Our Supplier Responsibility Progress Report provides the results of our 2012 audits, including the work we’re doing to correct issues and improve our suppliers’ performance. Download the report.

For the past seven years, Apple has been publishing reports on the audits we perform in our supply chain. We do this because we believe in honestly sharing our findings — the good and the bad. We’re fixing problems and tackling issues that our entire industry faces, such as excessive work hours and underage labour. We’re going deeper into the supply chain than any other company we know of, and we’re reporting at a level of detail that is unparalleled in our industry.

To end the practice of excessive overtime, we now track weekly work hours for 1 million workers across our supply chain and publish the results on our website every month. And we share our work-hour strategy and tools with others inside and outside our industry. Although underage labour is rare in our supply chain, we report all incidents we find, as well as the actions taken to correct problems and prevent future occurrences. We also give our suppliers the names of labour agents known to recruit underage workers. In addition, we are publishing the names and addresses of our top 200 production suppliers.

We have long-standing relationships with many industry groups — and we look for new ways to address important issues in our industry by collaborating with experts around the world. In 2012, we became the first technology company to join the Fair Labor Association (FLA). At our request, the FLA launched an unprecedented audit of our largest final assembly supplier, Foxconn. The FLA’s independent findings and progress reports have been published on its website.

We’ve invited the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and other environmental groups to work with us on specialized audits. We’re also continuing our work with Verité, a non-governmental organization (NGO) focused on ensuring fair working conditions, to develop new strategies for worker-management communication. We participate in the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) to promote the use of conflict-free minerals.

At Apple, we care just as much about how our products are made as we do about how they’re designed. We know people have very high expectations of us. We have even higher expectations of ourselves.

Highlights from Our 2013 Report

We conducted 393 audits at all levels of our supply chain — a 72 percent increase over 2011 — covering facilities where more than 1.5 million workers make Apple products. This total includes 55 focused environmental audits and 40 specialized process safety assessments to evaluate suppliers’ operations and business practices. In addition, we conducted 27 targeted bonded labour audits to protect workers from excessive recruitment fees.
Taking on the industrywide problem of excessive work hours, we achieved an average of 92 percent compliance with a maximum 60-hour work week. We are now tracking more than 1 million workers weekly and publishing the results monthly on our website.
In 2012, Apple became the first technology company to join the Fair Labor Association (FLA). At our request, the FLA conducted the largest-scale independent audit in its history, covering an estimated 178,000 workers at our largest final assembly supplier, Foxconn. The FLA’s independent findings and progress reports have been published on its website.
We extended our worker empowerment training programs to more workers and more managers. In 2012, 1.3 million workers and managers received Apple-designed training about local laws, their rights as workers, occupational health and safety, and Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct. That’s nearly double the number of workers trained by this program since 2008.
We increased our investment in our Supplier Employee Education and Development program — which offers workers the opportunity to study business, computer skills, languages and other subjects at no charge — expanding from four facilities to nine. More than 200,000 workers have now participated in the program.
Continuing our efforts to protect the rights of workers who move from their home country to work in our suppliers’ factories, we required suppliers to reimburse US$6.4 million in excess foreign contract worker fees in 2012. That brings the total repaid to workers to US$13.1 million since 2008.