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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.