Nokia and its suppliers – an official statement Tweet

GLOBAL – There are various reports circulating about the use of chemicals in a mobile device component factory in China. Wintek is a Nokia supplier, and provides components for its mobile phones, but N-Hexane is and has NOT been used on Nokia’s production lines at this supplier. Nokia strictly forbids all use of chemicals which are illegal. You can read the full statement after the jump.

Nokia firmly believes that all employees have the right to ethical and legal treatment. The health, safety and wellbeing of our employees are vital to the success of our business. We expect the companies in our supplier network to take a similar ethical business approach and to demonstrate progress and achievements in these areas as well as in promoting environmental and social responsibility and overseeing the practices of their own suppliers.

Wintek is one of our suppliers, and Suzhou factory does provide components to our phones. We forbid all use of chemicals which are illegal. N-Hexane is not used in the manufacturing process of our products or their components. We became aware of the allegations regarding the use of n-hexane in July 2009 and started our investigation immediately. Although it was confirmed that the n-hexane was not used on our production lines at the supplier, as part of our assessment we agreed on a development plan for health and safety management at Wintek’s Suzhou factory and a series of corrective measures have been taken since then.

While we cannot comment on behalf of Wintek, we can state that our approach is to work together with our supplier to ensure that they not only comply with all applicable laws and regulations, but also to encourage them to go beyond legal compliance in areas such as governance, human rights and environmental management, and meet our own global standards.

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