Tag Archives: audits

Case Study about Apple Supplier Responsibility

Since our first audits in 2006, we’ve expanded to more countries and more supplier categories. We’ve conducted audits in 14 countries, and in 2012, our audits covered nearly 1.5 million workers. We also perform audits in select nonproduction facilities, including call centers and warehouses. In addition, we conduct specialized audits focusing on areas such as the environment and safety.We audit our final assembly manufacturers annually, and we audit other facilities based on certain risk factors, including location and geographic sensitivities, past audit performance, and the nature of the facility’s work. Since many smaller suppliers have never been exposed to auditing, our audits often identify ways to enable operations to comply with our standards. This effort not only improves working conditions at these suppliers, it also helps improve conditions industrywide, since many of our peers use the same companies.

Core violations and corrective action: Apple considers the most serious breaches of compliance to be core violations. These include physical abuse; underage, debt-bonded, or forced labor; falsification of information or obstruction of audit; coaching workers for audits or retaliating against them if they provide information; bribery; significant pollution and environmental impacts; and issues posing immediate threat to workers’ lives or safety. All core violations must be stopped and corrected immediately. Our preference is to fix problems so they don’t happen again rather than just fire the supplier—which would likely let these violations continue for other customers. However, if a violation is particularly egregious, or if we believe a supplier is not fully committed to stopping the behavior, we terminate our relationship with that supplier and, when appropriate, report the behavior to the proper authorities. Keep Reading..

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