Apple’s road to innovation requires some sacrifice
How does a company come to dominate the world of technology? We are not just talking about one sector, such as smart phones, but are referring to computers and music devices as well. If we ask the company senior executives the answer is simple – innovation.
The type of innovation we are talking about includes market changing devices, such iPod, iPad, iPhone, iTouch and now, iKill? I believe that this is exactly what is happening on the market, and what it took to renovate the current technology manufacturing sector.
Since 2010, Apple has been under fire after workers at its Foxconn factory committed suicide, due to a physically and morally demanding environment. With long working hours and dangerous working environments, neither the workers, nor the factory leaders have much to say. The cause for these problem lies with Apple, who must produce new gadgets at a cheap price in a short notice. Such a rigorous and demanding schedule doesn’t give much room for international labor standards.
In fact, when checking the CSR policy of Apple we see much focus concerning the quality of products rather than specific concerns for the suppliers. Of course, while there is information about audits and re-precautionary actions for suppliers that don’t abide by their laws, reality is much different than what’s written in the books. To prove this, despite previous scandals, and a new investigation by the Fair Labor Association, which proves in-compliance with Apple rules, the company has failed to find a new supplier. In fact, “More than half of the suppliers audited by Apple have violated at least one aspect of the code of conduct every year since 2007, according to Apple’s reports, and in some instances have violated the law.” (New York Times) Considering that even Apple’s Code of Ethics is focused more on property rights than employee protection, it is easy to see where the company focuses most of its concerns and resources.
Yet pointing the blame only on the company is wrong. We must focus on consumers as well, after all, why is the company working so hard to produce cheap and new products? Its all for us, the consumers, who have come to rely on cheap goods without bothering to see where and how the products we buy were made.
As for Apple, CSR is far from being implemented into its supply chain. Its Supplier Code of Conduct wasn’t created until 2005, when many of its competitors already had theirs. We can see that rather than also being a leader is CSR, the company is running on reactive mode. It has no desire to change its current way of operation, which has made it very profitable. Instead, they address issues that turn into scandals, hoping to save their reputation and give the consumers the idea that they are being responsible.
As a New York Times article mentioned, “until consumers demand better conditions in overseas factories — as they did for companies like Nike and Gap, which today have overhauled conditions among suppliers — or regulators act, there is little impetus for radical change. And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.” (New York Times)
Maybe the real question is, will the consumers and followers of Apple reward the company for its social responsibility as much as they do for innovation? Until the answer to the question is yes, business will proceed as usual.
Resources:
Apple Supplier Code of Conduct. Accessed on April 28th, 2012 from: http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/code-of-conduct/
Duhigg, C & Barboza, D. (2012) “In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an Ipad.” New York Times. Accessed on April 27th, 2012 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?pagewanted=all
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13 May 2012
por
Hokuma Karimova
IMSD /
Why corporation are increasingly involved in supply chain scandals: What you do not control yourself is a cost and brings more uncertainty
Current business models are everything else than creative. Breaking down business operational units has become the common practice, in which managers try to find operational efficiency by outsourcing manufacturing as well as design processes in places where cost are low, regardless of enforcement of labour and environmental practices.
The idea is that anyway suppliers should align with the corporation values or strategy.
Unfortunately often relationship and dialogue are one way so that alignment is not achieved even with first tier suppliers, exposing companies to high risks.
Often companies in their desperate attempt to gain competitive advantage by reducing cost, incur in over out-sourcing. With less direct involvement and control in the component design, engineering process, and manufacturing, key decisions impacting performance are now in the hands of external parties that may lack of the proper knowledge and overall of the direct link with the final customers, so they don’t know what customers expected and which needs are supposed to be satisfied in detail. As a result the benefits in term of job creation in the own country reduce consistently: teams got smaller (and even less up to date on the specific design and technical issues in some cases) and more and more responsibility is transferred to outsiders. It becomes rather a negative impact for the community/society the business wishes to serve as well as for the competitiveness itself.
Too much out-sourcing also means that making changes later in the process becomes complicated and expensive; redesigns also were expensive and lead to delays in product launches. In addition, it means that products or services could not be fully tested, so that many risks are easily overlooked causing even product recalls.
There is also an important difference between integrating physical systems or parts of a product and building a successful process which integrates the performance of such systems. An essential factor as component-specific knowledge is missing and also it is hard to practice the learning by doing process, which holds the key to maintaining and advancing component-specific knowledge and making the best decisions regarding overall product performance. In such case companies usually end up making trade-offs (for instance, between a component’s technical performance and its cost) reducing the opportunity for success.
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10 May 2012
por
Francesco Mazzeo
IMSD /
Why leaders have to train their female skills
The future of leadership is about cooperation and collaboration rather than competition, dialogue rather than monologue and giving incentives rather than punishment.
The border between work and life vanishes, the goal is to introduce life into the workplace and make it more real. A study shows that most employees use only 10 % of their brain capacity the time they enter the office – a pity, isn’t it? And a huge unused potential! The aim of leaders should be to make their employees to love their company and to be eager to go to work every day. This is obviously not a simple task but will definitely be worth it. It can be reached through the alignment of individual and company values. The leaders have to walk their talk and create the environment. This could for example be the increased possibilities to make friendships, as they have an important impact on job satisfaction (Forbes 2010).
One successful example is Google who gives its employees 20 % of their working time to devote to their personal projects. This has an enormous potential and generated Google Mail. Obviously this “free” time has to be communicated and managed in a proper way so it will not become a long weekend. Your employees have a huge potential which can and should be used for this win-win situation!
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08 May 2012
por
Marie Glück
IMSD /
How serious is Apple about CSR?
“Apple is committed to the highest standards of social responsibility across our worldwide supply chain. We insist that all of our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes. Our actions — from thorough site audits to industry-leading training programs — demonstrate this commitment.”
This is what Apple states on its website. This commitment might be true or not, but there is evidence that there is still a huge gap between this statement and the execution. The most famous example is the investigation at Foxconn, a big supplier of Apple, where the Fair Labor Association “found excessive overtime and problems with overtime compensation; several health and safety risks; and crucial communication gaps that have led to a widespread sense of unsafe working conditions among workers.” Additionally Apple claims that they go beyond the industry standard in their manufacturing process – this might seem to be great, but if one knows how the standards are now with low wages and plenty of working hours this is not enough.
Looking on the environmental side, Apple seems to be very transparent about its commitment to reduce the environmental impact of its products. This ranges from the non-use of hazardous materials to the calculation of the carbon footprint and less packaging. Additionally it aims to design its products to be as energy efficient and recyclable as possible. This has benefits for the environment and for the company and Apple should be acknowledged for this effort. These actions towards a greener company are well recognized amongst the customers, as stated in a survey by TDG in 2008, where 1512 internet users rate Apple as the most environmentally friendly technology brand. In contrast Greenpeace rated Apple 11th out of 17 rated companies in its Guide to Greener Electronics 2009. This created a gap between the perceptions of the customers and the reality. This gap is quite dangerous, because in case the perception of the customers is revealed to be untrue this would cause a huge damage on Apples reputation. The company already works hard to close the gap and went up five places in the Guide to Greener Electronics of Greenpeace from the ninth to the fourth place in 2011.
The story behind Apple’s environmental footprint
Still, after some research, Apples CSR activities seem to be more reactive than proactive and especially in the environmental sector due to pressure of environmental groups. According to some resources Apple lacks behind the CSR activities of its competitors, this is most probably because of the former CEO Steve Jobs, who valued the best technology for people more than random donations to charities (Chun 2011). Random donations to charities which Jobs did not like are not CSR for me neither, CSR is not how much money a company gives to the community, CSR is HOW a company makes business. And here is room for improvement.
The current situation of Apple is the chance of CEO Tim Cook to develop and introduce a proper CSR strategy. The strategy needs an innovative and inspiring vision which is aligned with the core values of the company and serves the cool image the company worked hard on. It needs to promote trust and openness internally and implement a continuous stakeholder dialogue to ensure the survival of the brand. Nobody wants to own products which are related with inhuman working conditions. Apple is highly innovative and should use its skills for social innovation. They have the potential to come up with innovative solutions for global challenges. Apple should not miss the possibility to become an innovator in CSR activities and to set a new standard in the technology sector with a cool sustainability vision. It’s time for a green Apple!
Resources, last accessed 07.05.2012:
Apple (2012) Supplier Responsibility at Apple, http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/
Apple (2012) The story behind Apple’s environmental footprint, http://www.apple.com/environment/
Chun R (2011) Corporate Social Responsibility at Apple, http://www.imd.org/research/challenges/TC061-11.cfm
Fair Labor Association (2012) Complaints and Investigations, http://www.fairlabor.org/report/foxconn-investigation-report
Greenpeace (2011) Guide to Greener Electronics, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/Campaign-analysis/Guide-to-Greener-Electronics/
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07 May 2012
por
Marie Glück
IMSD /
Apple’s struggle to CSR
Apple is definitely the leader in today’s IT sector. Even if it started as a computer producer now it is dominating other sectors
too. For instance it has 73% of global mobile phones sales, which 3 years ago was unthinkable even for the past leader Nokia that now doesn’t even have a mere 1%. These successes transmit itself in high profits and probably an eternal place in the best companies in the world. One can say that it is a result of having a very well prepared strategy, high innovation level and very good marketing (I believe that there are few people in the world that wouldn’t like to have an Apple product, and even if they are against Apple computers they probably have an iPod). But only few customers are aware what is the real “cost” of their business.
From the outside the company looks perfect. Their computers are the most energy efficient products on the market, they use reusable materials to assemble them and try to be as “environmentally friendly” as possible. Being “environmentally friendly” has become a trend lately, but nobody really knows what it means. However, last May an explosion had place in one of Apple’s factories in China and killed 3 workers. Few months later a new explosion took place and injured 61 workers. It provoked a wave of criticism towards the company and experts started to investigate the company very deeply.
In the Apple interior Business Code of Conduct, they mention that workers should do whatever they can to provide a secure workplace. That includes meeting all the security rules provided by the employee. But as the two above mentioned incidents have shown this is not enough. Apple should know that sometimes things might go wrong and have to do everything possible to avoid this kind of situation. As one of our teachers has said and he was just repeating other human beings: “shit happens!”
After those accidents Apple has asked the FLA (Fair Labor Association) to write a report about labor conditions in Apple’s most important supplier Foxconn. The results weren’t that shocking and have showed how Apple’s backstage looks. In all of Foxconn factories the principle labor laws weren’t met. For instance in average workers were working up to 80 overtime per month, while only 36 are allowed by law. Moreover, they were made to work in example for 29 or 59 minutes, because they were paid by each half hour of overtime. Another issue was targeted to poor treating of interns. Foxconn has around 27,000 interns at any given moments with an average time of stay of 3,5 months. They were “used” to do not challenging work, but monotone and exhausting.
Foxconn has made some promises and want to fulfill them by 2013. On the other hand in the report written by FLA, one may have the impression that Foxconn do not feel fully culpable. Indirectly Apple is being blamed. If we start analyzing Apple Supplier Report we also can find all the information mentioned in the FLA Report. Apple is informing the report readers that he has required the supplier to change it’s behavior (in the majority of cases) or has hired a specialist to verify labor condition in its supplier factories. It is obvious that both are trying to avoid responsibilities for their actions.
In my opinions this example of Apple practice is enough to come up with a conclusion that Apple CSR strategy is not integrated into its business, because it doesn’t consider the social aspect. Until this issue will not be solved Apple will not have an integrated CSR strategy.
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07 May 2012
por
Piotr Adam Lubiewa-Wielezynski
IMSD /
Why resource rich countries are actually poor
It is a true fact that most of the resource rich countries are actually poor, one might be wondering why this is the case and it is likely that this may be like this for so many years to come. Generally, mostof the poor countries, have some resources like oil, gas, mineral which could have helped them to improve their economic situation, however the opposite is the situation. Let us take for example the Sub Sahara African countries, like Nigeria, Liberia, DRC but also Venezuela, Russia where there are a lot of mineral resources and yet more than half of the population lives on less than a dollar, have poor transport systems, dont have access to clean water and sanitation, dont have access to electricity and have poor education and health facilities.
One of the cities in a oil rich countries Nigeria
This being the situation, we need to assess why? Is it bad policies? Laziness, lack of capacity or is it financial resources? Some development theories have explained why this is the situation and i will try to ellaborate basing on these policies but also on my on opinion as someone who has grew up in one of the poor countries. One of the biggest issues is the continuous overextraction of the resources in these poor countries by mutlinational companies from rich countries with very minimum benefits for the poor countries.
Mining in Namibia
Usually these multinational usually extract the minerals , process them and then sell to thses poor countries at very huge profits. Most of the times, these multinational companies come with promises things like investiment, technology transfer and capacity building which unfortunately are not fullfiled, hence no win-win situation, leaving these poor countries more poor and with no resource, no investment no technology transfer and no capacity. Since many of these poor countries lack the financial muscle, technical skills as well as human skills to process these resources into valuable assets or wealth, they are subjected to manupulations by multinational companies. It is also unfortuante that even where they try to process the mineral into valuable assets, they still face a lot of competition on the market and sometimes are forced to sell the products at very low profits which can not improve the countries economic situation.
On the other hand there are also issues and challenges within these poor countries which affects their ability to use their resources to achieve sound development, and the major one being corruption due to poverty, weak policies and institutions but also poor governance. This results in over exploitation of the resources be it financial or non financial by some individual leaders at the expense of the majority of the population. In some countries this selfiness ends up in civil wars which disrupts everything and increases the levels of poverty of the majority.
In addition to corruption, poor countries are faced with more challenges like climate change impacts, HIV Aids which also affects their economic growth as compared to rich countries and these problems are becoming the major focus in these countries and deviate from the development agenda.
Floods in Kenya
In conclussion, it is not only the mineral resources that is imporant for a country to become economically rich and well developed but rather the capacity to process these into valuable asset or wealth which can be used for social economic activities in those poor countries. In current situations where these poor countries lack the capacity to process the resources, then we are far away from alleviating global poverty.
Sources
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/african-bioresources-exploited-by-west-466824.
Resource rich countries and weak institutions; htmlResource Rich Countries and Weak Institutions: The Resource Curse Effect
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07 May 2012
por
Tabithah Mkandawire Kaluwa
IMSD /
How apple has intergrated CSR in its business
Apple is one of the companies that has made a lot of news in the media on its business and that of its supplies and this has forced apple to take some decissions and act on some of the claims as a way of improving and addressing the issues. Apple is doing well on some issue but still some issues are still questionable, for example, on its website it is very difficult to find their code of conduct ( both the code of good governace as well as the suppliers code f conduct). Apple has a these two codes which are not easy to find and they do not appear on their website however both are well explained. For its Supplier code of condauct, Apple stipulates the minimum standards to be followed by its suppliers on issues of labour and human rights, Environment, Health and Safety, Ehtics and management systems to ensure compliance of the code. Apple also takes initiative to audit some of its suppliers to ensure that its suppliers are always compling to thier conde of conduct, however the challenge is to what extent does apple ensure that the recommendations from these audits are implemented.
From the media Apple has recieved a lot of critisms about its suppliers on issues to do with working conditions, i feel this is linked to the way Apple conducts its business, i.e cheaper prices. This forces the suppliers to try to reduce the cost of production as much as possible hence the poor working conditions, and to solve this Apple should give its suppliers good prices for the products. This will enable them to offer good working conditions to their staff who are the main drive of the business. As we have heard about the Foxcom scandal, it is very difficult to hold Apple accountable but as its supplier, Apple can help in improving the working condition at Foxcon through better prices, audits and also capacity building of its suppliers to help the comply to the minimum standards. 
In addition, the governments in the suppliers company also need to have policies in place which will ensure that the workers are protected, there is need for multi sectroral approach if we are to achieve improvements on issues to do with supply chain management.
Secondly, Apple seems to be also to be be doing well on issues to do with the environment and they are being transparent on issues like on carbon foot printing, Apples measures its carbon foot print for all its activities and it further takes some initiatives to ensure that their product foot print is further reduced.
Some of the initiatives are energy efficiency, recycling, packaging, removal of toxic substances in their raw materials. This innovative initiatives helps Apple to improve on their products quality but also helps in reducing the green house gas emmissions. Apple also seems to do well on employees’ capacity building through its Supplier Employee Education Development where the employees are allowed to have free classes.
Personally i feel Apple is still doing something even though it might be regarded as a response to the crisis but everything has got its starting point, what matters is the how the issue is handled. On the other note, Apple still needs to do more than what it is doing now as i have elaborated above but also improve on its communications to its different stakeholders in a transparent way but also ensure that they is room for continuous stakeholder engangement. As CSR is a new concept to most of the people, companiies we need time for continuous improvement within the companies, otherwise it will be a marketing strategy rather than believing in the need for doing it.
Sources
1. Apple Supplier Code of Conduct; http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Supplier_Code_of_Conduct_V3
2. Apple and the environment; http://www.apple.com/environment
3. Apple Supplier Responsibility 2012 Progress Report; http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2012_Progress_Repo
4. Greenfield, Rebecca. There are no Quick Fixes for Apple’s Foxconn Problem.February 14, 2012. More information:http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/02/there-are-no-quick-fixes-apples-foxconn-problem/48674/
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07 May 2012
por
Tabithah Mkandawire Kaluwa
IMSD /
Apples sustainability. Belief or reaction?
Intangibles are everyday becoming more important, reason why corporate reputation is everyday acquiring more importance. Apple is a worldwide known trademark that owes its positioning to its high innovation inside the IT sector; nonetheless, due to several scandals that happened in their production chain, the company has been forced to consider other aspects aside from innovation to keep itself positioned.
Nowadays the company has been forced to develop a strategy to take care of its reputation, reason why it has gone beyond its strict frontiers to look also o its suppliers, essential in the development of their products. To look at this dimension, a code for suppliers has been developed, incorporating principles of responsibility to its way of making business. Internally the company has a code of conduct which seems to protect more to the company’s own interests. It’s clear that innovation needs certain care to become the motor of Apple, anyhow, their principal asset and the source of the creativity is within people, which seems to be in a secondary place. If workers are the force which makes positioning possible, additional emphasis should be placed to their code on conduct. Being responsible internally is as important to be responsible outside.
Apples’ four core values are honesty, respect, confidentiality and compliance. Even though when respect comes as a second core value, employees don’t seem to count with explicit terms for praising and valuing their ideas. It’s clear that the company needs to secure what makes it great, which is innovation as mentioned before, nonetheless, the relation inside Apples’ innovation seems to be unilateral, no recognition appears as a core value when it comes to respect, this value should also apply to the ideas that have taken Apple to the worldwide stage. On the other hand, confidentiality seems to relate more related working relations and ideas; however, the ideas of employees should have total disclosure to the company. Again, this has a double side, as far as confidentiality seems to be flowing only to Apples’ favor but no explicit value is shown to the people who create all this ideas, additionally, the right to keep own ideas should have established conditions in which they can coexist with the companies’ interest.
In relation to their supply chain, recently the business developed a code of conduct for suppliers, which must be complied in order to keep belonging to Apples’ supply chain. Even though the effort made is highly valuable and has achieved transparency from the company, it seems that its existence doesn’t respond to a real interest of making responsible business, as for it appeared after several scandals took in the supply chain, making them face reputational risks. Initially intangibles were mentioned, the relation between these and reputation has a direct link, reason why the birth of this code seems more as a reactionary measure.
Even when Apples’ efforts are questionable when it comes to make sustainable business, it’s fair to say that the code of
conduct for suppliers considers a great variety of issues (social and environmental along), has pushed the company to make business in a responsible way and has been build over transparency, as for a lot of information has been disclosed through their yearly reporting. A positive thing that should be mentioned is that the company hasn’t stopped the relation with their suppliers which don’t comply with their standards; moreover, they have helped them to go over the issues and include them into their responsibility principles. Impact in this sense is big; actions like this are likely to push sustainable trends to new frontiers.
In synthesis, even when Apple didn’t have the intention of expanding its frontiers over their responsibility as a business, inevitable tragedies with their narrow scope have happened and have pushed the company to move into more sustainable directions. Reactionary actions and reputational risks can be avoided by having proactivity over the emerging issues, nonetheless, a sustainable focus has emerged in their way to profit, fact which shouldn’t be ignored for future lessons that are to be teached to the rest of business world. Responsibility is materiality in today’s world.
Sources:
Apple Supplier Responsibility (2012). Available at http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2012_Progress_Report.pdf . Last consulted: 05/05/2012
Apple Business Code. The way we do business worldwide (2010). Available at: http://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CH0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fphx.corporate-ir.net%2FExternal.File%3Fitem%3DUGFyZW50SUQ9NTQ1NTF8Q2hpbGRJRD0tMXxUeXBlPTM%3D%26t%3D1&ei=D7mnT5imAqLZ0QXSwsnLCQ&usg=AFQjCNH3dp2NOJ39eByGl1mMfRfDH7JDTA . Last consulted: 05/05/2012.
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07 May 2012
por
Rodrigo Capriles Mazzei
IMSD /
CSR @ APPLE – integrated or added?
As we have analyzed Apple from more than one point of view in different classes, by now we got a more complex picture about where the company places CSR and what does it mean for it.
First of all it is important to mention that instead of an integrated CSR report Apple only publishes the company’s Code of Conduct(1), which deals, among others with corporate governance, information disclosure, environmental health and safety, and procurement, and The Apple Supplier Code of Conduct(2), which deals with working conditions of suppliers. Both documents lack on explaining how to ensure that all employees and suppliers understand and are able to apply it correctly. Furthermore, they contain unspecified statements without helping examples, which are not clear how to understand i.e. anything of value.
There is also very limited information on the company’s website how it involves its stakeholders. It is obvious that it engages clients and recently more and more suppliers, it states some comments and reports on the environment, but not too much more.
The environment topic is a special issue lately as in the media came out how big is its pollution through its data centers powered by coal. According to the Greenpeace report Apple is doing poor compared to its competitors regarding taking actions to reduce the use of dirty energy or its transparency in this topic. (3)
The hottest topic related to Apple this year is the scandal in its suppliers factories (Foxconn) in China. This had a big impact on the „so-far-so-good” reputation of Apple. The recent steps could be seen as answers to the bad labour conditions, which also Fair Labour Association (FLA) found in its investigations. But salary raise and better working conditions are not necessarily ethical behaviour change, but economical pressure (to keep workers and attract them from other companies) and grow of the company means grow of the wages of the employees, like in other countries. (4) One could ask where Apple’s responsibility towards its supply chain remains. At the same time, Apple has also an industry responsibility, as of its size and wellknown brabd it could set standards, like a benchmarking for the IT industry. It only needs to follow and apply FLA’s and Iternational Labour Organisation(ILO)’s suggestions and initiatives. (5)
As we have seen above, CSR is not yet fully integrated into Apple’s main business strategy. The following important questions stays though open: are potential Apple customers conscious enough toward sustainability, responsibility and ethical productio? Until the answer is rather not, Apple does not feel enough to be under pressure towards integrating CSR.
Sources:
(1) Business Conduct – The way we do business worldwide
(2) http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/code-of-conduct/
(5) http://www.guardian.co.uk/better-business/2012/apr/11/fair-labor-investigation-apple-foxconn
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07 May 2012
por
Ildiko Heim
IMSD /
Apple’s CSR integration
Apple is characterized by its constant innovation, design and outstanding marketing campaigns. But, is the company as good inside as it looks from outside? Due to recent reputation crisis, the company has focused some of its interests on improving CSR practices, but it still has a long path to travel and various aspects to improve.
It is important to highlight that Apple does not have a consolidated CSR report. Their webpage provides financial reports and information about some isolated sustainable activities such as environmental initiatives, but stakeholders are not able to see the whole strategy and results. This is a negative point for Apple because it demonstrates lack of transparency and shows how sustainability is a secondary topic. The information that the company is disclosing illustrates clearly that financial results and launching new products are Apple’s main priorities.
When the poor working conditions of Apple’s Chinese suppliers were revealed, a reputation scandal exploded and the company had to take corrective and preventive actions. Positively, the company acknowledged the problem, involved the Fair Labor Association, started public labor inspections and compelled to improve the working conditions. They created the Supplier Responsibility Code and opened a special online channel to establish dialogue about their labor conditions. On its supplier code, Apple requires that their suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes. Additionally, the company has zero tolerance towards child labor, promotes education and knowledge of workers’ rights and does a series of programed and surprise audits to guarantee fulfillment. If suppliers do not respect the code Apple terminates their relation with them. The code contemplates all the topics that according to the studies were weak and thus it is the basis for achieving a sustainable supply chain. But changes and sustainability are not reached immediately and the company has to keep considering working conditions as one of their priorities.
When reading Apple’s reports their improvements seem to be acceptable, but their practices can be highly questioned when the company’s representatives affirm the following: “You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards”. (New York Times, 4) This statement implies that if Apple wants to implement real sustainable practices it may have reinvent the business and incorporate CSR to their strategy. Otherwise success will not be achieved and labor abuses will continue to happen.
Apple also created and adopted an internal business code of conduct. They promote are honesty, respect, confidentiality and compliance. In the code, the company seems to give more importance to intellectual and physical assets than to human resources. Most of their rules are established to prevent reputation scandals and it the Business Conduct is very focused on restricting and guiding employees’ behavior instead of empowering them with parameters for ethical decision-making. The company does not share how the Business Code is communicated and how workers are going to be trained to guarantee understanding and compliance.
Regarding to environmental issues, Apple measures its carbon footprint in all its stages. It focuses efforts in designing products that require less and environmentally conscious materials and that are more energy efficient. Their efforts are also centered on packaging and they offer incentives for their customers to recycle their electronic devices. Even though these actions have positive impact, they are also the result of reputation scandals that Chinese NGOs divulged. These environmental actions are important, but it is clear how design also represents an advantage to sell more. Recently another scandal exploded when Greenpeace announced that Apple is relying on coal for their production, which may lead to new environmental measures.
As it can be seen, Apple has mainly reacted to reputation crisis rather than leaded the CSR trend in the IT sector. Their stakeholder engagement is more directed towards customers and recently towards suppliers, but there is no evidence of communication with their other stakeholders. Communication channels are limited and they are not visible enough. The question that should be raised is if their reactive actions are valid if they are not doing them by heart. In my opinion, Apple lacks engagement, reporting and external auditing, but their efforts on the supply chain are the basis to improve. In order to keep on leading Apple should balance profitability, environment and social actions. The company leaders should start re-focusing their business by incorporating CSR in their strategy and innovating in a more sustainable and transparent way.
Sources
1. Apple’s Business Code of Conduct
2. Apple’s Corporate webpage. Mor einformation: www.apple.com
3. Apple’s Suppliers Code. More information: http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2012_Progress_Report.pdf
4. Greenfield, Rebecca. There are no Quick Fixes for Apple’s Foxconn Problem. February 14, 2012. More information: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/02/there-are-no-quick-fixes-apples-foxconn-problem/48674/
5. Mariano, Jonathan. Apple Supplier Responsibility Report: Transparency Good, Findings Bad. Triple Pundit. February 17, 2011. More information: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/02/apple-supplier-responsibility-transparency-good-findings-bad/?dhiti=1
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06 May 2012
por
Laura Rubio
IMSD /
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