My first reaction, before I had finished reading, was of immediate disagreement. While I had the luxury of being in the academic world before working at CSCC, I myself thought that we should not have to make the business case for complying with human rights and environmental standards. After all, not only is it morally the right thing to do, but the business case itself relies a lot on first mover advantages and brand differentiation. If all companies were ‘good’ corporate citizens, they would not be able to charge an ethical premium on their products and their stocks would not be listed in preferred indices based on their CR performance. Not to mention that in some situations, there is a strong business case (at least in the short term) against taking a socially or environmentally responsible course of action.
However, out in the ‘real world’, working on solutions-based approaches to sustainable compliance with basic labour standards at the factory level, the necessity of the business case came sharply into focus for me. For example, in many cases we are dealing with factories who are not paying minimum wage, enforcing overtime, and failing to provide personal protective equipment (by no means a definitive list of common violations).
Perspectives in Responsible Sourcing: August 27, 2006 - September 2, 2006
Posts
