On March 7, Apple announces the highly anticipated iPad 3. With many exciting new features, the device could reinvent how we think about and interact with our world. But it's not all that it could and should be. Watch this new video on the most "insanely great" -- but missing -- iPad feature that consumers who value human rights would like to see included in the next upgrade. Because Apple remains a leader in technical innovation, it can do more to position itself on the leading edge of innovations that address real-world problems. It can help stop a war in Africa by sourcing clean minerals from the Congo. This is very possible for Apple to do.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C., is calling on Apple to cement its reputation as an industry leader by pushing for even greater reform and accountability. In a new campaign launching today, we will examine how Apple can address and repair this essential element of industry leadership, starting at the source: reform in its mineral supply chain.
Many of the minerals that make up essential components in electronics products like the iPad 3 are found in abundance in the Democratic Republic of Congo, also home to the deadliest conflict since World War II. Since 1996, nearly six million Congolese have lost their lives and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped.
The roots of Congo's conflict are complex; there is no simple fix for peace. However, the ongoing violence against the civilian population is largely fueled by the illicit trade in conflict minerals that are used by electronics companies as well as other industries: gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum. Armed groups use rape as a weapon of war, destabilizing communities while procuring hundreds of millions of dollars per year off the minerals trade.
The Enough Project -- a project of the Center for American Progress that focuses on fighting genocide and crimes against humanity -- has been advocating for electronics companies like Apple to ensure that the minerals they use in their products are being sourced from ethical, conflict-free mines. Apple has taken some good steps in this work, but as an industry leader, can go much further. So far, they have done more than any other company to trace and identify their suppliers that smelt the minerals, a key step in the supply chain. Additionally, they recently required their suppliers to purchase certified conflict-free minerals when they become available on the world market. But Apple should take the next step and ensure that its conflict-free products are not also "Congo-free" by sourcing minerals ethically from the Congo in a way that ensures Congolese communities are benefiting. This ethical sourcing in the Congo is a step that Motorola Solutions, Intel, and HP have already taken.
In technological innovation, Apple remains ahead of the curve when compared with its competitors. But "good enough" has never been Apple's standard. That's why so many of us love their products. After all, the iPad 1 was good enough for many consumers, but Apple has still found ways to make it better, and will no doubt continue to do so. Similarly, Apple should find ways to keep making improvements and innovating when looking at ethical sourcing in their supply chain. By doing so, Apple could satisfy growing consumer demand that it make itself a proactive partner in creating a solution for sustainable peace in eastern Congo.
Apple can seize the opportunity to help change the minerals trade so that it benefits communities and promotes development instead of funding warlords. And since Apple is an industry leader, it should also take this process to the next level by helping governments, industry and civil society create a credible certification system so that all companies can source responsibly from eastern Congo.
We applaud Apple's innovative accomplishments -- both in the world of technological advancements and industry-leading ethical improvements -- but we encourage them to elevate their performance so that other companies will soon follow their example. If the last decade has taught us anything, it's that where Apple goes, the world market will follow. We would like to see that path be one that leads towards building responsible products that enhance the lives of all people of the world -- not just consumers.
Emmanuelle Chriqui (@echriqui) is an actress and advocate for the Enough Project's Raise Hope for Congo campaign. JD Stier (@JDStier) is Manager of the Raise Hope for Congo campaign (@RaiseHope4Congo).
Follow Emmanuelle Chriqui on Twitter: www.twitter.com/echriqui
Robert Whent: A (New) Apple Today Keeps Competition Away
But many here are absolutely correct, while technological and design innovation and the user experience have been Apple's focus, they seem to have no interest in the human aspect of their production. And as corporation with a profit motive we can not expect them to. We can only hope for them to develop one.
I'll always remember the open disdain that was reported toward the owners of Kingston Technology when they spread the wealth to all employees after selling their company. They might have set a trend of fairness that other did not wish to emulate, or even recognize. Clearly, that trend did not last long.
This growing revelation of how Apple, almost driven out of business by Job's ego, and saved by a loan from the "enemy", Gates at Microsoft, is very disturbing. The underlying message for Apple fanboys is that Apple is "insanely great" - and since its inception - has seen a primary distinction boasted by Jobs regarding Microsoft's buying out small companies and incorporating their technologies into Windows - in other words, Apple was disgusted with MS business practices (Gates even bought the original DOS OS for about $50K - then licensed it to the new IBM PC's - making him a billionaire) - yet Apple has stained its grass-roots American folklore company image by such practices as outsourcing labor to China's Foxconn - where workers are near slaves and nets have to be strewn around the rooftops to catch all of the Foxconn employees driven to suicide by jumping to their deaths. Think of that when you look at your iPhone and iPad - do we consumers have blood on our hands as well as Apple over our insatiable need for more gadgets?
Our progress in ending child labor and indentured servitude has been brought back in our name (dollars and deals) in China. Thus our social progress is nullified.
I try as much as I can to buy Chinese products at second hand stores so there is no further orders placed there. With an Ipad or Iphone the thrift stores are irrelevant.
Corporations like Apple are not the issue, The issue is us. US trade laws and taxes and tariffs are policy measures that could simply leave Apple with no other recourse than to open up plants and operations here. US jobs would then be created and law could protect the workers.
The Chinese workers who would lose their jobs in the plants there closed would suffer. There is no good way around this once abuse has begun. Perhaps the threat of tax and tariffs could force China to amend its laws and ways. But I doubt that.
A boycott of Apple would not hurt the situation one bit. Here at lest we are free to do something. And we can speak out against the abuses.
Funny how asians can copy the look and totally forget the feel of the product.
This is why NO ONE buys Apple products anymore. Just look, todays the lines are around Samsumg stores as they release the newest Samsung tablet, the Hobo 2561-ab/436.
Apple stores are deserted cause we all are buying at the Microsoft store and the samsung and Dell stores...
er...... yea,,,, right.
Just a thought.
en
Conclusion: it is not time to educate corporations, it is time to get US citizens off their asses and become involved in the world. And the first, and only step, is to make appropriate policy change via direct involvement with the government and those who we elect (when the 20% of us even bother to go to the polls).
-Mitt Romney
2012 Republican Presidential Candidate
When people organize, they give it a name; but it's still people, much like a government
Corporations are treated like people in the eyes of law judges so that they can be dealt with.
Just a thought.
It is not just about who can create the mouse trap, but who can make it better.
Apple did not make the first computer nor the first graphic user interface for a computer, but the Mac changed the world of computing forever. Today, Xerox, who originated the graphical user interface is just a footnote in history.
Apple did not make the first MP3 music player and in fact bought the first version of iTunes from another company, but the iPod changed the way that music was distributed that was unfathomable prior to the advent of the iPod in 2001.
Remember the original, "Star Trek" from back in the 60's? Mr. Spock & Dr. McCoy (primarily) used a scanning device known as a "Tricorder" - recently a real medical instruments manufacturer has developed a "Tricorder" like device for patient assessment - tied into cutting edge medical advancements on a private network. Reality imitates fiction.
Unfortunately for the folklore of Apple - Jobs stole many of the prototype concepts he got to see at the Palo Alto Research Center owned by Xerox (the black on white screen, icons, the mouse, etc.) - while Gates purchased DOS, the first PC operating system and licensed it to IBM - making him a billionaire. Apple was founded on intellectual property theft and Microsoft on exploiting a market need (not quite as bad as what Jobs did) - we call this "innovation" in America. But if Jobs was capable of this - he's certainly capable of outsourcing labor to China - even though Apple is fully aware that the employees are being driven to suicide making iPhones and iPads - and that Americans desperately need jobs, not Jobs.
The craziest part of all of this, is that conservatives, the GOTP and others, think government regulation is unnecessary and creates roadblocks to doing business. But if everyone thinks the way you do, that we are all here just to profit, what reason would anyone try to do the best for everyone, including themselves? So, a stick, in the form of regulation is required. And when that does not work properly, then organizations such as the one in this article, become key to change. This is the only way companies will step up and do the right thing. If left to their own, they will respond just as ignorantly as you did.
Yeah that would be a factory that doesnt need nets outside the windows