According to witnesses at Apple’s annual meeting on Friday, Cook became visibly angry when questioned by a radical right-wing think tank about the profitability of investing in renewable energy.
Under Cook’s leadership Apple has stepped up its commitment to curbing its environmental impact, pledging to supply 100% of its power from renewable sources and crack down on the use of minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that can fund war and human rights abuses.
At the meeting last week, shareholders voted down a resolution by the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) - an avid campaigner against action to tackle climate change - that would force Apple to disclose more information about the costs of its investment in tackling climate change.
However, Justin Danhof of the NCPPR pursued the line by asking Cook if Apple’s environmental investments increased or decreased the company’s bottom line. He also asked Cook to commit Apple to only investing in measures that were profitable.
Cook became visibly angry at Danhof’s questions and categorically rejected the NCPPR’s climate scepticism, according to the Mac Observer’s Bryan Chaffin, who attended the event. He told shareholders that securing a return on investment was not the only reason for investing in environmental measures.
“When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI,” Cook said, adding that the same sentiment applied to environmental and health and safety issues.
He told Danhof that if he did not believe in climate change, he should sell his Apple shares. “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock,” he said.
Cook’s comments and visible passion over the issue are one of the strongest signals yet of his commitment to reducing Apple’s environmental footprint. He told shareholders that he wanted to “leave the world better than we found it”.
-- TheGuardian
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Apple CEO Tim Cook took on so-called climate change "deniers," issuing a stern message to anyone who disagrees with the company's clean energy push.
According to a report by Mashable, the exchange occurred Friday at an annual meeting with the company's shareholders.
He was pressed on the issue by a general counsel for the National Center for Public Policy Research, a D.C.-based conservative think tank that owns Apple shares. He asked Cook to pledge not to go forward with any new energy initiatives that do not improve the company's bottom line.
"We want to leave the world better than we found it," Cook responded, telling any shareholder who doesn't like the policy "to get out of the stock."
-- Fox News Insider
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It looks like former Obama EPA Chief Lisa Jackson (alias: Richard Windsor), who Apple gave a job to last year in spite of her scandals, and Global Warming High Priest Al Gore, an Apple board member, have gotten to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Cook is so entrenched in the faulty theory of man-made global warming that he’s even willing to see his shareholders dump his stock.
Never mind that a plurality of Americans reject the myth of the discredited belief in man-made global warming and that the co-founder of Greenpeace this week referred to the myth’s followers as being like members of a religious cult, Apple CEO Tim Cook has a message for his shareholders. Cook says if you don’t like believe in man-made global warming, you should sell his company’s stock.
The National Center for Public Policy Research, a free-market think tank, who owns shares in Apple stock along with National Center executives, released the following statement on Friday:
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.-- TPNN (the Tea Party News Network)
Tim Cook, was asked at the annual shareholder meeting by the NCPPR, the conservative finance group, to disclose the costs of Apple’s energy sustainability programs, and make a commitment to doing only those things that were profitable.
Mr. Cook replied –with an uncharacteristic
display of emotion–that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary
consideration on such issues. “When we work on making our devices
accessible by the blind,” he said, “I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” It
was the same thing for environmental issues, worker safety, and other
areas that don’t have an immediate profit. The company does “a lot of
things for reasons besides profit motive. We want to leave the world
better than we found it.”
The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) attended the meeting as shareholder. It describes itself as a conservative think tank and was pushing a shareholder proposal
that would have required Apple to disclose the costs of its
sustainability programs and to be more transparent about its
participation in “certain trade associations and business organizations
promoting the amorphous concept of environmental sustainability.”
-- Forbes
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