Adam Lashinsky

Apple’s China problem–and ours

February 5, 2012

More than a decade after the Nike scandals of the late 1990s exposed terrible working conditions in the Asian factories where most of our stuff is made, has anything changed? To be sure, in the years since, most US brands — not just footwear and apparel companies like Nike, Timberland and Gap, but corporate giants like GE and Walmart — have assumed responsibility for human rights and environmental problems throughout their supply chains. But are conditions any better for the workers?

Those questions are front-page news these days, literally, in The New York Times, which has published two long and extraordinary stories about Apple and its supply chain in China. [See How the US Lost Out on iPhone Work and especially In China, Human Costs are built into an IPad.] The Apple-in-China story is also brought to life by Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory, a lively, provocative episode of public radio’s This American Life, in which an actor-turned-reporter  named Mike Daisey investigates conditions at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. Together this reporting paints a shameful picture of harsh and unsafe working conditions at Apple suppliers: sometimes deadly safety issues, chemicals that scar people’s hands, 60-hour weeks, long stretches of work with no breaks, a rash of worker suicides, etc. To get some perspective, I spoke with Dan Viederman, the executive director of Verite, a nonprofit that helps companies build more humane and sustainable supply chains, and I’ve been reading my friend Adam Lashinsky’s excellent new book, Inside Apple.

Foxconn offers medical care on its campuses

For starters, let’s be clear: This is not an Apple problem. The focus of both The Times’ reporting and Mike Daisey’s story is Foxconn, which is said to be China’s biggest private employer and may be the world’s largest manufacturing company. It employs 1.2 million people (!) and assembles an estimated 40 percent of the world’s consumer electronics, for customers including Amazon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Nintendo, Nokia and Samsung, according to The Times. Part of a company called Hon Hai that is headquartered in Taiwan, Foxconn operates not just in Asia, but in the Czech Republic, Mexico and Brazil. It publishes a corporate social responsibility report and has US-based employees in Houston and Austin, TX.  Most Americans, of course, have never heard of Foxconn although they probably own something that was made by the company. [click to continue…]

{ 6 comments }

Yale’s bet on clean tech

April 1, 2010

Yale_LogoOld Blue is investing in green.

Yale University’s influential $16.3 billion endowment has taken stakes in startup companies aimed at developing clean technologies, Chinese solar and wind turbine manufacturers and in timberland certified as sustainable.

In their most recent annual report [PDF], Yale’s investment managers write:

We are confident that the University stands to benefit enormously from the Endowment’s involvement in green ventures, both as an investor and as a stakeholder in the health of the environment.

Why would anyone other than Yale staff, students and alumni care? Because David Swenssen, the chief investment officer, his staff at the Yale Investments Office and the outside money managers they hire have earned a reputation for shrewd investing during the 25 years that Swensen (a 1980 Yale PH.D.) has been overseeing the endowment.

This report makes clear that Swensen is a believer in green investing, an arena that has a spotty track record at best. That’s significant.

Kroon Hall, a LEED platinum building at Yale

Kroon Hall, a LEED platinum building at Yale

So where is Yale putting its money? It’s hard to know, because the endowment doesn’t provide a full accounting of its investments or even a list of its outside money managers. While Swensen is best known for his pioneering approach to portfolio management (he’s the author of a book called Pioneering Portfolio Management), he also adds value by selecting and collaborating with outside managers and doesn’t want to share his best ideas. Still, there are some illustrative examples of Yale’s holdings in this 36-page report, which explores not just green investing but sustainability on campus and endowed support for environmental studies. (Yale’s renowened School of Forestry and Environmental Studies was founded in 1900 by Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service.)

As part of its venture capital portfolio, the report says, Yale has more than $100 million (as of June 30, 2009) invested in more than 70 clean tech startups. Two promising companies are highlighted: Silver Spring Networks, a Silicon Valley-based firm that enables development of the smart grid, and Mascoma, a cellulosic ethanol startup based in Lebanon, New Hampshire. [click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }

They said it at Brainstorm Green

April 22, 2009

So much conversation has packed into so little time at FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green conference about business and the environment that it’s difficulty  to absorb it all. Some great panels today on “clean coal,” Green Super Powers (GE, Wal-Mart, IBM) and green jobs. There’s video from the event here. Meanwhile, here are few quotes that caught my attention:

Michael Kowalski, the CEO  of Tiffany & Co., on why he had never before come to a “green” conference: “Fear of being accused of greenwashing. There is still so much work to be done”

Van Jones, the White House’s green jobs czar, on his first six weeks on the job: “Everyone who hears that you work in the White House thinks you see Barack Obama every day. I’ve seen the guy twice and I almost fainted the first time.”

Also from Van Jones: “It’s a long winding road from the time that someone signs a bill into law to the time when someone signs a paycheck.”

Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials, a company that makes more sustainable building materials,  on the changes ahead: “This is a new industrial revolution. It doesn’t happen once in a lifetime. It happens once in 100 years.”

Again, Van Jones: “We have to rethink in a fundamental way, what is an economy for? How do we meet not only our own needs but the needs of our children and grandchildren going forward.”

Van Jones, again: “People need a paycheck. That’s for sure. But people also need a purpose. This is a movement about redefining what work is. Is our work going to be a curse on this planet or a blessing on all creation?”

Jones: “People talk about Barack Obama as the first black president – he’s the first green president also.”

Michael Morris, CEO of American Electric power, No. 1 emitter of CO2 in the U.S., on the transition to cleaner energy that is underway: “This is a very costly issue and America needs to know that. Let’s not pretend that this is free.”

Morris, when asked who opposes his company’s plan for a high voltage line to get renewable energy to major markets: “People who don’t want something in their backyard, which means most Americans.”

Michael Brune of Rainforest Action Network:  “The reality is that there is no such thing as clean coal. The physical requirements of doing that, the energy costs, the financial costs are so great. I’m not saying that it can’t be done. I’m saying that we shouldn’t even try. “

David Hawkins, climate analyst and activist,  Natural Resources Defense Council: “It’s not clean coal. It’s better coal.”

Hawkins, on why any climate legislations must appeal to coal-state Democrats: “Job one is dealing with the politics. Unfortunately, saying it will all be done with efficiency and renewables is not a compelling answer. We need a strategy that is going to get us legislation right away.”

Hawkins: “The coal industry has earned its bad reputation. The coal industry has been associated inextricably with environmental degradation. But we still need better coal.”

Fedele Bauccio, CEO of Bon Appetit food-service company: “Our chefs are implementing low-carbon diet without losing money or customers”

My friend Adam Lashinsky has a smart, quick look at the conference at the Fortune website, called Seven lessons about the green economy.

Finally, I want to enthusiastically recommend a FORTUNE article by Jeffrey O’Brien about IBM and its efforts to apply information technology to attack problems like gridlock, energy waste, and supply chain transparency. It’s a terrific read.

{ 0 comments }