“Apple released its annual supplier responsibility report Thursday, drawing praise from Greenpeace for steps the company has taken to reduce use of conflict minerals in its products,” Chris O’Brien reports for The Los Angeles Times. “‘Apple’s increased transparency about its suppliers is becoming a hallmark of Tim Cook’s leadership at the company,’ said Greenpeace Energy Campaigner Tom Dowdall in a statement. ‘Apple has flexed its muscles in the past to push suppliers to remove hazardous substances from products and provide more renewable energy for data centers, and it is proving the same model can work to reduce the use of conflict minerals.’
“Greenpeace renewed its call for other tech companies to follow suit,” O’Brien reports. “‘Samsung and other consumer electronics companies should follow Apple’s example and map its suppliers, so the industry can exert its collective influence to build devices that are better for people and the planet,’ Dowdall said.”
O’Brien reports, “Two years ago, Apple began releasing a detailed list of major suppliers and agreed to third-party audits of its supply chain.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Know what makes Greenpeace happiest? Free PR sloshing all over them while riding Apple’s coattails.
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MDN, I know your comment is a dig, but who doesn’t want free press? Apple get’s free press all the time, though it’s because they earn it.
Riding coat tales. After paying attention to nature. This is a true and successful survival technique. Not admirable, but it works with minimal effort. I think when birds and race cars do it, it’s called drafting. Apple gets a little boost as well by the “echo” chamber effect.
I agree with Gollum.
Look, I think Apple does a better job on labor conditions and environmental issues than many other corporations, but guess what? They’re big enough that they can push this stuff even further. They’ve got the clout to do it, so OF COURSE people who care will pressure them – Apple can actually make stuff happen.
Things are certainly still bad out there for workers and for environmental impact, so who really thinks activists should back down? I think Greenpeace and PETA often hurt their own cause with some tactics, but if you aren’t doing _anything_ to improve life for others, you have no room to criticize.
If you think those issues are important and the activists out there doing something aren’t doing it right, step up and get involved yourself. If you actually don’t give a shit about human suffering or the environment, then stop pretending you do and saying “but their tactics are flawed.” Just admit that you don’t care if workers are poisoned or mistreated or the land polluted. Stop with the concern trolling.
Some people will probably down vote you, but your post is good. Sure, Greenpeace has gone overboard on some occasions. But they are doing the best that they can to speak for environment, and I am certainly glad that some people care enough to try to make a difference. Now matter how wealthy you are, no matter how attractive or intelligent or admired…what is it all worth if the lives of the current generation are plundering the resources of this world and leaving behind a polluted mess for our descendants?
I remember what flying into LAX used to look like…the blanket of gray-brown smog so thick that you could not even see the city below in broad daylight. Rivers so polluted they could catch on fire. Massive dumps of toxic waste. People will do this…companies will do this…unless we enact and enforce reasonable rules of behavior that do not value short term profits over the long term welfare of our environment.
This is not some “bleeding heart” mentality. This is realism and pragmatism. People and companies will take the easy way out. Let’s test the theory. Do you recycle the majority of your household solid waste? If you do recycle, are you doing it on your own, or are you following a mandated community recycling program? Perhaps it uses financial incentives or penalties to encourage participation? The fact is, relatively few people voluntarily choose to recycle on their own when they are able to toss everything in a trash can and have it whisked away every week. The capitalist system does not adequately factor in the cost of this behavior. The profits go to waste management companies and the penalties are passed onto our children, who might end up having to mine landfills for raw materials.
Single stream recycling can greatly reduce the quantity of solid waste that is land filled, and it works because lazy people can continue to mindlessly throw everything away in one can.
We should not have square miles of plastic floating around in a mass in the Pacific. We should not have medical waste washing up on our beaches. We should not rapidly consume so much of our fossil fuel resources for energy and transportation when they are so important and useful for other tasks. We can produce great quantities of electricity by other means, including nuclear, wind, water, wave, and solar, thus reducing the rate of consumption of our finite fossil fuel resources. But this is not happening because the corporations controlling the fossil fuel reserves want to maximize profits from the billions of barrels of oil still in the ground. Only when those reserves are nearing empty will humanity finally respond to this crisis.
This is stupid on a colossal scale. If humanity follows this path, then it deserves what it gets. Natural selection will eventually develop sentience that does not crap in its own backyard.
Krioni, you and King Mel express laudable thoughts which I, too, endorse. As clearly broadcast sentiments such as yours reach our general communities, I hope that their impact will augment the process of reforming grassroots perspectives required to catalyze the colossal efforts required to clean up humankind’s dirty leftovers produced in this process known as eking out a living.
This reformation in ethical living needs to happen in the minds of individual persons, yet evolve toward change “en masse.” The cynical and/or callous perspective about proper stewardship for our planet and its ecological health will ultimately choke the life out of the life found around us all. We have to stop accepting taking “hits” on our quality of life. I think that latter sentiment is what motivates the psyche of organizations like GreenPeace, World Wildlife Fund, and their ilk.
Greenpeace: If PETA were Republicans. They have no balls whatsoever.
Green Peace saying something good about Apple? Wow! Next we might see Consumer Reports saying something good about Apple and then the Apocalypse. Cats laying with dogs, the world will go to hell in a hand basket.
Even then they lie: “Apple’s increased transparency about its suppliers is becoming a hallmark of Tim Cook’s leadership at the company” — Apple’s increased transparency about its suppliers already became hallmark during Job’s leadership.
They have mellowed out since they were released from the Russian Gulag over that Russian oil drilling platform attack.
I’m assuming suppliers sell the clean stuff to Apple and the dirty stuff to others like Samsung.
Samsung is the dirty stuff.
Ok, so how about you greenpOS people start harassing companies that don’t do ANYTHING at all? Well? Hellooooo?
Hey Greenpeas, so what’s your report on Dell and Samedung?
Fuck Greenpeace. They’re nothing but a pack of publicity whores pretending to be environmentalists.
-jcr
A billion people in China held under the yoke of communism (unelected, unaccountable elitist leaders, forced abortion/sterilization, mass poverty, false imprisonment, massive pollution) and Greenpiece doesn’t bats an eye.
But oh my let’s make sure we have no ‘conflict materials’….
Does this mean Apple don’t source minerals from the USA?