Jonny Evans, writing for Computerworld:

Every online photo, all those Apple Maps requests, Siri interrogations, FaceTime chats, Apps downloads and iMessage exchanges all use drops of water.

In most cases the data servers enabling all these Apple services are kept cool by pumping water through the systems.

Apple used 160 million gallons of water across its data centers last year. (It used a total 573 million gallons (2.1 billion litres) of water across its entire US business).

From Apple’s Environmental Responsibility Report:

We’re constantly working to minimize our water use, so we monitor it within our cooling, landscaping, and sanitation processes and at our manufacturing sites. Then we develop targeted ways to reduce it. That includes creating cooling systems in our data centers that can reuse water up to 35 times. Or, for facilities in drier climates, installing intelligent irrigation systems that monitor weather and deploy water only when needed.

In 2015, we started collecting even more sophisticated data to help strengthen our con- servation strategy. We’ve begun to measure the water it takes to manufacture each of our products, starting with iPhone. And now we’re identifying the high-, medium-, and low-scarcity areas where we use water, so we can focus our e orts where they matter most.

When we began to measure the water consumption footprint of iPhone, we learned that the story was similar to our product carbon footprint: the vast majority is during the manufacturing phase. This is primarily due to water consumed in energy pro- duction, such as for oil extraction, distillation, and processing, as well as non-energy sources, such as process water consumed during metals processing. That’s why we are focusing on reducing water consumption in our supply chain, primarily through our supplier clean water and clean energy programs.

Interesting article by Jonny Evans, glad to see Apple is on top of this problem.