Ethical and Sustainability Practices of Apple Inc. Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Apple's sustainability and ethical practices. It begins with an introduction to Apple's business model and its commitment to ethical roots. A literature review explores ethics in business decisions, focusing on Apple's use of renewable energy, supplier codes of conduct, and global volunteer programs. The report also examines ethics in small businesses, highlighting the importance of transparency and social responsibility. A critical review of a case study reveals Apple's achievements, ethical challenges like consumer tracking and price fixing, and its efforts towards environmental sustainability. The conclusion emphasizes the need for continuous improvement and regular supervision to maintain Apple's ethical standing and future sustainability. Overall, the report provides a detailed overview of Apple's journey towards integrating ethical practices and sustainability into its business operations.

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS 1
SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Ethics in Business Decisions Literature Review.............................................................................3
Ethics in small business...................................................................................................................4
Critical Review of Case study.........................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS
INTRODUCTION
Apple is one of the latest flagships based in the America and headquartered in California.
The major activities that Apple is involved in are to design, develop and sell the consumer
electronics computer software and the services through the online mode. Recently the Apple has
claimed to maintain strong and the ethical roots which are to be analyzed in this report in the
most appropriate manner. In this report a literature review is conducted along with the critical
review of the case studies (Crane, Matten, Glozer and Spence, 2019).
Ethics in Business Decisions Literature Review
The corporations of 21st century are well aware of the impacts of the businesses operations they
are pursuing and are often faced with the dilemmas of acting ethically or the enhancement of the
business profits. The following segment evaluates the ethical and sustainability practices in the
entity Apple Inc. Apple is one of the leading technology companies of the world. In context of
the use of the natural resources of the planet, the entity had encourages their partners to use the
alternative resources of energy and is itself engaged in the building of their facilities that are
driven by the clean energy (Cook & Jardim, 2017). In the words of Barbosa (2017), the company
has already managed to attain the use of renewable energy or the green energy to the tune of 100
percent across their facilities in United States which includes the data centers, corporate offices
or retail stores. According to Horwitz & Huang (2016), the entity Apple facilitates the supplying
partners in the transition to renewable energy and the reduction of the carbon footprint which is
evident by the company’s investment of around 30 percent in the Chinese wind turbine
manufacturing company Goldwind. The said investment has been done because of the fact that
most of Apple’s manufacturing processes are located in China. In terms of the sustainability
practices, the company Apple Inc. has ordered its manufacturing suppliers to discontinue the use
of the n-hexane and benzene at the time of the assembly stage of the products of entity (The
Associated Press, 2014). These are in addition to the factory inspections as well as the general
audits being conducted by the enterprise in context of the use of the hazardous chemicals,
installation of the necessary equipment for safety of the employees and an overall industrial
hygiene. Apart from the above, the company has developed its own supplier’s code of conduct to
be followed by the partner suppliers on the lines of the Ethics and Management Systems, Labor

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS
and Human Rights, Environment, Health and Safety and overall community development
(Hwang & Chung, 2016).
In addition to the above, the company had launched the ‘Global Volunteer Program’ in the year
2011 to facilitate the volunteering by the employees in local communities, with the revision of
the said program in the year 2015 to facilitate the employees to choose the communities where
they are willing to contribute (Dudovskiy, 2019). The launch of the Apple Supplier EHS
Academy by the company that is aimed at improving the employee health and safety in the
industry is yet another significant step of the entity on the lines of the wellbeing of its employees
(Dormehl, 2014).
Hence, from the discussions conducted in the previous parts it can be stated that the consistent
pressure from the stakeholder groups and the desire to build a public image voluntarily, the
company has been engaged in the various ethical and sustainability practices. The company’s
efforts towards the reduction of the carbon footprint and the climate change have been
impressive over the years; however more efforts are required in the upcoming years as well
(Purkayastha and Samad, 2015).
Ethics in small business
The volume of the paper tends to accumulate the insights of the different authors under o e
umbrella with regards to the ethics in the small business enterprises. The small business man and
owners time and again exhibits the exemplary values and the ethics therefore it is required to
have the ethical practices being followed by the small businesses. According to (Hwang and
Chang, 2016), the small business enterprises shall have the clear and the transparent relationships
with the suppliers. This would not only provide the economic as well as the social satisfaction to
the customers availing the products and the services. In the opinion of the (Spence, 2014), small
businesses also carries the responsibility of the developing the social responsibility and corporate
ethical issues. The different theoretical approach to the different to ethics resulted in the various
definitions of the business ethics. The common challenge of the success and the behavior creates
the ethical dilemma according to the perspective of (Lumen, 2018).
Small business owners feel the autocratic behavior as they are not answerable to the board or the
corporate management and this kind of workings shall be changed and the pressure to make the
unethical choices on behalf of the small business is easy in a view of (Crane, matten, Gloer and

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS
Spence, 2019). Further in contrast to the authors above in the opinion of (Hillary, 2017) provided
the method on how to find out whether the business is working ethically or not. When the
enterprises face with the ethical decisions, entrepreneur must asks themselves, to major questions
which are “when the cash is short, do the company abuses the vendors or hold off the salary of
some of the employees” or “do the company cheats on the environmental platform. In any case if
the answer seems to be yes the ethical slope is slippery. In his opinion whether the business is of
big tech software or a small vegetable seller the ethical decisions play a vital role in making the
base of the company. In the perspective of the (Napolitano, 2016), the small business’s may not
operate on the scale of the Enron yet the ethical policies are similar for them. While observing
the small business as a cobweb of stakeholders it makes simple on how the stakeholder can
understand this fact that, with one unethical practice, a small business can alleviate clients, burn
alignment with subcontractors, hamper lives, ruin its reputation, and even wind up in legal suits.
In the opinion of (Dayton’s Miller, 2015), ethic is one of the crucial elements of the businesses
and they shall incorporate it in their culture and value system. This results in the investing of
resources to train the employees in order to save long-term brand image of a company. That way,
when faced with a decision that requires the bending of the laws, employees are aware of it in
advance and they hardly require any additional guidance. In the end, an ethical decision trumps
the bottom line (Lee and Vachon, 2016).
Critical Review of Case study
In the above case study, a brief discussion of the achievement and the graph of progress have
been determined in detail. Earlier the share price of the Apple was $3 and it reached to $140 in
the year 2017 has been a remarkable experience for the Apple and so for the public. All the
achievements are part of the hard work as well as the formulation of the policies. As per the case
study the Apple claims to be following the ethical roots whereas the scenario is somewhat
different than it looks like (Ciesielska and Iskoujina, 2018). Although the companies tried to
imitate the process and the strategies heard by the word of mouth they failed to cross over the
Apple. As a result, Apple earned first place surpassingly among the Fortune Magazine. The case
study started with the achievements of the Apple built a positive image for the Apple and the
readers can be easily convinced that Apple follows the ethical practices quite seriously. Later as
the reading progresses it can be observed that the Apple has kept Evangelists to promote the

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS
brand and its uses, and of course it landed the loyal customers but the competition faced by the
Apple in the real world is no less than a threat. The youth on the common grounds is again
relying upon the other cheap services which have nothing to do with the ethical practices
followed by the Apple. There are few of the ethical practices determined in the case study and
some of them starts with Apple keeping the concept of the retail employees who are best fit for
the culture (Keirl, 2015). The retailers facilitate the customers to give a try on the products gives
a huge amount of the satisfaction to the customers. In order to protect the environment Apple
provides the incentives to the employees say for those who makes use of the public transport.
The high quality products and services and the continuous integrity respect and the
confidentiality makes Apple sound on the ethical grounds. A proper business conduct is followed
by the employees and the specific corporate governance is set up. This suggests that the case
study not only covers the historical aspects but also covers the ethical aspects and the company
works on improving the ethical base (Granatstein and Peck, 2017).
Further there is no such company that is free from the ethical challenges and the Apple also
comes in contact with several challenges such as consumer tracking as per the case study. Apple
has been constant in accepting these challenges and derives instant solutions to constantly
monitor the performance on the ethical grounds. Apple claims that due to the constant
advancement in the social networking mobile devices the data of the customers is being tracked
down with double the speed. The experience of the backlash in the year 2011 resulted in the
infringement of the privacy of the users (Andriani, Zamroni, Alesi and Rahman, 2017). Despite
providing and using the disable feature there was discrepancies and thereafter there was a change
in the feature of the privacy and security in terms of the IOS which resulted in the by default
turning off of the location. The Apple pay software was another challenge which was developed
again to avid the contact of the hackers (Brown and Maloney, 2015). The government was also
interested in hacking the system of the Apple and the war is still on between the government and
the Apple. The ethical issue also involves Apple in the issue of the price fixing in the association
with the five majors’ publishers. All this issues are being handled by the Apple yet the solutions
have not been arrived. The other issues such as intellectual property theft and the proprietary
reasons to protect the information is of utmost importance (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016).

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS
Conclusion
For the future sustainability of the Apple, the Apple has become greener and reduces the
environmental fatalities. The products are recycled and manufactured again and therefore it can
be stated that the Apple is following the strong ethical grounds yet there are certain issues which
needs a solid initiatives so that the problems that have already raised shall be reduced to
minimum. This can be done when the Apple takes the criticism as the real motivation. The
sustainability and the ethical practices are the key evaluation that needs to be taken and the
supervision on the regular basis is what will make the Apple to be consistently on the top.

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS
References
Andriani, D.P., Zamroni, M.H., Alesi, T.C. and Rahman, F., 2017, July. The Layout
Optimization of Production Process Facilities in Apple Processing to Improve Productivity and
Sustainability SMEs. In 2017 6th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Logistics and
Transport (ICALT) (pp. 184-188). IEEE.
Brown, S.K. and Maloney, K.E., 2015. Apple breeding, genetics and genomics. NY Fruit
Quarterly, 23(3), pp.5-8.
Ciesielska, M. and Iskoujina, Z., 2018. Sustainability: insights from a business model
perspective. Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry, 15(3-4).
Crane, A., Matten, D., Glozer, S. and Spence, L., 2019. Business ethics: Managing corporate
citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Granatstein, D. and Peck, G., 2017. Assessing the environmental impact and sustainability of
apple cultivation. In Achieving sustainable cultivation of apples (pp. 547-574). Burleigh Dodds
Science Publishing.
Hwang, J., & Chung, J.-E. (2016). The Roles of Business Ethics in Conflict Management in
Small Retailer-Supplier Business Relationships. Journal of Small Business Management, 56(2),
348–368. doi:10.1111/jsbm.12271
Keirl, S., 2015. Global ethics, sustainability, and design and technology education.
In Environment, Ethics and Cultures(pp. 33-52). SensePublishers, Rotterdam.
Lee, K.H. and Vachon, S., 2016. Supply chain sustainability risk. In Business Value and
Sustainability (pp. 245-280). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Purkayastha, D. and Samad, S.A., 2015. Apple and Conflict Minerals: Ethical Sourcing for
Sustainability. The IUP Journal of Operations Management, 14(2), pp.59-77.
Shapiro, J.P. and Stefkovich, J.A., 2016. Ethical leadership and decision making in education:
Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICS
Spence, L. J. (2014). Small Business Social Responsibility. Business & Society, 55(1), 23–
55.doi:10.1177/0007650314523256