Apple is defending itself against a fresh barrage of criticism from Chinese environmental activists over alleged pollution by the manufacturers who make its iconic iPhones, iPads and other products.
In a report issued on Wednesday, a group of nongovernmental organizations accused the technology giant of violating its own corporate responsibility standards by using suppliers it said its investigations found are violating the law and endangering public health by discharging heavy metals and other toxins.
Responding to the report, Apple said yesterday that it was committed to “driving the highest standards of social responsibility” in its supply chain.
“We require that our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made,” it said.
In a letter to the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, the Beijing-based NGO that spearheaded the report, Apple said it took such concerns seriously but had found discrepancies in the document.
It also proposed a “private conference call” with the institute, which responded by asking that other sponsors of the report be included in any dialogue.
Policing supply chains is a headache for big brand name companies, given the countless scandals over labor, environmental, safety and quality problems brought on by outsourcing to myriad factories in China and elsewhere in the developing world.
The latest report explores in more detail findings of an earlier one that took Cupertino, California-based Apple and other big electronics makers to task for alleged violations of labor and environmental standards.
It says Apple is spreading pollution through its supply chain and names seven facilities owned by five separate suppliers for specific problems, mainly with disposal of hazardous materials such as copper, nickel and cyanide.
Staff at two of those factories near Shanghai, Kaedar Electronics (凱達電子) and Unimicron Technology (Kunshan) (昆山鼎鑫電子), said their managers were not available to comment yesterday.
The report also named Taiwan-owned Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), which assembles Apple’s iPhones and iPads in enormous factories in several mainland locations.
It said Foxconn’s factory in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan was emitting irritating gases resulting from metals surface processing, and authorities responsible for treating hazardous waste from its massive facility in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen had discharged pollutants exceeding legal limits.
Another suspected Apple supplier, Ibiden Electronics (Beijing) (北京揖斐電電子), a Japanese maker of printed wiring boards, was discharging several dozen tonnes a day of sludge containing hazardous chemicals, the report said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day