Company Compliance Plan Apple

Apple Corporation

Company Compliance Plan-APPLE

The Apple Corporation: Compliance plan

The Apple Corporation has recently been beset by a series of scandals, regarding the discrepancy between how it manufactures its products and the ethics it claims to uphold in its compliance plan. On its website, the Apple Corporation has tried to inform and persuade the public that it is compliant with the standards it sets in its company compliance plan. For example, regarding recycling, it states that "Apple started recycling in 1994 and today we operate recycling programs in countries where more than 82% of all Macs and iPods are sold. By the end of this year, that figure will increase to 93%" (Apple: A Greener Apple, 2012, Apple.). Apple has also been more aggressive than its competitors in removing questionable toxins from its products. "It now makes iPods and iPhones free of polyvinyl chlorides and brominated flame retardant" (Charny 2008).

The minimalist design of Apple products, the company contends, ultimately results in less waste. "Over the past decade, Apple's designers and engineers have pioneered the development of smaller, thinner, and lighter products. As our products become more powerful, they require less material to produce and generate fewer carbon emissions" (The story behind Apple's environmental footprint, 2012, Apple). According to the EPA, eight of Apple's nine MacBooks meet the EPA gold standard of environmental soundness while Dell and Hewlett-Packard have lower rankings for optimal soundness measures (Charny 2008).

Another criticism of Apple's ethics revolves around how workers are treated at the factories where its products are manufactured. According to Apple's Code of Conduct, even when local standards allow for low wages to be paid to workers and for substandard treatment, Apple mandates that human rights are upheld. "Apple Inc.'s latest Supplier Responsibility report indicates the company has stepped up its audits and training at a number of locations around the world. The report says the company conducted on-site audits at 102 facilities in 2009, up from 83 in 2008, and trained 133,000 workers, supervisors and managers, a sharp increase from 27,000 a year earlier" (Hyatt 2010). Apple admits that not all of its suppliers adhere to ethical guidelines: Apple audits found 55 facilities that did not have "dedicated personnel accountable for compliance with all categories of Apple's Code," and it has required formal training programs for both workers and managers" (Hyatt 2010). When there are repeated violations, it states that it will change suppliers. But Apple's factories in China have been under particular media scrutiny and Apple continues its relationship with Foxconn. The independent Fair Labor Association audit of Foxconn, "China's largest private-sector employer" found that more than half of Foxconn employees had worked 11 days or more without rest and "more than 43% of workers reported experiencing or witnessing an accident at the three plants audited" (Garside 2012).

The environmental organization Greenpeace criticizes "Apple's data centers' dependence on coal [which] is estimated to be at 54.5%, followed by Facebook at 53.2%, IBM at 51.6%, HP at 49.4%, and Twitter at 42.5%" (Pelaez 2012). In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, Apple also appears to fall short, in comparison to its competition. "Dell and Hewlett-Packard report buying much more clean energy than Apple; Dell 58 times more, and Hewlett-Packard five time more" and "Hewlett-Packard reduced direct greenhouse gas emissions...by 25%" during the same period when Apple reduced emissions by 3% (Charny 2008).