Apple says it continues to make progress in improving working conditions for employees of its suppliers around the world.
Among the highlights of the company s 10th annual supplier responsibility report, which it released Wednesday: Apple said 97 percent of its suppliers now comply with a 60-hour workweek. It also touted progress on the environmental front, including that its energy-efficiency program prevented more than 13,800 metric tons of carbon emissions.
It s been a few years since a popular one-man show by Mike Daisey (which was later found to have stretched the truth) assailed Apple for the working conditions at the Asian factories where its products are made, and also since the New York Times published an in-depth look at Apple s supply chain. Since then, the Silicon Valley giant, maker of the popular iDevices, has become increasingly transparent about its efforts to make things better.
For example, in last year s supplier report, Apple said it had ended the use of bonded labor — in which workers pay recruitment fees to work for certain suppliers. Apple says that when it finds instances of such practices, it makes suppliers return the recruitment fees to the employees. Because of this, the company says in this year s report, $4.7 million was repaid to workers in 2015.
The report also found three instances of child labor in 2015, and includes specific examples about improvements in certain factories, or in the lives of certain workers.
As for the minerals that are in the company s products, Apple said 100 percent of its smelters and refiners are now being audited by third parties. But it stopped short of declaring its products conflict-free, because some smelters that have completed third-party audits have minerals that are supplied by mines allegedly involved with armed groups, according to its report.
We could have very easily chosen a path of re-routing our supply and declared ourselves conflict-free long ago, but that would have done nothing to help the people on the ground, Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams told Bloomberg. We chose to engage with as many smelters as possible because the only way to have an impact here is to reach critical mass.
Apple said it plans to keep trying to improve conditions by enhancing due diligence in the gold supply chain, and by working with other companies, governments and non-governmental organizations.
In a statement today, Greenpeace said it wants more. This year s report lacks detail on where problems remain and how they plan to address these issues, the environmental group said. Apple needs to provide more clarity into supplier performance and accountability. We expect a leader like Apple to set a greater example for the industry.
Photo of Apple logo by Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group
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