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Like Ted talks, you should check out the TED Radio Hour with NPR. Stay tuned after this talk to hear a sneak peek of this week's episode. So said Apple is on target to become carbon neutral across its entire business and manufacturing supply chain by 2030. Can you explain exactly what that means? Sure.

So today, Apple is carbon neutral for all of our own operations, and we're running on 100 percent renewable energy for our corporate campuses, for our stores and for our data centers so we know how to do this work. The challenge for 2030 is to convert our supply chain and that work has already begun. We already have 70 suppliers, over eight gigawatts of energy coming online in our supply chain. And then the last piece will be to convert the energy that our customers use to charge our devices to clean energy.

What are some of the biggest changes that Apple is going to need to make in its business operations in order to be able to achieve those goals?

So imagine if instead of mining material to go into Apple products, we actually started with recycled material. So we're not going all the way back to the Minderoo smelting, transportation, processing. Instead, we're really talking about reprocessing to some degree and putting that material right back into products super important with things like conflict metals or rare earths. So Apple has been doing that work now for several years. We've actually promised that we want to make all of our products out of recycled and renewable materials.

And so that investment also means we get to take away all the carbon emissions associated with everything up until the point of the recycled material.

So it strikes me that you actually hold a really interesting perspective. You're now at Apple and like deep in the business world around these things. But formally, you actually led the US Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration. So you've seen the government side as well. What in your mind is the right way to look at the respective roles of the state and the market in fighting the climate crisis?

I don't think there's anything that business can do that replaces the role of government in leadership. Yes, I ran the EPA, but the other part of my history is I worked there almost 20 years before I became the head of the EPA. And you see firsthand, right, that only government is really charged with protecting its citizens. We always think protection. We think the military. But I think the protection of the Environmental Protection Agency or the Air Quality Board in California or a local health department is as important to the day to day life of the people in that jurisdiction as anything that the other security type protection can provide.

Now, business is a different story. I think business has an incredibly important role to play in leading, especially at this time. So when Apple said its goal is 20 30 carbon neutral, obviously the U.N. is saying 2050 carbon neutral. We decided to challenge ourselves to go as fast as we could possibly do it so that other businesses wouldn't have an excuse to say, I need longer, I need much, much longer. I think it's great to see this moment where suddenly there seems to be a realization that climate change policy cannot be foisted on others, but that in fact, it has to be organic, you know, for lack of a better word.

And it's not an either or. It's always been this weird, you know, belief that we're taught from little that you can either be successful or you can do the right thing. There's no difference between the two, there's it's a false choice, although a lot of us have been talking about justice for some time, it is only recently that I think this idea of justice as it relates to the environment and climate is making an appearance in a forum such as this.

You've personally described systemic racism and climate change as interconnected issues, I think would be great to hear more. To me, they're just the same thing.

There is no climate justice without real justice. There's no climate change remedy that is going to be made and stick that doesn't involve justice. And sometimes more and more, I'm starting to think that we shouldn't attack climate change, we should attack justice and injustice. And if we did, climate change would take care of itself. For me, it's always come down to restoring people to the center of the discussion of solutions and restoring representation for the communities most impacted by climate change.

At the table of solution making. Well, thank you, I appreciate it. It's been a real pleasure to speak with you today, and I look forward to seeing how you advance the efforts you talked about.

And thank you for the voice you've been. I think it's super important that leadership sound like you. So thank you. The spaces we inhabit shape our experience from our homes, buildings are frames for our own understanding of our place in the world to our theaters. Often the space is a really important protagonist in the process, the outdoors and even a dingy nightclub, not just us musicians who do this. It happens in the natural world as well. House spaces inspire and give us purpose.

That's next time on the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

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