Apple Inc (AAPL.NASDAQ) has agreed to let outside auditors review environmental conditions at its China-based suppliers, just one month after the Fair Labor Association investigated working conditions at the factories, the Financial Times reported. The audit will be jointly monitored by Apple and the China-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, an NGO that has amassed a database of 97,000 environmental violations in China. Apple initially did not respond to a 2010 report, published by an IPE-led coalition, that documented hazardous wastes from Apple suppliers and the health problems they had caused, IPE said. However, Apple changed its attitude in September 2011, two weeks after the coalition published a second report claiming that pollution discharges were expanding in the company’s supply chain, said Ma Jun, director of IPE. The institute hopes that audits will be carried out at 13 more factories where Apple has been doing its own environmental checks.