Samsung Electronics

The Indonesian island of Bangka is being ravaged by tin mining which rivals Samsung and Apple use in their smartphones, says a new report from Friends of the Earth (FoE). Called Mining for Smartphones: the True Cost of Tin, the report says that tin mining has created a litany of environmental and social problems, including damaging more than 65 percent of Bangka's forest and over 70 percent of its coral reefs. Fifteen rivers are now contaminated by tin mining waste and access to clean water has become a problem for more than half of the island's population.

The eighth annual sustainability report released at the World Economic Forum's conference in Davos, shows Asian companies generally failing to improve their practices in line with other global companies. While Japan's companies ranked second behind the UK, by having eleven companies in the 2012 Corporate Knights Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World, other Asian nations performed badly against European and north American companies.