well reasoned and well written but I am not sure I agree with the 'intense scrutiny' apple faced. to me it seemed like bad pr that was forgotten within a few months. could you perhaps elaborate on this point?
In 2011, state run media repeatedly criticized Apple in connection with a 42 page report that condemned Apple on a number of fronts. A coalition of 36 environmental groups also rated Apple last of 29 tech companies. In truth, there were serious environmental costs to the actions that Apple (and its suppliers) took in China. On the other hand, local businesses were not scrutinized nearly as closely. It could be argued the difference was due to size, but it would be surprising if protectionism played no role at all.
Since that time, Apple has made tremendous efforts to improve both its labor and environmental efforts, gotten all 14 of its final assembly sites compliant with UL’s Zero Waste to Landfill validation, gotten over 90% of its energy from clean sources and has even gone so far as to make sizable investments in Chinese clean tech companies.
Links related to labor disputes and strikes are harder for me to find due to all the western press on the issue but here are some related to environmental issues:
