A key element of our commitment to work with our suppliers to promote sustainable practices was the development of Dell's Supplier Principles; first launched in early calendar year 2004 with involvement from stakeholders. Initially our focus was on communication, awareness, and education to ensure Dell's supplier expectations were understood. However, during this process we realized that there was a tremendous opportunity to reduce inefficiency and confusion by collaborating with industry partners. Therefore, when Dell was approached by a coalition of electronic manufacturers to develop a joint industry code, we chose to participate. The result of this unprecedented effort is the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC)
The Code was developed among Dell, HP, IBM and the electronic manufacturers Solectron, Sanmina-SCI, Flextronics, Celestica and Jabil. Since its release in October 2004, a number of companies including Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, and Sony have joined the effort. In September of 2005, this coalition of technology companies updated the EICC to reflect input from a wide variety of stakeholder organizations.
In October 2005, the EICC Group established a partnership with the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI), representing information and communications technology (ICT) companies in Europe, North America and Asia to develop common implementation tools for supply chain management" and broaden the impact of this collaborative effort.
These common implementation tool set include:
- A Supplier Risk Assessment Tool for companies to evaluate the level of risk of a particular supplier in the area of Corporate Responsibility
- A Self Assessment Questionnaire which was released in early October 2005, and available in Chinese and Spanish with plans to translate into other languages.
- A Common Audit Methodology which suppliers, participant companies and approved 3rd party auditors can utilize to obtain the benefits of a common audit approach. The tool set includes communication templates, supplier preparation guidelines, a facility audit question set, audit report templates, and auditor guidelines and training modules.
- A Web Based Platform to facilitate efficient and transparent information sharing among participants.
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EICC Code Provisions
The EICC contains provisions to address performance in the following areas:
| Labor | | |
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Freely Chosen Employment Working Hours Humane Treatment Freedom of Association | Child Labor Avoidance Wages and Benefits Non-Discrimination | |
| Health and Safety | | |
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Occupational Safety Occupational Injury and Illness Physically Demanding Work Dormitory and Canteen | Emergency Preparedness Industrial Hygiene Machine Safeguarding | |
| Environment | | |
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Environmental Permits and Reporting Hazardous Substances Air Emissions | Pollution Prevention and Resource Reduction Wastewater and Solid Waste Product Content Restrictions | |
| Ethics | | |
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Business Integrity Disclosure of Information Fair Business, advertisement and Competition Community | No Improver Advantage Intellectual Property Protection of Identity | |
| Management Systems | | |
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Company Commitment Legal and Customer Requirements Performance Objectives with Implementation Plan and Measures Training Worker Feedback and Participation Corrective Action Process | Management accountability and Responsibility Risk Assessment and Risk Management Communication Audits and Assessments Documentation and Records | |
Because businesses face many uncertainties in this rapidly changing global market, establishing genuine dialogue with workers enables both workers and employers to understand each other's problems better and find ways to resolve them. Dell and its Suppliers are to respect the rights of workers as established by local law to associate freely on a voluntary basis, seek representation, join or be represented by Works Councils, and join or not join labor unions and bargain collectively as they choose. As provided by law, employees who become worker representatives shall not be the subject of discrimination and shall have access to management and co-workers in order to carry out their representative functions. Workers shall be able to communicate openly with management regarding working conditions without fear of reprisal, intimidation or harassment. Basic worker rights to open communication, direct engagement and humane and equitable treatment must be respected even in countries where they are not given meaningful legal protection. Where worker representation and collective bargaining are restricted by law, participants are to facilitate open communication and direct engagement between workers and management as alternative ways of ensuring that workers' rights, needs and views are considered and acted upon appropriately and in good faith.
Through this Industry collaborative effort, we expect to obtain the following benefits:
- Improved working conditions, where workers are treated with dignity and respect
- Increased efficiency and less duplication of efforts (i.e. suppliers can concentrate on driving change and improvement instead of responding to different customer audit requests)
- Greater Industry alignment and understanding of best practices
- Industry-wide Stakeholder engagement
- Benchmarking best practices for Supply Chain implementation in our Industry
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