Sustainable supply chain: Is a company responsible for its suppliers’ practices? The focus will be on labour and environmental practices in developing countries. What role for business ethics?

Can the ethical code of future “managers” be injected with mother´s milk or is there considerable scope for the further development?

Where ever you go, where ever you look at we are surrounded with potential future e-waste.So what is the myth about electronic waste and where does it mainly come from? What happens with those gadgets at the end-of their life cycle?

Almost all the major electronic device manufactures rely on Foxconn for manufacturing. Major companies are Apple, Dell, Sony, Nokia. So who the h*ll is Foxconn?

Foxconn is currently the largest contract electronics manufacturer in the world. It has factories and R&D departments all over the world including Japan, United States, Czech Republic, England and of course China while maintaining its headquarter back in Taiwan.

If most of the devices come from Foxconn can we expect and difference in built quality of the products which are priced similarly.

This question was answered by a Chief Scientist at Bitquant Researchquite good: The quality level of different products coming off the same assembly line can vary wildly.

“The vendors will provide different specifications to the manufacturer in exchange for different prices. A lot of the bad reputation that “Made in China” is not because Chinese manufacturers are incapable of making high-quality products, but rather that the buyer of the products has contracted to get low quality products.”

So if the qualities can vary wildly, I assume there must be some products which are long-lasting. However only Europe is producing about 2600 Million tonnestotal waste yearly.

There is a constant flow of waste from Europe to Africa. But are there any future perspectives?

Nevertheless, we should not forget that there is no real market for waste. I assume that there is also no real owner of the waste. Is recycling to expensive in Europe or why do we ship that down to e.g. Africa?

In my opinion there is a need of local leadership who raise awareness. Maybe we should start learning about this important issue at a very early stage, at home, at school, at university before we get managers or leaders?

Everyday is a bank account, and time is our currency. No one is rich, no one is poor, we’ve got 24 hours each.

Christopher Rice