No Longer Welcome
As Board Member Al Gore Cheers the Tech Giant’s Dedication to Environmental Activism, Investors Left to Wonder Just How Much Shareholder Value is Being Destroyed in Efforts to Combat “Climate Change”
Free-Market Activist Presents Shareholder Resolution to Computer Giant Apple Calling for Consumer Transparency on Environmental Issues; Company Balks
Cupertino, CA / Washington, D.C. – At today’s annual meeting of Apple shareholders in Cupertino, California, Apple CEO Tim Cook informed investors that are primarily concerned with making reasonable economic returns that their money is no longer welcome.
The message came in response to the National Center for Public Policy Research’s shareholder resolution asking the tech giant to be transparent about its environmental activism and a question from the National Center about the company’s environmental initiatives.
“Mr. Cook made it very clear to me that if I, or any other investor, was more concerned with return on investment than reducing carbon dioxide emissions, my investment is no longer welcome at Apple,” said Justin Danhof, Esq., director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project.
Danhof also asked Apple CEO Tim Cook about the company’s green energy pursuits. Danhof asked whether the company’s environmental investments increased or decreased the company’s bottom line. After initially suggesting that the investments make economic sense, Cook said the company would pursue environmental goals even if there was no economic point at all to the venture. Danhof further asked if the company’s projects would continue to make sense if the federal government stopped heavily subsidizing alternative energy. Cook completely ignored the inquiry and became visibly agitated.
Danhof went on to ask if Cook was willing to amend Apple’s corporate documents to indicate that the company would not pursue environmental initiatives that have some sort of reasonable return on investment – similar to the concession the National Center recently received from General Electric. This question was greeted by boos and hisses from the Al gore contingency in the room.
“Here’s the bottom line: Apple is as obsessed with the theory of so-called climate change as its board member Al Gore is,” said Danhof. “The company’s CEO fervently wants investors who care more about return on investments than reducing CO2 emissions to no longer invest in Apple. Maybe they should take him up on that advice.”
“Although the National Center’s proposal did not receive the required votes to pass, millions of Apple shareholders now know that the company is involved with organizations that don’t appear to have the best interest of Apple’s investors in mind,” said Danhof. “Too often investors look at short-term returns and are unaware of corporate policy decisions that may affect long-term financial prospects. After today’s meeting, investors can be certain that Apple is wasting untold amounts of shareholder money to combat so-called climate change. The only remaining question is: how much?”
The National Center’s shareholder resolution noted that “[s]ome trade associations and business organizations have expanded beyond the promotion of traditional business goals and are lobbying business executives to pursue objectives with primarily social benefits. This may affect Company profitability and shareholder value. The Company’s involvement and acquiescence in these endeavors lacks transparency, and publicly-available information about the Company’s trade association memberships and related activities is minimal. An annual report to shareholders will help protect shareholder value.”
Apple’s full 2014 proxy statement is available here. The National Center’s proposal, “Report on Company Membership and Involvement with Certain Trade Associations and Business Organizations,” appears on page 60.
The National Center filed the resolution, in part, because of Apple’s membership in the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), one of the country’s largest trade associations. In its 2013 “Retail Sustainability Report,” RILA states: “Companies will often develop individual or industry voluntary programs to reduce the need for government regulations. If a retail company minimizes its waste generation, energy and fuel usage, land-use footprint, and other environmental impacts, and strives to improve the labor conditions of the workers across its product supply chains, it will have a competitive advantage when regulations are developed.”
“This shows that rather than fighting increased government regulation, RILA is cooperating with Washington, D.C.’s stranglehold on American business in a misguided effort to stop so-called climate change,” said Danhof. “That is not an appropriate role for a trade association.”
For even more information on RILA, read “The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA): A Cartel that Threatens Innovation and Competitiveness,” by National Center Senior Fellow Dr. Bonner Cohen.
“Rather than opting for transparency, Apple opposed the National Center’s resolution,” noted Danhof. “Apple’s actions, from hiring of President Obama’s former head of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson, to its investments in supposedly 100 percent renewable data centers, to Cook’s antics at today’s meeting, appear to be geared more towards combating so-called climate change rather than developing new and innovative phones and computers.”
After Danhof presented the proposal, a representative of CalPERS rose to object and stated that climate change should be one of corporate America’s primary concerns, and after she called carbon dioxide emissions a “mortal danger,” Apple board member and former vice president Al Gore turned around and loudly clapped and cheered.
“If Apple wants to follow Al Gore and his chimera of climate change, it does so at its own peril,” said Danhof. “Sustainability and the free market can work in concert, but not if Al Gore is directing corporate behavior.”
“Tim Cook, like every other American, is entitled to his own political views and to be an activist of any legal sort he likes on his own time,” said Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research. “And if Tim Cook, private citizen, does not care that over 95 percent of all climate models have over-forecast the extent of predicted global warming, and wishes to use those faulty models to lobby for government policies that raise prices, kill jobs and retard economic growth and extended lifespans in the Third World, he has a right to lobby as he likes. But as the CEO of a publicly-held corporation, Tim Cook has a responsibility to, consistent with the law, to make money for his investors. If he’d rather be CEO of the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, he should apply.”
“As in the past, Cook took but a handful of questions from the many shareholders present who were eager to ask a question at the one meeting a year in which shareholder questions are taken,” added Ridenour, “leaving many disappointed. Environmentalism may be a byword at Apple, but transparency surely is not.”
The National Center’s Free Enterprise Project is a leading free-market corporate activist group. In 2013, Free Enterprise Project representatives attended 33 shareholder meetings advancing free-market ideals in the areas of health care, energy, taxes, subsidies, regulations, religious freedom, media bias, gun rights and many more important public policy issues. Today’s Apple meeting was the National Center’s third attendance at a shareholder meeting so far in 2014.
The National Center for Public Policy Research is an Apple shareholder, as are National Center executives.
The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank. Ninety-four percent of its support comes from individuals, less than four percent from foundations, and less than two percent from corporations. It receives over 350,000 individual contributions a year from over 96,000 active recent contributors.
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h/t to “cincinatuschili”
UPDATE: Yes, he must have.
@wattsupwiththat Wonder if he's forgotten about all those coal fired power stations running his Chinese factories?
— Karl Bentley (@bentleykarl) March 2, 2014
When a complete non-tech like me can choose from maybe a dozen flavours of Linux he particularly likes (out of hundreds he might or might not like) and use the system free on a hundred dollar machine bought off ebay, and have it all running fast and fine…
Is this a time to alienate customers for a very high-cost product?
Oh, …
… my comment @ur momisugly March 2, 2014 at 5:00 pm was a respond to Poptech on March 2, 2014 at 4:14 pm
Goldie, I can’t speak for the moderators, but IMO it’s not off-topic for Mac users to explain why they might continue to use the product despite the professed idiocy of Apple’s management, which is the topic of the original post.
And, of course, if you find a topic or thread unappealing, you are free to read another one, or none at all.
/Mr Lynn
Wow…. Just, wow…
It makes good sense for corporations to have recycle programs and reasonable and pragmatic pollution standards, but for Apple to implement an insane policy to achieve 100% “green” energy sourcing is in breech of fiduciary duty and should lead shareholders to fire Cook.
Wasting money on “green” energy will make Apple’s products uncompetitive and these wasted funds will have ripple effects in: lower profits, less R&D funds, less innovation, lower wages, slower business expansion, less promotional funds and lower stock prices.
All this financial loss and misappropriation of funds so Apple can “contribute” a few billionths of a degree C to “save” the Earth from global warming…
Oh, the humanity…
apple still in business? never own one of their products. they seem metrosexual.
He’s just begging for a lawsuit from an investor, isn’t he?
dp – all my servers are firewalled against Russia, and have been for years. It’s essentially a lawless society that is the source of an astounding amount of malware, attacks, spam, open servers used by others, and everything harmful.
But Apple can’t block Russia, where would they then get their marching orders?
‘RILA states: “Companies will often develop individual or industry voluntary programs to reduce the need for government regulations. If a retail company minimizes its waste generation, energy and fuel usage, land-use footprint, and other environmental impacts, and strives to improve the labor conditions of the workers across its product supply chains, it will have a competitive advantage when regulations are developed.”‘
An invitation to crony capitalism/fascism.
“Apple plans on having 100 percent of its power come from green sources.”
This is a lie. Apple recently built a data center at Maiden, NC. In cooperation with Duke Energy, they built a PV solar farm adjacent to the center. Duke is on the hook for the state’s RPS, so they were happy to have a customer. Apple presumably gets a good price on electricity in return. Terms of the contract have not been published. Even though Duke is a publicly regulated company, the deal is secret.
Anywho, you can’t run a 24/7/365 data center on solar generated electricity. Obviously, the data center is not powered by their solar farm. It is just a big show. To what purpose, I don’t know. But the power from green sources is a lie. You can’t rely on it. So they get their power from the grid, like everyone else.
Regardless of any political or environmental ‘beliefs’, if the CEO of a publicly held company refuses disclosure of relevant operating expenses and investment financials to the share holders, the financial risks to shareholders increase proportionally. If the CEO can’t manage transparency on a seemingly nonproprietary and innocuous line of questions such as pursued by NCPPR, you have to ask “What wasteful or possibly illegal things are they hiding?”
I don’t own Apple shares directly but I will be reviewing some mutual fund investments for exposure…. and calling their investment managers to express my concerns with any significant Apple holdings in those funds. I suggest others do likewise and encourage the mutual fund investment managers to ask Apple’s Mr. Cook the same questions NCPPR asked and insist on direct, full disclosure answers at their first opportunity.
Turn up the heat… and let’s ‘Cook This Apple’!
MarkG on March 2, 2014 at 5:12 pm
Not sure about iOS, but does it allow ended/dead tasks/processes to remain in memory? It sure does in Android (due to sloppy programming) …
SasjaL, you might want to try a better OS image with no bloatware,
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/
Just as well nobody told Apple about my App store app “Climategate” 🙂
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/climategate/id386480628
never been an apple fan only because I like to build my own stuff and mess with o/s installs, I often have 5 or so OS installed on the pc. right now win7, xorin 8, mint 16.
if not for 3 or 4 items I use a lot I could run linux mint happily, but win7 just plain works well for me especially on a domain with exchange server.
but I digress, if he starts taking losses I think he would be required to back out of them so time will tell.
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream – writ large.
“Not sure about iOS, but does it allow ended/dead tasks/processes to remain in memory?”
I believe so, though it probably has to kill them sooner due to having 1/4 as much RAM. But, since many Android apps are written in Google’s version of Java rather than native languages, they probably need a lot more RAM in the fist place.
SasjaL, not understanding how Android uses memory appears to be a common myth,
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html
“A common misunderstanding about Android multitasking is the difference between a process and an application. In Android these are not tightly coupled entities: applications may seem present to the user without an actual process currently running the app; multiple applications may share processes, or one application may make use of multiple processes depending on its needs; the process(es) of an application may be kept around by Android even when that application is not actively doing something.
The fact that you can see an application’s process “running” does not mean the application is running or doing anything. It may simply be there because Android needed it at some point, and has decided that it would be best to keep it around in case it needs it again. Likewise, you may leave an application for a little bit and return to it from where you left off, and during that time Android may have needed to get rid of the process for other things.”
This pretty much spells the end of Apple. Once they go from concentrating on great technology with a great user experience to doing things for ideological reasons, they’re gone. Jobs is not there anymore to keep them focused. They have just alienated a large portion of their potential customer and investor base.
If Apple are so keen on sustainability then how come if you want to update a Mac piece of software older than a couple of years then the chances are you will have to buy a whole new Mac because the updated software is designed not to run on the older hardware. This is not true for my Linux or Windows machines.
Indeed Apple’s whole business is based on people ditching their old machines and buying new ones even if the old ones would be perfectly capable of doing the job.
I am happy Windows is not like OS X, that way I can get work done faster without all the hand holding.
You mean after Apple stole the idea from Xerox? Just about everything Apple has done has been a ripoff of someone else’s idea. People still believe they invented the MP3 player.
Any OS is full of holes if you don’t apply patches. Mac security is another urban legend,
http://www.informationweek.com/security/vulnerabilities-and-threats/mac-botnet-now-600000-infected-machines-strong/d/d-id/1103742?
Every college student attending an urban liberal arts college you mean.
Maybe not but I rarely meet one who is not evangelical about them.
If Apple corporate culture is this far off and is willing to waste stockholder assets this foolishly and arrogantly, there are almost certainly other mistakes they are making that will surface in the near future. Get the popcorn. Watching this fail will be very entertaining.
MarkG on March 2, 2014 at 5:12 pm
Still using my Galaxy S “liberated” with Cyanogen for my home number. It’s working very fine with almost twice the battery time as before, but it’s bricked regarding upgrades since earliy 10.x version and I’m not the only one that have that experience …
Upgrading the S3? No, still long time before warranty will expire (June 2015). OS updating of own choice before that, will cost me a new mobile if something happens, as both supplier and Samsung don’t accept the procedure during the warranty period.
I wonder what Carl Icahn thinks about this.
The Old Crusader on March 2, 2014 at 5:41 pm
Try genuin Italian ice cream instead! Taste much better and available for less then half the price of B&J … 😉
With CyanogenMod installed or stock? I don’t own a Nexus 7, so I cannot comment but am incredibly skeptical.
Let’s not be so outraged. After a clear sign that he has no intention whatsoever of listening to Apple’s investors it should be quite clear that CEO Tim Cook is likely to be shortly leaving Apple. It would seem likely he’s just honing his listening skills for a job as representative in the US House or Senate where he’ll have no intention of hearing what the investors (I think they’re called taxpayers) have to say either.