CSE1STX - Sustainability Practices: Apple's GRI Framework Analysis

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Apple's utilization of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework for sustainability reporting. It examines the GRI's benefits, such as improved sustainability performance, risk management, and stakeholder engagement, while also addressing its limitations, like the potential for superficial reporting. The essay explores how the GRI helps Apple address environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainability and contribute to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, it discusses the policy development challenges associated with the GRI, including the complexities of defining the user of the information and the risk of 'greenwashing'. The essay also compares the GRI with the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) thinking, highlighting the potential advantages of TBL in fostering a more holistic approach to sustainability by considering people, planet, and profit. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of a balanced and detailed explanation of sustainability impacts and performance.

Apple Framework: GRI 1
APPLE FRAMEWORK: GRI
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Apple Framework: GRI 2
GRI Framework
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was created to respond to the then growing
number of companies that were producing sustainability reports. The main purpose of GRI is to
promote social and environmental sustainability, and provide ‘all organizations and companies
with a detailed sustainability reporting framework which is broadly used around the globe”.
Thus GRI has guidelines which help companies generate reports “which mater, entail useful
information regarding the most critical sustainability-linked issues of the organization, and make
such reporting standard practice”.
Apple remains committed to openness and transparency in its governance, social and
environmental programs and policies. Apple is sharing its progress via a range of public reports
which include on www.apple.com. Such reports entail Standard Disclosures from the GRI G4
sustainability guidelines. The GRI Standard Disclosures list help Apple address topic like society
(SO), human rights (HR), economic (EC), environment (EN), labor practices (LA) alongside
product responsibility (PR).
For instance, its comprehensive product environment reports give a description of every
performance of its device as measured against climate change, resources and safer materials
environmental priorities. The GRI also helps Apple disclose its supplier responsibility as a
supply chain which empowers people as well as protect the planet. Apple also uses its GRI to
showcase its open inclusion and diversity whereby the Company holds that humanity remains
plural and never singular and hence the best way is to include everybody.
Positive and Negative of GRI by Apple
The GRI reporting has a range of benefits. The GRI improves sustainability performance
in Apple Inc. Also, it has improved risk management as well as investor communications. The

Apple Framework: GRI 3
GRI has also enabled Apple Company to effectively engage and improve its relation with
stakeholders. Moreover, Apple uses the GRI to motivate as well as engage its employees. Apple
has also been able to use GRI to build credibility as an effective and committed corporate citizen.
GRI has also seen the company strengthen its internal data management as well as reporting
systems. Improvement on sustainability strategy and selection of targets and indicators of
performance have also been as a result of GRI framework in Apple. The GRI is also used by
Apple to benchmark sustainability performance vis-à-vis self and other rival companies (Visser
et al. 2010).
Apple’s GRI standard-based sustainability reports have been used in benchmarking its
organizational performance in regards to laws, codes, norms and performance standards. The
GRI Standards have also enabled the company to show the voluntary initiatives thereby
demonstrating its organizational devotion to sustainable development; as well as contrast
performance over a period. The GRI framework has also been promoted and developed for
stimulating sustainability information’s demand thereby benefiting Apple and its information
users (Pstein and Rejc 2014).
On negative side, the GRI-based report itself remains merely the tip of the iceberg.
Questions like “who use the information and how do users use the information” remain integral
but might remain unanswered by the GRI report. Moreover, question like “what do people want
to know about and how can reporting support an organizational culture of openness and
accountability, as well as enhance stakeholder’s engagement” are never answered by GRI
(Korngold 2014).
-How does it help contribute to CSR?

Apple Framework: GRI 4
Apple uses the GRI framework to help in understanding and communicating the business
impact on issues of critical sustainability. The GRI helps Apple communicate the four elements
effectively and thus convince people that it cares for them hence getting more clients to boost its
profits. For example, Apple use GRI to disclose useful information to stakeholders like its
impacts on environment and how it intends to pay for any externalities (Wales, Gorman and
Hope 2010).
-What are the policy development challenges of GRI
The main challenge in GRI as a tool for sustainability reporting is deciding who the user
of the information would be as nearly everyone seems to be a stakeholder. Whereas there is a
merit in using GRI framework, the end outcome of compliance with such might be extremely
long and inaccessible reports (Araiani, Lungu and Dascalu 2015). The lack of compliance with
the “best practice” standards, however, can lead to “green washing’ or “spin” claims. The use of
GRI is, therefore, a hard line to walk as compiling the GRI reports call for an enormous
organizational commitment and effort to guarantee a valuable process. It is increasingly hard to
use the GRI for the development of an understanding in organization to report importance of a
balanced and detailed explanation of impacts of sustainability as well as performance, thus GRI
has been seen in terms of promotional document for the good deeds of a company (Uno and
Bartelmus 2010).
Positive and Negative impacts of other Framework: Triple Bottom Line Thinking
Apple lacks the TBL in its CSR strategy which would has only made people to see it to
be about profit maximization and addressing social and environmental issues so long as they do
not make a substantial impact on its income. Even though Apple claims that it promote one of
the TBL element (people), its practices indicate that it is still really about profits. Thus, the use of

Apple Framework: GRI 5
TBL would have allowed Apple to be seen as more concerned about people and hence have
better reputation (Boubaker, Cumming and Nguyen 2018).
For example, currently, Apple has a progressive code of conduct in its supply chain,
however, due to lack of TBL thinking, the company only allows its suppliers the slightest of
profits. This usually result in supplies attempting to substitute costly chemicals with less
expensive options, or even pushing their workforce to work longer and faster. However, this
strategy can also be short term. Therefore, Apple would benefit more if it were to use TBL and
begin to seriously think about planet and people as it does about its profits (Mcelroy, Mcelroy
and Cheshire 2016).
TBL will help Apple establish that no contradiction between profits and people in the
long run. TBL will thus make Apple much proactive rather than the defective reactive GRI
which makes it only think act when there is a complaint or even protest against it in hope to get
back to concentrate on design and sale of great products. The negative impact of TBL is thus its
leads to management conflict. This is because it is opposed to the traditional aim of return
maximization to shareholders. It will create a conflict for a business as more shareholders are
geared to short-term profits as opposed to long run results.

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References
Araiani, C., Lungu, C. I. and Dascalu, C. (2015). Green accounting initiatives and strategies for
sustainable development. Hershey, PA, Business Science Reference.
Boubaker, S., Cumming, D. and Nguyen, D.K. eds. (2018). Research Handbook of Investing in
the Triple Bottom Line. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Korngold, A. (2014). Better World, Inc.: How Companies Profit by Solving Global Problems…
Where Governments Cannot. Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan.
Mcelroy, M. W., Mcelroy, M. W. and Cheshire, I. (2016). The multicapital scorecard:
rethinking organizational performance. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green
Publishing.
Pstein, M. J. and Rejc, A. (2014). Making Sustainability Work: Best Practices in Managing and
Measuring Corporate Social, Environmental, and Economic Impacts. San Francisco, Berrett-
Koehler Publishers.
Uno, K. and Bartelmus, P. (2010). Environmental accounting in theory and practice.
Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer.
Visser, W., Matten, D., Pohl, M. and Tolhurst, N. (2010). The A to Z of Corporate Social
Responsibility. Somerset : Wiley.

Apple Framework: GRI 7
Wales, A., Gorman, M. and Hope, D. (2010). Big business, big responsibilities: from villains to
visionaries : how companies are tackling the world's greatest challenges. Basingstoke,
Hampshire [England], Palgrave Macmillan.