Apple ‘Conflict Minerals Disclosure’ Says It Stopped Working With 12 Suppliers – by Audrey Carleton (Vice.com – February 10, 2022)

https://www.vice.com/en/

Apple has removed 12 smelters and refiners from its supply chain for failing to pass human rights and minerals standards, it told the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a Feb. 9 filing.

It’s the seventh year in a row that the corporation has required the smelters and refiners that provide and process the minerals that go into its products to go through a third-party audit for responsible sourcing practices. By the end of last year, all suppliers left in its supply chain had participated in the audit and passed it, the corporation says in the filing; those that did not were removed from the supply chain.

In 2021, that was 12—in the past, these numbers have varied: In 2020, the corporation removed 7, in 2019, it removed 18. The audits are part of an endeavor to weed out what are called ‘conflict minerals’ from its supply chain.

“At Apple, our respect for human rights begins with our commitment to treating everyone with dignity and respect,” the company said in the filing, signed by Katherine Adams, general counsel and secretary. “We’ve embedded respect for human rights across our company—in the technology we make, in the way we make it, and in how we treat people.”

For the rest of this article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgd4jn/apple-conflict-minerals-disclosure-says-it-stopped-working-with-12-suppliers