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“In a report to be published on Thursday, the groups rank Apple last in a list of 29 multinational technology companies based on how each company dealt with inquiries about pollution and occupational health hazard incidents at factories in their supply chain,” Hille and Anderlini report. “The environmental groups’ condemnation of Apple is the result of a more than year-long attempt at influencing environmental and worker health protection practices at 29 multinationals.”
“The groups list HP, BT, Alcatel-Lucent, Vodafone, Samsung, Toshiba, Sharp and Hitachi as positive examples that responded to their inquiries and took some steps to adjust problematic practices at their suppliers or improve supervision systems,” Hille and Anderlini report. “A number of other technology companies, including Nokia, LG, SingTel, Sony and Ericsson are also cited for being unresponsive and not taking action to correct the problems, but none fares as badly as Apple, which is criticised for being evasive and not responding to the NGOs’ concerns.”
Hille and Anderlini report, “When the Chinese environmental groups brought this and another case to Apple’s attention, the NGOs say the company refused to confirm or deny whether the polluting companies were their suppliers and would not respond further. ‘Apple behaved differently from the other big brands and seemed totally complacent and unresponsive,’ said to Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a well-known Chinese NGO and the main author of the report.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yeeesss, Apple behaves differently. Welcome to Earth.
Now, just because Apple declined to confirm or deny their parts suppliers (likely for competitive reasons) or kowtow to whatever random group this week thinks they deserve to know whatever they demand from Apple, does not mean that Apple’s “complacent” about the environment. That is simply Ma Jun’s mischaracterization.
Read more about Apple and the environment here.
Translation…. A group of 36 Chinese environmental groups are looking for a payday.
Yep, misinterpretation. Apple does not disclose its suppliers for competitive reasons.
China talking about pollution? This is a joke right?
Apple Products are designed to be environmentally safe. What their partners decide to do with their waste or all the suicides and what ever are NOT Apples responsibility!
Chinese environmentalists? Is that similiar to goverment intelligence?
These “Chinese environmental groups” surely must be taking issue with Apple for having introduced manufacturing processes that reduce waste and as a result prevent Chinese factories from spewing the theoretical maximum amount of toxic sludge into the global environment.
Wait a minute, aren’t these Chinese companies making parts and products for Apple?
Don’t these Chinese companies have to comply with Chinese laws and regulations?
This is just like the Greenpeace shakedown attempt.
Hmmm so let me get this straight… the aluminum case does not release toxic chemicals like plastic does, and is more easily recycled that plastic, and durably recyclable… unlike plastic which burns easily and releases toxic gas and is flammable…
Oh and that daily fog cloud over the east coast of China is caused by how many hundreds of coal fired power stations…. ummm oh and when flying between Beijing and Shanghai… look at the many many damns that have been built… for agriculture.. and the big dry river beds… hmmm environment dust bowl…
You can tell an Apple hit-piece by it’s gratuitous brandishing of the trivializing term “gadgets”.
Within few years China will be using electric cars and clean energies in a massive range. Their pollution will belong to their history as youth errors. USA will go on using 4×4 8-12 cylinder stupid cars and pile up mountains of plastic garbage.
Give change a chance and… change your vision of the “american way of life” wich is just leading to crap.
Hey… Communist communists! Kind of redundant, eh?
Chinese Environmental Groups…………….
Oxymorons!
I know right!
I just woke up and read the headline… and I hadn’t read the Ovum article either, so I thought “Am I in the freaking Mirror Universe or something?”
A Chinese group going after an American company for pollution. Now I’ve seen everything.
I think they’ve got a little more to worry about at home first.
When did Jesse Jackson begin sharing his methods with the Chinese?
Chinese environmental?
Sounds like Mac OS Vista.
Whiny defenders. If they had called out ms or google you would have been calling for public floggings.
Yep, you guys have summed it up about right.
except for the dickhead who posted above me!
… “Culture Wars” than “Pollution Wars” – at least to me. In a nation where most tend to cooperate, someone who will NOT cooperate is accused of some sort of malfeasance. Some sort of malfeasance that is NOT identified as “failure to cooperate”. Sort of like not paying bribes in DC anytime in the past two centuries … which scam is less offensive/less immoral to you?
again, Apple should start moving production back to the US. They have the profit margins (they’re not making socks), they have the name recognition and brand (huge marketing windfall if they announce they Steve shows up at the ribbon cutting ceremony in Mississippi on a new state of the art iPad factory. Missing a huuuuuge opportunity here, all for the sake of maximizing profits at the expense of the worker…. a classic american business playbook move.
One more thing…. “Chinese Environment Group”
“Japanese Basketball World Champions”
“American Manufacturing Expansion”
… all these phrases make zero sense. Almost like putting random words together:
Fur Disappointment Radial
. . . Yet another reason for Apple to pull OUT of Red China. How about democratic India?
What’s next? Chinese groups condemning how Apple treats its employees in Cupertino?
Cheers dbcoyle! Kudos to that sentiment.
Gotta love Capitalism in it’s pure, raw form. China right now sounds like Upton Sinclair’s “Jungle”. And of course, in come the Unions to try and f*ck everything up.
Steve is a pure Capitalist. I always laugh when I read how wonderful of an environmentalist he is. Believe me, if he didn’t gain some kind of economic or power status from his environmental efforts, he would be doing the absolute minimum.
On the same note, Capitalism is a thousand times more bona fide than Corporatism. Corporatism is pure evil. And of course every one confuses the two. Corporatism is how real damage to the world is done, including pollution.
. . . Yet another reason for Apple to move OUT of communist China.
How about democratic India?
But isn’t pollution one of the reasons companies moved production out of the West and into China? Duh…
@Nuclear Kid: Total agreement. Thus the demolishion and blood sucking of the USA by the Corporate Oligarchy.
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Agreed, with modern day lean manufacturing techniques and the high levels of automation already common there is no reason that Apple products cannot be competitively produced in the US. We have become very dependent on consumer products that are all produced in China. Too many eggs in one basket, all for the sake of the Wal-Mart mentality.
No where in the story does it say that the Chinese environmental groups took up the pollution and worker health issues with the Chinese factories doing it. Shouldn’t they start there?
Oh Al Gore, holder of the environmental Nobel prize, what is up boy? Why are you on Apple’s board? What value or contacts do you bring to Apple?
to almux:
“Within few years China will be using electric cars and clean energies in a massive range. Their pollution will belong to their history as youth errors. USA will go on using 4×4 8-12 cylinder stupid cars and pile up mountains of plastic garbage.
Give change a chance and… change your vision of the “american way of life” wich is just leading to crap.”
Any guess as to where this staggering amount of electrical energy is going to come from???
These complaints are only about how Apple responded to their inquiries, not about actual pollution and worker safety. Many companies, some whom I have worked with, have departments cynically churning out boilerplate in order to appear co-operatve, instead of actually doing anything material. These companies are routinely praised. Apple does not offer spin. It was just this issue that inspired Greenpeace to make up lies about Apple, and Consumer Reports to withhold recommending the most transcendently functional smart phone yet made.
OK, come on! This is either a ridiculous JOKE or someone here is being racist:
Anonymous dimwit “RePlay” spewed:
“Within few years China will be using electric cars and clean energies in a massive range…”
No speak Engrish? You’ve got to be kidding.
Here is something to blow your mind. https://podcast.ic.sunysb.edu/blojsom_resources/meta/journalism/Chinacomputerwaste60mins.mp4
This video says otherwise, the Chinese bought the problem themselves. Fucking liars.
This “report” by Chinese environmental groups is so patently flawed as to be absurd. No other tech company remotely approaches Apple’s concerns and practices to minimize environmental problems.
I suspect the Chinese groups are copying the deceptive practices of GreenPeace to attract attention.
What surprises me about this report is that news agencies are reporting it as straight news.
Riiiiiiiiiiight… So Apple is is somehow in charge and in control of Chinese owned factories, and are being blamed for the pollution they (the factories) produce. Umm Hmm, right
Somehow it seems like the factory owners and operators should be responsible for what their factories produce, finished goods and toxic output alike.
Then there is the unseen 3rd party that has the real control, the Chinese government. If the factories comply with the current regulations, or if the government doesn’t enforce those regulations, the blame falls squarely with the Chinese government.
Must be easier to strike out against Apple, since they (unlike the government) won’t retaliate against the ‘environmentalists’
Apple doesn’t own any of the factories they use in China- they are clients. The fact that Apple will not supply the nosy bureaucrats with a list is immaterial to this cause. Investigate and condemn the individual factories themselves, boys and girls. Right now it just looks like this ‘environmental’ group ain’t willing to do any homework. Fsck ’em.
very funny. Since when has any Chinese agency cared about pollution ? I thought that was a perfume fragrance there.Sounds like someone’s looking for a payday to me.
Polite question.
Do you think Apple should do more about the poor working conditions at the Foxconn factory that makes their products?.
Yes pay has improved (a little!) since the spate of suicides but it would appear from various reports that not much has changed in reality.
Putting pressure on raising pay, working and environmental conditions in China (and elsewhere like India) has the added bonus side effect of producing goods in America more competitive.
apologies for the ending there
*added bonus of making manufacturing in the US more competitive.
Remember the furore about Nike sweatshop labour and the damage it did to the brand (perhaps not in the US but certainly elsewhere). Well those factories were suppliers and not directly Nike owned. It would be best for Apple to steer clear of the stigma of the type that Nike, Nestle and Exxon have in countries outside the US.
Apple should keep doing exactly what it is currently doing. It’s working!!
That’s rich.
All the while Mabobama and comrades prop this country up on a pedestal. They are dictating communists and Maobama and fellow democrat – commies love China. They want China to succeed while they destroy the US. They want the US to be just like China. No freedom of speech or rights. Political prisons. All kinds of other atrocities. What the hell is going on with the democrats? They are completely out of control.
Apple has no reason whatsoever to answer to any of these Marxists groups disguised as “keepers of the earth” anything. These can go to hell along with the democrats. See you at the voting booths in 2012. Read The Law by Frederick Bastiat.
Yes working for them, their shareholders and buyers of products.
Is it working for the little guy on the production line? (no height insult intended)
They may have a point. Take a look at what outsourcing to the lowest cost country with zero IP or environmental regulation has done to Earth. We’d all better behave differently.
At this juncture I thought it may be nice to introduce some of the ethical trading organisations I have seen pop up recently.
http://www.pantstopoverty.com/pages/the-farmers
This is a UK based organisation, Pants being boxers over here and not trousers
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To quote them:
“Nestled amongst the cotton farming villages in the province of Vidarbha in Maharasta we’re really starting to see the power that lies in our pants. This is an area of both terrible tragedy and inspiring hope, which, over the past 15 years, has become world renowned for horrific level of suicides of on average 7 a day for the past 15 years. However, since we have been working with the communities where the cotton in our pants comes from, there have been no suicides at all and farmers, once shackled in the prison of un fair trade, corruption and climate chaos, are now free to lead their lives with pride and satisfaction. However, alot more work remains to be done and this can only be done sustainably through fair trade. So, by buying our gorgeous pants, you can be happy in the knowledge that you are supporting these farmers and the more we sell, the more cotton the farmer sells and the more people can join the happy pants family!”
Note the reduction in suicide levels!, they have also had access to improved healthcare, promotion of equal female rights and is organic farming so not damaging their or anyone else’s environment.
I like Apple, they often are ahead of the game. It would be fantastic if they were to lead the way again and show other multinationals that exploiting the poor is no longer acceptable in today’s society no matter which country these people are from.
In addition Mr Jack if you are reading this according to that report only 46 percent of Apple inspected facilities met working time rules, 83 percent met rules on exposure to chemicals and only 57 percent met rules on environmental permits and reporting.
It isn’t clear if one infinite loop is included in those inspected facilities, if so the figures may in reality be worse at the Asian sites.
Gareth,
You are the definition of a British fembot. Apple doesn’t owe these clowns any explanation. Why don’t you report on how many millions and millions of people socialism/liberalism have extinguished? You need to read The Law by Frederick Bastiat and get back to us. Amazon has it.
College students should assist one another. Hence the term paper help service was made with that aim, I think. And its contribution seems to be great.