Case study: notebook PCs
Case study: Social impacts of the production of notebook PCs
Past discussion of the social aspects of products has concentrated mainly on agricultural products (e.g. coffee or cotton), hand-crafted products (soccer balls) and a few non-technological products (e.g. textiles). Reports and scandals on technology products like computers or mobile phones are quite a recent development. Globalization is opening up wider stakeholder access to information about complex products and highly distributed, previously inscrutable, supply chains.
Goal and scope definition
Öko-Institut – Institute for Applied Ecology was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research to study the social aspects of notebook PC production (Manhart and Grießhammer 2006). The goals of the study were to collect systematic data on social impacts in notebook PC production (not including software) and to derive potentials for improvement. Use and recycling were not taken into consideration due to the existence of a number of studies covering these aspects.
Notebook