Why Apple VP Lisa Jackson invested in 27,000 acres of Colombian forest in 2018

A few months after Apple reported last year that it was operating on 100% renewable energy—a major milestone for the company—it made a more unusual announcement, especially for a tech giant: It had invested in a 27,000-acre mangrove forest in Colombia. Lisa Jackson, a former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has spent the past six years helping Apple find effective ways to fight climate change and has determined that “protecting and restoring forests is one of our most important tools in the battle because of their ability to absorb carbon.” The project in Colombia, a partnership with the nonprofit Conservation International, involves protecting mangrove forests, which can store 10 times as much carbon as terrestrial forests. In its first two years, the program is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 17,000 metric tons, roughly equal to the next decade of emissions from the lidar-equipped survey vehicles that update Apple Maps. “This is rare for Apple to say, but we are telling other companies to copy us on this,” Jackson says.