Last week ENN Affiliate TriplePundit covered Apple’s withdrawal from EPEAT. Shortly after this, the city of San Francisco banned all its employees from using Apple products for city business as by law it is necessary that all IT equipment be 100 percent EPEAT certified. It was also expected that several education and government bodies would follow suit. Now, however, Apple has done a total U-turn and has come back to EPEAT.

Apple’s sustainability has always been under speculation for various reasons and the company has been reluctant to disclose many of its practices. EPEAT is an initiative spearheaded by the company itself, so it came as quite a shock when they withdrew from the standard.

The main reason why the company pulled out in the first place was because of its new Macbook Pro with the retina screen which could not be easily recycled. One of the conditions to be EPEAT-certified is ease of recyclability of old electronics.