The technology industry is faced with many questionable decisions, and Apple is no different from any other corporation in this industry. Apple has built a reputation upon their beloved products. They range from beautiful laptops crafted from a single block of aluminum, Macbooks, all the way to their widely-loved iPhones. Since people love Apple and their product most of their negative decisions that effect CSR gets swept under the rug, and not everything is, as it seems. Technological Responsibilities goal here is to supply, you, the consumer/potential employee with information to arm you with the knowledge you will need in this day and age. We want to provide the consumer with unbiased and effective information.
Now before we dive into the negative decisions let us look at Apple’s positive CSR. Like their environmental efforts are almost second to none when it comes to the technology industry. Here are some examples of their environmental efforts in CSR:
- The iCloud is powered exclusively on renewable energy. (Find out more here)
- Apple on Wednesday published an Environmental Responsibility Report covering fiscal 2014, outlining steps the company has taken to reduce impact on climate change, use green materials in its products and conserve resources. (Find out more here)
This is all wonderful and fine and dandy; however, Technological Responsibilities’ goals are “to educate existing and future professionals in multiple technology sectors on the impact that corporate social responsibility has on society and the technology industry as a whole. The goal of our blog is to provide these professionals with information about which corporations are making a splash due to their corporate social responsibility efforts.”(From our blog mission statement) To stay unbiased we can’t just report on companies’ like Apple’s positive CSR efforts, we also have to see where they fell by the wayside.
To begin this discussion on where Apple fell by the wayside, they have been coming under fire for their material acquisition and their suppliers’ treatment of their employees. Now to see what Apple has to say “officially” about their suppliers, I have linked it here. However when you look into their CSR almost 90% of the links show up as “Environmental Responsibility.” Go ahead, Google, Apple Corporate Responsibility (or click the link).
Foxconn is one of Apple’s suppliers based out of China; however, most people will remember them from the news being the company that experiences surges of employee suicides. The picture below is of anti-suicide nets they have installed all around their facility.
After much criticism Apple has started a program to put their suppliers under investigation to reduce these questionable practices:
“Apple discovered three facilities that had previously hired 15-year-old workers in countries where the minimum age for employment is 16. Across the three facilities, our auditors found records of 11 workers who had been hired prior to reaching the legal age, although the workers were no longer underage or no longer in active employment at the time of our audit. One facility attempted to conceal evidence of historical cases of underage labor. Two other facilities presented falsified records that concealed evidence of violations of Apple’s Code regarding working hours and days of rest.” – See more at: DailyTech
Also I mentioned material acquisition as being one of Apple’s weak points in CSR. Apple published a report in 2012 talking about their acquisition of conflict minerals to help make some of their products:
“The consumer electronics giant, one of many companies subject to a June 2 deadline to file reports on what are called “conflict minerals,” reported that 21 smelters and refiners were identified as sources of minerals that originated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or adjoining countries. Most of the fighting has taken place in the DRC.
Of those 21 suppliers, Apple said, 17 were found to have gone through third-party audits to track the sources of their materials. The remaining four haven’t yet undertaken an audit.” (WSJ 2012)
Now that I have talked about what Apple has done well with CSR in the tech industry as well as what has fell by the wayside for them. I hope if you are seeking employment with Apple or are thinking about the consumer electronics sector of the tech industry, keep all these things in mind. Because not everything is, as it seems.
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