AppleZulu
There are two criticisms here, neither of which necessarily adds up to "climate wash." The first is a concern about reporting from specific facilities. That raises a legitimate question, but doesn't automatically translate to "Apple is lying." Even the IPE organization making the criticism acknowledges Apple's past positive record, so this seems like it's a bit premature to automatically infer negative answers to the question raised.
The second issue is a suggestion that Apple could be swapping "renewable energy certificates" internally from phones to a watch in order to apply more credits toward a relatively small production line, thereby making that line reach the carbon neutral benchmark more quickly. Setting aside the fact that Apple says they're not doing that. What if they were? Consider this analogy: You are carrying balances on several credit cards. One of those has a large balance and another a much smaller balance. If by temporarily slightly reducing your payment on the largest balance, you could entirely pay off the small-balance card, it is legitimate to do so and then say "I paid off this card." There's nothing squirrely about that. In fact, most credit counselors will specifically recommend doing that, because it makes keeping track of (and focus on) ongoing progress easier. Eventually, you zero out the smaller balances and you're left with one number that's either going up, down or remaining flat. So it seems likewise entirely appropriate that Apple would focus achievement a carbon neutrality goal on a smaller production line first.
