Apple Company is a technologically based electronic agency that sells several innovative items and amenities to the global community. Throughout history, the company has been experiencing a series of failures and successes. However, the company is renowned for its way of conducting business. For example, the company is well-known for its honesty, compliance, confidentiality, and customer respect (Liu et al., 2021). These principles guide the business, and it anticipates that the suppliers, consultants, and contractors, among other businesses, consider these principles (Podolny and Hansen, 2020). Therefore, the company demonstrates transparency and high moral standards in their dealings, treats their partners, clients and employees with the utmost courtesy and respect, secures the confidential information and that of their customers, and makes sure the decisions of the business comply with the rules and regulations of the company.
In addition, the conduct policy of the business applies to both the full-time and part-time workers and offers a quality guide for what is expected of every person at the company. It also offers information on extra resources presented to employees. These include the company conduct helpline and the company conduct website, which has guidance and often asked questions to help employees comprehend Apple’s ways of approaching business behaviors.
Objectives and Action Plan
With this report, the plan will state the objectives of conducting the study on the company, such as the roles of the major stakeholders, an action strategy of conducting the study on the company’s sustainability, environmental issues caused by the company, and the connection between the environmental issues and the community, and the audience needs. Additionally, the plan will include strategies for training the employees, communication with stakeholders, awareness, follow-up of the plan, and recommendations to the company.
Key Stakeholders
The company has internal and external stakeholders that play significant roles in the business. The internal investors include the Board of Directors, investors, executives, and employees, while the external stakeholders are the regulars, contestants, the local people, suppliers, and superintendents (Liu et al., 2021). For the company to stand out from its competitors like Samsung, Lenovo, and others, stakeholders play crucial roles in the manufacturing and distribution of the items. The company has been making notable progress securing individuals in its supply chain in the last few years. Still, most suppliers have been bleaching their labor and surrounding policies (Liu et al., 2021). While seeking to offer the best products, the company’s vision is to make the best items globally and make the universe better than before. Apart from that, the company has developed significant values recently as an additional section of what was developed earlier. For example, the company is easy to access, supports racial fairness and equity, promotes learning, and includes every individual.
Legislation Mandating Compliance
The company has been carbon neutral for its corporate operations. To build on that achievement, the company set an instant and determined goal to make products that will be carbon neutral by 2030 (Liu et al., 2021). Its green chemistry and recycling innovations have moved the company closer every day to making the products by affiliating with societies and foreign leaders to ensure the environmental attempts are also powerful for fairness. Additionally, the company works daily to put individuals first by providing them with accessible technology, being a force for justice and chances, forming a comprehensive and varied work surrounding, and respecting the human rights of everyone who exists. Apple Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) schemes and creativities are led by the Vice President of environmental initiatives Lisa Jackson (Edwards, 2021). More than one million employees work in the Apple dealer agency, so the company’s works have factual inferences on the community. All the fibers Apply utilizes in item wrapping are 100% responsible for obtaining (Edwards, 2021). All the dealers of tin, tungsten, tantalum, gold, cobalt smelters and refiners contribute to the third-party reviews.
In addition, the company linked with the Conservation Fund to lock 36,000 acres of sustainable forest in North Carolina and Maine, and about 13,000 tons of wood were reaped sensibly. By 2020, the company had aimed to contribute to the transition of around one million acres of forest in five southern provinces into accountable governance. The company has managed to minimize its carbon footprint by about 35% since its release rose in 2015, and the tech huge is devoted to reaching entire carbon impartiality by 2030 (Edwards, 2021). The company’s carbon footprint reached 25 million metric tons in 2019, and about 75% of discharges are made in product production according to the company’s sustainability report (Apple Inc., 2020). This is a progressive move toward the reduction of carbon emissions.
Vision
The company is frequently valued for the environmental archives that include the reduction of the control used by the products to about 57%, the creation of the Mac mini as the most energy-efficient desktop processer. In addition, it gives equal pay for the employees from 2016, and 53% of the employees are from the most underrepresented racial groups in the tech industry (Apple Inc., 2020). This shows that the company respects diversity and has included everyone in their portfolio.
Values
With this environmental sustainability, the company could support the local community, and in turn, the community could assist the company in solving the environmental problems facing the company (Matthess et al., 2022). For example, partnering with the usual farms to change the compostable resources obtained from the onsite into rich carbon-based material to be used in the farms could offer solar schemes to the advantaged children in the local community’s education. Additionally, it could partner with the immediate communities to offer clean electricity, aiding in grid fishing (Matthess et al., 2022). Apart from that, the company can offer community training courses and job opportunities to experienced members.
Overview of the Current Situation
Devices such as smartphones are a problem to the environment. While Apple is among the leading companies attempting to curb the environmental issue brought about by the production of consumer electronics, the major problem is in the number of products produced. Currently, the biggest issue with the company is its dependence on coal to influence the servers and increase electricity usage (Matthess et al., 2022). It has also been producing poisonous components within the iPhone and other items, and poor policies linked to the item take-back and reprocessing. The company claims that the energy consumed in their data centers is renewable energy which is not valid. Instead, the business reimburses other energy consumers who obtain a fraction of the energy consumption from renewable energy to acclaim their renewable use to Apple (Jin et al., 2022). Moreover, the company’s CSR offers charitable contributions which promote community schemes that can improve the community situations and are also suitable for businesses s products and amenities demand increases with individual’s quality of living. Lastly, the company’s CSR empowers the community with technology being a force of fairness, forming an inclusive and diverse working environment, and partnering with community members to help solve the environmental problems caused by the company. The company will integrate these policies as a program to manufacture environmentally friendly products. If the policies are environmentally friendly, it will not be challenging when attempting to solve the environmental issue.
Objectives and Targets for Improvement
In partnership with the Alliance for Water Stewardship, have supported high water management ideals and sustainability in the company’s information Centre and has undulated via its supply chains in many countries. The first of Apple’s current environmentally friendly innovations is a joint partnership with several supply chain partners to minimize the company’s dependence on non-renewable energy and deal with the trials presented to them by climate change (Yevgenyevna, 2019, p 36). Together with other partners, the company was set to invest about $300 million towards a clean energy fund, and the funds were to grow clean energy solutions together with a production of more than a gigawatt of renewable energy, then correspondent of fueling almost one million inhabited homesteads (Wong et al., 2021). Lastly, the company has been in partnership with the metal production companies Alcoa Corporation and Rio Tinto to create and sell an untested new technology that eradicates direct conservatory gas releases from the melting scheme.
Practices and Actions
The company has demonstrated its devotion through its innovation to making the production process more environmentally friendly for companies around the globe and for itself as well. The tropical forests have more carbon than human beings have in the past 30 years from natural gas, oil, and burning coal, regardless of the ongoing deforestation (Paam et al., 2019). However, the partnership unlocked the likelihood of the usual resolution by escalating it in a mode that makes it good-looking to industries. Currently, the company is accepting requests for its second effect accelerator, permitting more chances for a diverse group of enterprises (Paam et al., 2019). By doing that, the technology company will continuously support understated companies and organizations.
Communication and Review
The company has been creating strategies based on the recent environmental forces. So, information is shared among all the groups to ensure that the products and amenities manufactured will align with the market’s expectations (Cornelissen, 2020). Therefore, the company has developed a scheme to share crucial information with all external and internal stakeholders (Cornelissen, 2020). The information flows freely from one unit to the next since the systems are closely related. Data from the market is presented to the stakeholders so they can take precautions to improve the merit given to the clients.
Roles and Responsibilities
The company’s success has been contributed by the ability to contain the stakeholders and corporate social responsibilities (CSR). The stakeholders give demands that change into corporate social responsibilities that influence the company’s presentation. In this case, they effectively affect the company regarding customer insight and sales income (Sengupta and Penney, 2020). Based on the continued high merit of the company brand, it is essential accounts for stakeholders in its guidelines and plans. These stakeholders push the company to improve, and the business impacts them by sustaining them.
In addition, the company prioritizes consumers as their top stakeholders in developing a corporate social responsibility plan. The second priority is the employees, who are often given reimbursement and career development. These groups directly determine the abilities to innovate and create profitable items (Sengupta and Penney, 2020). There are also the investors who act as the determinants of corporate social responsibility schemes in companies. They are also interested in increasing the profits on their investments, and the company deals with this group via excellent financial performance (Sengupta and Penney, 2020). Lastly, there are dealers and distributors. They determine the business’ corporate social responsibilities and their primary interest is getting considerable reimbursement and job protection.
Competence Training and Awareness
The demand for competent support and technical workers within the company is growing, as computing jobs and information schemes are projected to rise fast than other occupations. To meet the demands of the growing market, Apple Company came up with professional training for its employees. The trained employees could showcase them competencies via exams and awarded certificates by the company (Sengupta and Penney, 2020). Most people are now using iPhones, iPad, and Mac for better results which make the demand for IT experts in the company (Sengupta and Penney, 2020). Today, the company offers two expert courses, Apple device support and Apple deployment and management, which are essential to building on the abilities and aspects as the use advances (Sengupta and Penney, 2020). There is also compulsory yearly behavior training for all employees in the company known as the Business Conduct Training, specifically for the corporate. The employees are taught about the workplace conduct, the privacy of information, discretion, gifts, battles for welfare, and rivalry.
Communication with Stakeholders
The company has created several communication channels to engage with the stakeholder globally. With the theory that people should get all the technology products under one roof, the company currently owns about 330 stores worldwide (Cornelissen, 2020). It works on promoting diverse and interactive communication with its customer and other stakeholders (Sengupta and Penney, 2020). The employees, however, are not permitted to utilize other channels like social media platforms to communicate with each other. The most common communication channel for the stakeholders is the meetings because they save time that would be taken to pass the message to a large number of them (Sengupta and Penney, 2020). Each stakeholder in Apple Company has different priorities, interests and attitudes and effective communication ensures that they get information that is correct to their requirements and forms a positive attitude to the company.
Recommendations
The Apple company should work on ensuring that they build an environmentally friendly initiative and invest in forest schemes that aim to remove carbon from the air while obtaining a the financial return for their investors. That means the company can curb the rising environmental problem due to its manufacturing and attracting more customers (Liu et al., 2021). Also, it should ensure that it sticks to the environmental laws and codes to have a standard practice process as it links to sustaining the environment and the earth and making sure it is responsible. Also, the company should emphasize joining other companies coming out to address the issue of climatic challenges. For sustainability, the company should be carbon-neutral across its corporate activities and attempt to produce carbon-neutral products.
Monitoring and Compliance
In recent years, the company has stressed a low carbon item formation via secondhand resources to make its gadgets more sustainable, expanding the energy effectiveness and operating on renewable and clean energy like wind or solar power and utilizing low carbon aluminum to manufacture its products. Choosing environmentally acceptable resources and constituents, minimizing waste from the production schemes, offering software that allows users to manage the energy-saving elements of their schemes, and offering gadget recycling schemes for consumers globally (Paam et al., 2019). From 2020, the company has also been carbon neutral and aims to get all its products to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Continuous Improvement
The company has also made courses online for their employees and the public who wish to enroll so that they will be trained on the new advanced technology and the available changes. Communication has been made easier for the customers through social media platforms where Apple employees meet the customers’ needs. However, the company has faced the environmental challenge of disposal of already used electronic gadgets (Paam et al., 2019). Disposing of gadgets, specifically those with lithium batteries, is expensive. Lastly, the company is becoming sustainable because it buys straight carbon-free aluminum after significantly advancing melting technology to minimize emissions.
References List
Apple Inc (2020). Apple commits to be 100 percent carbon neutral for its supply chain and products by 2030. Web.
Cornelissen, J.P., 2020. “Corporate communication: A guide to theory and practice.” Corporate communication, pp.1-336.
Edwards, C. (2021). Entrepreneurs and Regulations: Removing State and Local Barriers to New Businesses. Web.
Jin, S., Li, W., Cao, Y., Jones, G., Chen, J., Li, Z., Chang, Q., Yang, G. and Frewer, L.J. (2022). “Identifying barriers to sustainable apple production: A stakeholder perspective”. Journal of Environmental Management, 302(5), p.114082.
Liu, W., Wei, W., Choi, T.-M. and Yan, X. (2021). “Impacts of leadership on corporate social responsibility management in multi-tier supply chains”. European Journal of Operational Research, 13(2), pp.1–16.
Matthess, M., Kunkel, S., Xue, B. and Beier, G. (2022). “Supplier sustainability assessment in the age of Industry 4.0 – Insights from the electronics industry”. Cleaner Logistics and Supply Chain, 13(4), pp.1–15.
Paam, P., Berretta, R., Heydar, M. and García-Flores, R., 2019. “The impact of inventory management on economic and environmental sustainability in the apple industry”. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 163, p.1-16.
Podolny, J.M. and Hansen, M.T. (2020). How Apple Is Organized for Innovation. [online] Harvard Business Review. Web.
Sengupta, S. and Penney, V. (2020). “Big tech has a big climate problem. Now, it’s being forced to clean up.” Web.
Wong, C.W.Y., Wong, C.Y., Boon-itt, S. and Tang, A.K.Y. (2021). “Strategies for Building Environmental Transparency and Accountability”. Sustainability, 13(16), p.9116.