Apple admits 'mistake' in quitting environment scheme In a letter on the Apple website, Bob Mansfield, the company's senior vice president of hardware engineering, said the company was putting its products back into the scheme. In his letter, Mr Mansfield emphasised Apple's green credentials as the maker of "the most environmentally responsible products in our industry." He added: "In fact, our engineering teams have worked incredibly hard over the years to make our products even more environmentally friendly, and much of our progress has come in areas not yet measured by EPEAT." An environment status report on the MacBook Pro with Retina Display on Apple's website now says the laptop "achieves a Gold rating from EPEAT." The Electronics TakeBack Coalition has disputed that rating. Barbara Kyle, the ETBC's national coordinator, said: "It's important to understand that the manufacturers grade themselves against the EPEAT criteria first, and then EPEAT conducts a review of this grading. That EPEAT review has not yet occurred. They can require the manufacturers to remove any product from the registry if it is not found to conform to the IEEE standard. She said her organisation did not believe it was possible for the new MacBook Pro to meet the EPEAT Gold standard because of the difficulty in removing the battery from the new computer. However, Robert Frisbee, the chief executive of EPEAT, told the Wall Street Journal that Apple had talked to the organisation about the new MacBook Pro and had made "a credible claim that it qualified."