Apple is facing legal action from consumers who allege that its claims about three versions of the Apple Watch being “carbon neutral” and environmentally friendly are false and misleading.
A lawsuit filed on Wednesday in a federal court in San Jose, California, states that seven buyers of the Apple Watch Series 9, SE, and Ultra 2 would not have made their purchases—or would have paid less—had they known the truth about Apple’s environmental claims.
Apple, best known for the iPhone, launched the watches in September 2023, asserting that they achieved carbon neutrality through a combination of lower emissions and carbon offset purchases. However, the plaintiffs—from California, Florida, and Washington, D.C.—claim that two carbon offset projects Apple relied on failed to deliver “genuine” carbon reductions.
The lawsuit highlights concerns about Apple’s reliance on the Chyulu Hills Project in Kenya, where much of the land has been protected from deforestation since 1983, and the Guinan Project in China, where the land was already heavily forested before the project started in 2015.
“In both cases, the carbon reductions would have occurred regardless of Apple’s involvement or the projects’ existence,” the complaint states. “Because Apple’s carbon neutrality claims depend on the effectiveness and legitimacy of these projects, those claims are false and misleading.”
The plaintiffs also reference a study by the National Retail Federation and IBM, which found that 70% of U.S. and Canadian consumers consider environmental sustainability important when making purchasing decisions.
In response to the lawsuit, Apple issued a statement on Thursday defending its environmental record but did not comment on the case directly.
“We’ve drastically cut emissions for Apple Watch by over 75%, and we are investing significantly in nature-based projects to remove hundreds of thousands of metric tons of carbon from the air,” Apple stated. “We prominently and transparently detail our work for our users.”
Apple, headquartered in Cupertino, California, has set a target to become carbon neutral across its entire supply chain by 2030.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an injunction to prevent Apple from marketing the three Apple Watch models as carbon neutral.
The case is Dib et al v Apple Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 25-02043.
