Apple puts the iPhone 18 Pro Max at 69 kg of CO2e at 256GB, rising to 114 kg at 2TB, and the iPhone 18 Pro at 63 kg rising to 109 kg. Those numbers exist in exactly one place: the Product Environmental Report PDF Apple published for both phones.
They are not on the product page, not in the tech specs and not in the press release, which claims 40 percent recycled content and never states a total. If you want to know what the phone you are about to pre-order costs the atmosphere, Apple makes you open a PDF.
Key facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Source | iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max Product Environmental Report, date introduced September 9, 2026 |
| Where it is not published | Product page, tech specs page, press release |
| iPhone 18 Pro | 63 kg CO2e at 256GB, 109 kg at 2TB |
| iPhone 18 Pro Max | 69 kg CO2e at 256GB, 114 kg at 2TB |
| Pro Max premium | 5 kg to 7 kg at matching storage tiers |
| Recycled content | 40 percent overall, 85 percent recycled aluminum in the enclosure |
| Manufacturing electricity | 50 percent from renewable energy |
| Packaging | 100 percent fiber-based |
| Carbon neutral claim | Not present for either model |
| Method change | Apple updated its life-cycle model for display panels and system on chip in FY2026 |
Apple’s own table, both models
Apple reports gross greenhouse gas emissions per configuration, which means storage changes the number. Here is the full set, with the gap between the two sizes.
Don’t miss the best of The Mac Observer
Set us as a preferred source and our Apple reporting ranks higher in your Google Search results and Discover feed — one tap, no account changes.
| Configuration | iPhone 18 Pro | iPhone 18 Pro Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 256GB | 63 kg | 69 kg | 6 kg |
| 512GB | 72 kg | 79 kg | 7 kg |
| 1TB | 81 kg | 87 kg | 6 kg |
| 2TB | 109 kg | 114 kg | 5 kg |
The size difference is the small variable. A Pro Max instead of a Pro adds 5 kg to 7 kg at the same storage. Storage is the large one.
What the extra storage adds
Going from 256GB to 2TB adds 46 kg on the Pro and 45 kg on the Pro Max, which is 73 percent more carbon on the Pro and 65 percent more on the Pro Max for the same phone. The steps are not even: 9 kg for each of the first two moves on the Pro, then 28 kg from 1TB to 2TB. On the Pro Max it is 10 kg, 8 kg, then 27 kg.
Put the two variables together and the ranking inverts. A 2TB iPhone 18 Pro at 109 kg carries 40 kg more than a 256GB iPhone 18 Pro Max at 69 kg. The bigger phone is the smaller footprint, as long as the smaller phone is not stuffed with flash memory.
Where the 63 kg comes from
Apple breaks the 256GB iPhone 18 Pro down by life-cycle stage, and production dominates.
| Stage | kg CO2e |
|---|---|
| Production | 46, of which 29 is electricity and 17 is everything else |
| Renewable energy infrastructure | 1 |
| Transportation | 3 |
| Customer product use | 13 |
| End-of-life processing | Under 1 |
Production alone is 46 of the 63 kg, about three quarters of the total, and it is all spent before the box is opened. The part a buyer influences is the 13 kg of use, and the far larger lever is how many years the 46 kg has to spread across. That is the number repair pricing decides, and Apple has not published a repair price for any product it announced this month.
Apple changed its own model this year
Buried in the same report: in fiscal year 2026 Apple is implementing life-cycle model updates in two areas, display panels and system on chip, with new average carbon intensities of 0.16 kg CO2e per square centimeter for OLED and 0.03 for LCD.
That is Apple revising the accounting in the same year it publishes these figures, so a straight comparison with last year’s reports is not necessarily like for like. Apple also states that all final assembly supplier sites are zero waste to landfill, verified by UL to the UL 2799 standard, which requires at least 90 percent diversion by methods other than waste to energy.
What Apple has not said
- Whether either iPhone 18 Pro model is carbon neutral. The designation does not appear in the report material, in either direction
- Why the emissions figures are absent from the product page, the specs page and the press release
- How much of the storage-tier increase is the flash memory itself
- How the FY2026 model change affects the comparison with the iPhone 17 Pro reports
- Any repair price, or any per-device AppleCare+ price, for a September 2026 product
Product Environmental Reports are also live for iPhone Duo, Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4 and AirPods 5, and the iPhone Duo report is published even though the phone does not ship until Friday, October 23. The iPhone 18 Pro reaches stores on Friday, September 18.
