Apple is offering free recycling of all its used products and plans to power all of its stores, offices and data centres with renewable energy to reduce the pollution caused by its devices and online services.
The iPhone maker estimates that for 2012, it was responsible for 30.9 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Apple Insider reports that in commemoration of Earth Day, Apple Stores around the world have changed the colour of the iconic Apple logo's leaf section green, while employees were given special green t-shirts to wear for the day.
Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on 22 April, on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection.
The company notes that it has applied monetary value for the devices in the form of gift cards at some of its 420 worldwide stores in exchange for iPhones and iPods still in good enough condition to be resold.
All of the company's stores will recycle any Apple product at no charge. Gift cards won't be handed out for recycled products deemed to have little or no resale value.
The offer covers a wide array of electronics that are not supposed to be dumped in landfills because of the toxins in them. In the past seven years alone, Apple has sold more than one billion iPhones, iPods, iPads and Mac computers, according to The Inquirer.
The report adds that technology products and services accounted for about 2% of worldwide emissions in 2012, roughly the same as the airline industry, according to statistics cited by environmental protection group Greenpeace. Some of biggest electricity demands come from huge data centres that house the stacks of computers that process search requests, store photos and e-mail and stream video, it adds.
"What the company wants to do is use all our innovation and all of our expertise to make the planet more secure and make the environment better," says Lisa Jackson, Apple's VP of environmental initiatives.
Apple CEO Tim Cook highlighted the commitment by narrating a one minute, 44 second video about the company's efforts to protect the environment. "To us, better is a force of nature," Cook says in the video.
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