Apple recently released its proxy statement for the 2026 annual meeting, which will be held on February 24, but National Legal and Policy Center will not present a proposal this year.
We filed a shareholder proposal with the company in August, intended for consideration at this year’s meeting. The proposal pointed out the incongruence between Apple’s climate targets and its growing demand for electricity to meet data center expansion and power manufacturing. However, NLPC reached an agreement with Apple to withdraw its proposal in exchange for the company to add “including energy prices and other costs,” to a list of risks included in its next Environmental Progress Report that may impede progress toward its objectives.
This language change matters because it forces Apple to acknowledge, in its own sustainability reporting, that power economics are a real constraint on its climate narrative. Adding “energy prices and other costs” as a stated risk puts electricity costs on the record as a factor that can slow or derail Apple’s stated objectives. That is an important shift at a moment when the company’s electricity needs are moving in only one direction, driven by data-center growth and power-hungry product and manufacturing demands.
This is a small but meaningful step toward accepting Apple’s energy demands as the operational and financial reality. It also enhances practical transparency for investors. The Environmental Progress Report is often cited on climate issues, and this commitment creates an opportunity for Apple to more openly discuss cost pressures and the tradeoffs that follow, including procurement strategy, reliability, and the time and expense of securing sufficient power in tight markets.
We encourage our fellow shareholders to engage Apple’s executive leadership to be forthright and transparent when addressing the challenges of electricity demands that come from ever-expanding artificial intelligence and cloud computing investment. The company’s past practice of depending on renewable energy, which cannot physically or economically meet these future demands, should be an unacceptable answer for serious investors.
