The Apple Campus is the term used to describe the corporate headquarters of Apple Inc. The first Apple Campus is found in Cupertino, California in 1977 and looks like a university campus or a modern business park. It served the company well but in 2006, Steve Jobs revealed plans to build an Apple Campus 2 to start construction in 2013 and be open in 2015. However, there were several delays and construction only started last year and is expected to finish by 2016. The initial cost of the project was $500 million but this has since ballooned to $5 billion because Apple bought more land for the new campus.

The new campus has been described as a “spaceship” because of the circular design and the energy source which will be mostly natural gas in the campus’ own energy plant. It will have space for 13,000 employees, a coffee shop big enough to accommodate 3,000, extensive parking and open area, an auditorium that can seat 1,000, a fitness center, 300,000 feet of space for research and development, and its own orchard.

Recently, Apple revealed more about the Campus 2 and even shared images of the progress, which were taken using a drone. The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, also said that the design of the new campus is meant to be casual and collaborative where “people run into each other – not just at the meetings that are scheduled on your calendar, but all the serendipitous stuff that happens every day in the cafeteria and walking around.”

The company has also said that the opening will be in 2017and it is supposed to be the greenest building on earth according to Cook. How Apple plans to do this is still a bit unclear since Cook speaks in general terms of improving carbon footprints. However the little that has been mentioned is that Apple has converted to 100% renewable energy for its power source and the Campus 2 will be completely powered by renewable energy sources. Some of the figures released by Apple include:

• The company has recycled 75% of its demolished materials for the new Campus 2
• About 90% of the old Campus is being used for the new campus including the concrete which will be the foundation of the campus and the trees that were felled to be used as construction material
• Apple will have a solar farm
• The new campus will use natural ventilation for 75% of the year

Tim Cook has also released an Earth Day video stressing the need to improve environmental responsibility and being the narrator of the video, also serves to emphasize the role Apple sees itself now and in the future.