July 12, 2014 – The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) today jointly release the Corporate Information Transparency Index (CITI) at the 2014 Eco-Forum Global Conference in Guiyang, China. This inaugural CITI report found that Apple, H&M, and Esquel Group are leading the pack in terms of green supply chain performance out of 147 consumer brands that were assessed.

Released in Beijing on December 4, 2013 by seven environmental organizations including Zhaolu Environmental Protection and Commonweal Service Center and Lvse Jiangnan, the GCA Phase III Textiles report refers to a large number of printing and dyeing enterprises in violation on the new wastewater discharge standards and requests that brands such as Polo, Uniqlo and Youngor face up to the serious water pollution created by their supply chains.

On August 8, 2013 five environmental organizations Lvse Jiangnan, IPE, Friends of Nature, Envirofriends and Nature University jointly published "Who is Polluting the Taihu Basin," an investigation into the heavy pollution that mobile phone brand HTC's suspected suppliers Foxconn and DX are discharging into a part of the Taihu Basin. The report requests that related enterprises assume environmental responsibility.

Since April 2010, a number of Chinese environmental NGOs have released a series of Green Choice Alliance investigative reports, which have built up public recognition of pollution problems in the IT industry. After a long period of reluctance and resistance, Apple finally overcame their original state of denial and began to communicate with the environmental NGOs and to comprehensively follow-up on the questions raised by the NGOs. The environmental NGOs hope that Apple can take this good practice and extend it to more suppliers.

On October 8th, 2012, five environmental NGOs Friends of Nature, IPE, Green Beagle, Envirofriends, and Nanjing Green Stone jointly published the Phase Two textiles report titled Sustainable Apparel's Critical Blind Spot. It highlights that a number of large-scale clothing brands have gaps in the environmental management of their Chinese supply chains and calls for consumers at home and abroad to push brands to assume environmental responsibility.

China's production of cheap and fashionable apparel products has also clothed the world. However, pollution from the textile industry has negatively affected the air, rivers, lakes, oceans, soil, and even the groundwater in China.

Following the January 2011, release of the "Other Side of Apple" report, the Chinese environmental organizations continued the dig deeper into issues of poisoning and pollution in Apple's China supply chain.