Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, has responded to a shareholder’s claim to distance the company from climate change beliefs by telling anyone who thinks like this should drop any Apple stock they own.
Never one to keep his cards close to his chest, Cook made his feelings known at one of the company’s regular shareholder meetings last Friday.
The initial issue was raised by one of the United States’ largest conservative lobby groups, the National Centre for Public Policy Research (NCPPR). The group found issues with the company looking to improve its environmental standing by hiring former Environment Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson.
In response to the NCPPR, Cook said about their thinking: “We do a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive. We want to leave the world better than we found it … If you want me to do things only for [return on investment] reasons, you should get out of this stock.”
The company has been working hard to move away from the issues in China regarding the company’s production of its technology in Foxconn’s factories which have been criticised in the past both environmentally and for workers’ rights.
NCPPR has since released a statement about Cook’s comments, deriding the Apple CEO for being ‘obsessed’ with climate change. “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 the NCPPR’s director, Justin 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.”
