Avainsana: GSCP

Julkaistu

Big stride forward for social compliance auditing as APSCA was established today in New York

APSCA – the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors – was established in New York today. The real professionals in this key sustainability industry took the responsibility for credibility and quality development in their own hands. The seriousness and transparency of the new organisation is shown by the important role given to partner, customer and civil society stakeholders.

Without social compliance auditors we would never see decent labour conditions in global supply chains. These are the people who inspect workplaces in supplier countries. They make it possible for factories and farms to show that they respect workers’ rights. This opens global markets for them and protects them against less serious competition. Even more important is that social auditing makes it possible to detect human rights and other abuses and helps set forth corrective action.

Buyer brands and retailers need professional compliance auditing for the due diligence obligations that the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights set on them. There are no other realistic alternatives as long as most major producing regions and countries are unable or unwilling to take the responsibility for this in a credible way.

Also the organisations that today question social auditing and auditors are unable to suggest viable and realistic alternatives. Their goal to rely on international legal controls and developed labour relations systems in global supply chains turns against its own purpose if global buyers are denied their most important tool for applying due diligence. This makes no sense, and would bereave workers the support that they can have through codes and standards that buyers expect the local employers to respect.

Social compliance auditing is far from perfect, and yes much must be improved here. Also code and standard organisations have to be constantly critical about their own role and efficiency. Buyer brands and retailers need to adapt their own approach to the more stringent due diligence obligations that the UN Guiding Principles, the OECD and ILO guidelines, and their national action plans give them.

There is no conflict between mainstream labour relations based on legislation and collective agreements and voluntary initiatives by business to help them comply with their due diligence obligations. On the contrary, they do need each other.

I would hope that we could see a fast improvement in this respect where other conflicts of interest or ideological differences would not be allowed to play out at the expense of supply chain workers. On all sides we would need some more soul-searching and compromise-seeking.

Creating the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors APSCA could not be more timely. Today in New York, a critical mass of leading auditing firms got the new organisation on its way. Including global buyer companies, sustainability organisations and other stakeholders was a wise and important decision. This shows that the auditing industry wants to listen to its partners and the public, and proceed very seriously with tackling any problem issues and ensuring a reliable, efficient and cost effective sustainability service also in the future.

When I accepted the invitation to join the APSCA Stakeholder Board I was already encouraged by the industry deciding to take action. In fact I was demanding this myself when I spoke at a Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP Conference in San Francisco some years ago. Having participated in the founding meeeting in New York yesterday and today, my expectations are even bigger.

Most of all I was impressed by the commitment and engagement by all participants to make sure that their auditing activities help make a real positive difference for workers in the global supply chains. Especially the many compliance auditors who were present showed a real passion for their work.

This has not come about by itself. APSCA executive director Rona Starr has really got the wheels moving, making sure that the engagement and good intentions turn into concrete action.

APSCA will now go on to ensure that social compliance auditing is trustworthy and that auditors and their employer companies respect high ethical and professional standards and are fully skilled to take on their demanding tasks.

So, good vibrations here at the APSCA meeting in New York.

Julkaistu

Serious about supply chain sustainability? Business, unions and advocacy organisations need to work together

To promote better labour conditions in global supply chains we need effective and sincere public-private cooperation in consumer countries. We need socially responsible buyer companies willing to invest in supply chain conditions. We need trade unions and civil society organisations that have set their priorities right and put supply chain workers’ interests first.

Why do we have so much suspicion and conflict between those who should be driving positive supply chain change together, as main private sector partners?

Relations have deteriorated

Global supply chain relations have indeed deteriorated during a number of years. Where joint sustainability approaches used to play the major tole we now see new alliances between global unions and labour advocacy organisations. Businesses tend to go more on their own than before, and there is a much weaker trade union participation in voluntary schemes and initiatives.

Labour relations are now more adversarial and the political climate harder than before the economic crisis hit. Instead of sharing the added value created by growth, labour partners fight over who will pay the costs of shrinking economies. Workers are carrying an unreasonably heavy burden through unemployment and dwindling standards. Income differences are bigger than ever and political polarization continues to generate conflicts and instability.

The International Labour Conference in June sent conflicting signals on supply chains. Employer organisations started by doing their best to deny that there would be governance issues needing to be tackled. Global trade unions and their NGO allies again saw nothing good in voluntary initiatives, questioned the sincerity of buyers and did not hide their preference for legislation that would impose rules and sanctions on them. Much of this was normal ILO tactics, for sure, but there is also a troubling reality behind.

An adversarial start was finally turned into agreement to continue discussions, with much of the credit going to the International Labour Office and ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.

Why are unions and campaigners against voluntary initiatives?

I can well see many reasons why global unions question voluntary multi-stakeholder and business driven social sustainability initiatives. Some criticism is fair enough, other reflections are linked more to trade union needs and ambitions. It is good to remember that corporate social responsibility itself is something suspicious in broad union circles. Business is not at all too innocent in this respect, having too often used CSR as a vehicle to avoid trade union recognition and collective agreements.

Many unions and advocacy NGOs are unhappy with what they see as a slow pace or even absence of improvements in supply chain labour conditions. They genuinely believe that voluntary initiatives have failed to change overall supply chain realities. This is why they call for more legal regulations and accountability.

These views are good to take seriously.

Brands and retailers have often dragged their feet and failed to act on poor working conditions in their supply chains. They ignored their due diligence obligations which of course existed far before the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights made them formal. For sure, there were brands and retailers that understood this and really tried to do something concrete, but there were also very many who did not.

Unfair to accuse initiatives for poor supply chain labour conditions

I share much of this union and civil society disappointment over an all too slow slow pace of change. The enormity of the task is a contributing factor, but also a bad excuse for not investing more resources and effort. Still, full credit should be given to the many brands and retailers who are very actively working on these challenges.

It is both unfair and professional to criticize the sustainability schemes and initiatives for this, or social compliance auditors. Here we often find the actors who have the strongest and most concrete commitment to decent conditions in supplier industries and who are trying to do something real.

To promote and support organising and collective agreements in producer countries is a legitimate activity for any trade union. At the end, working conditions and labour relations must be managed locally, respecting universal global norms. This requires a social dialogue between mutually respectful partners who negotiate collective agreements. They should preferably be concluded on an industry level, applied and enforced with effective government support. The IndustriAll-driven ACT project together with a number of buying brands in Cambodia is an interesting pilot for such approaches.

Many unions and advocacy organisations make a mistake when they try to throw out voluntary multi-stakeholder or business driven schemes and initiatives. There is no way that unions and social advocacy organisations could fill the gap if brands and retailers were to abandon their own programmes and activities. It is more than unlikely that most retailers and brands, and governments, would agree to substitute this work with legislation and sanctions. I also fail to see the logic in unionists and labour advocates demanding brands and retailers to respect their due diligence obligations if they are at the same time doing their best to discredit serious efforts. Ending the voluntary involvement of buying companies could spell disaster for workers in many supplier industries and countries.

The multi-stakeholder Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord has achieved many things and I do support it of course, but we should also remember that even together with the business-driven Alliance it covers only a part of labour conditions, albeit an important one. The whole field of human rights and sustainability at work is very much broader. The problems encountered when trying to secure freedom of association within these projects send a message that mainstreaming their principles would be an extremely complicated and long process, if not even politically impossible.

Both legislation and voluntary schemes are needed

We will continue to need all stakeholders on the stage, both public and private, employers and unions. Voluntary schemes and initiatives are an important tool for this. For sure there needs to be more legally binding norms as well. National governments and the international community need tools to set minimum acceptable standards and at the same time a level playing field which would also protect serious enterprises against social dumping and unfair competition. How this could be done without creating disadvantages in the countries where governments take their obligations seriously, and without scaring buyers away from the least developed producer countries, remain to be seen.

As a result of awareness building, where multi-stakeholder and business driven voluntary initiatives have played the central role, supply chain conditions cannot be ignored by business anymore. They are now part of core corporate issues and concerns. Buyer-driven capacity building and remediation activities abound and suppliers have to pay more attention to their labour conditions.

This does not mean that voluntary initiatives should not improve their performance – in fact they are constantly doing this. I take an example which I know very well, Social Accountability International SAI. With their Social Fingerprint and Ten Squared programmes and an impressive work to improve SA8000 social audit reliability, the new young SAI leadership does indeed merit a very strong support from business, unions and other stakeholders. This is a good example of linking social auditing and workplace certification to capacity building and remediation.

The SA8000 Social Standard is still the strongest instrument to define and promote human rights at work and decent working conditions. In today’s social climate it would not be possible to reach a common understanding between the labour partners on levels as high as those in SA8000. Being one of the authors of the standard-setting GSCP Reference Code I can also vouch for the SA8000 having been one of the main resources in that work. SAI – as well at the Social Accountability Accreditation Services SAAS – has been an important source of knowledge and experience while we were working on the whole GSCP toolbox, with its guidelines and advisories for all parts of sustainability activities.

Campaigning against social auditing hurts workers and is not professional

Social audits play an important role when buying brands and retailers exercise their supply chain due diligence. Being visible and commercially managed parts of voluntary initiatives both auditors and auditing firms have been a frequent target for campaigns and criticism. Individual shortcomings and mismanagement cases have been generalized to question the credibility of the whole activity and industry. This is both unfair and incorrect towards the numerous serious and highly skilled enterprises and individual auditors who are producing important services for supply chain businesses and their workers. Without them, due diligence would be impossible. It is not professional to allow criticism against globalization and mistrust against large private enterprises influence the attitudes to social auditing.

Most social auditing takes place outside the public eye and there are indeed many reasons for this. Confidentiality rules are equally important to protect workers as their supplier employers. Without these rules it would often be impossible to get a correct picture of conditions.

Demands for more transparency in  global supply chains and buyers’ supplier relations will surely bring some changes to sustainability audits. This has to be done without violating the necessary confidentiality. The auditing industry itself can benefit from this. The new Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors APSCA where I am now a member of the Stakeholder Board will have to address this issue.

We need respect and new cooperation between supply chain players

We should move to new convergence within global supply chain sustainability work and engage both public and private partners in joint efforts. We do need to accept and support a broad specter of action and initiatives, the task is far too big to successfully approach otherwise. This we owe to the workers and their families as well as to the businesses and entrepreneurs in producer countries. Relations at home in advanced consumer countries cannot be allowed to undermine effective joint efforts but must be kept separate. The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP has proved that this can be done and a similar message comes from Germany’s Textile Alliance.

Genuine engagement and responsibility, mutual respect by and for all participants, and honest intentions to build pragmatic and effective partnership are some of the elements that are now needed.

Julkaistu

The Consumer Goods Forum took over GSCP – focus on combating forced labour

The Consumer Goods Forum moved in a timely way when integrating the Global Social Compliance Programme into its structures and work. The GSCP sustainability toolbox had been completed and the convergence-driving equivalence process was well established. Emphasis needed to be shifted to new things.

Taking up the challenge of forced labour in global supply chains was both bold and ambitious and sends a signal about how serious the approach is. When the joint CGF effort takes off it can again prove that voluntary private sector initiatives can effectively defend and support human rights and promote decent work in the globalised economy. As a member of the Advisory Board, I am pleased that GSCP was given the task of initiating and helping to launch this work. It does show the success of our common initiative.

When I was invited to bring the trade unions into this newly formed sustainability platform my first reaction was rather reserved. There was this group of leading multinational retailers and they had already developed a code and set a work programme. Would we really be able to influence, or be there just to give credibility to big business?

My discussions with the founding companies, particularly Carrefour at that time, convinced me that changes and adjustments would be made so that we could come on board. 

This was not a self-evident decision for UNI Commerce. Some of the GSCP companies were engaged in serious labour conflicts with our affiliates – how could we work side by side with them without weakening the union positions? What about the right to form trade unions and conclude collective agreements?

My view was – and still is – that industrial country employers and trade unions cannot act out on their disagreements or labour conflicts at the expense of workers and their families in supplier regions. This would be both immoral and unethical. We have a shared responsibility for supporting human rights and decent working conditions in countries that cannot or will not do it on their own.

Maybe my own Nordic background where seeking social dialogue and partnership plays a central role for my conviction that we should join. Thus I was pleased and even impressed that the UNI Commerce unions agreed and decided to set out on the joint voyage.

Our work on the Reference Code as well as the other parts of the unique GSCP sustainability toolbox was always marked by a genuine will from all participants to find the best and most effective approaches to defining what good looks like and how it can best be promoted in the global supply chains.

Today’s labour relations climate is harder than when we built up GSCP together. Instead of sharing the results of growth employers and unions deal with paying the costs of shrinking economies. This has also affected sustainability work.

Global unions have downgraded or even ended their participation in many schemes and initiatives. They are openly questioning social audits and voluntary programmes, calling for more legislation instead. For this, they have formed new alliances with militant social advocacy organisations. We have indeed witnessed something of a collapse of broad multi-stakeholder cooperation on social sustainability in global supply chains.

At the ILO International Labour Conference in June this year we could see the divides. Unions and their NGO allies were pushing for a new binding Labour Convention while employers denied that there were governance problems or any need for new regulations. The end result was largely non-committal as could be expected and discussions about a possible new Convention continue. 

Many unions and advocacy organisations hope that the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights would be applied through binding legislation in the home countries of buyer companies. I have seen this clearly also through my participation in Germany’s Textile Alliance.

With governments unwilling to put their own business sectors at disadvantage, this will not happen. Also from a development point of view increased risks for sanctions – also for unintended issues – could lead brands and retailers to leave some of the least developed countries where the need for a foreign economic involvement may be biggest. I am convinced that respecting the UN and OECD due diligence obligations will continue to rely largely on voluntary corporate responsibility schemes and initiatives.

I do understand the NGO and union frustrations over what they feel is an all too slow pace of positive changes through audit based initiatives. Still I think that much of the criticism is unfair, maybe also driven by their own organisational interests. The projects that they have developed themselves are highly supportable and can be useful as best practice examples, but too narrow both to substance and coverage to make a real difference for the total supply chain picture.

Both buyer companies and sustainability schemes have done much to support human rights and decent working conditions in global supply chains. GSCP has played a major role in moving emphasis from audit reports to improving labour conditions. Both capacity building and remediation has grown, most of it enabled by the buyer community.

Social auditing continues to be an essential part of this work. GSCP has done much to support the auditing industry in its efforts to secure audit quality and reliability and this work now continues in the new Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors. I have joined the APSCA Stakeholder Board together with representatives of some of the CGF member companies, a further sign of these links.

Approaching the forced labour issues through joint activities does not mean that the CGF, GSCP or member companies would abandon the rest of their agenda. Driving convergence of social sustainability work at a high and demanding level remains essential if we want real and positive changes to take place in the supply chains.

Very much is already being done, but regrettably much of it outside the public eye. While brands and retailers are very skilled in marketing their products they are much less active in telling about their own sustainability work. Here, both the CGF and GSCP should pay much attention to transparency and reporting. The work to eradicate forced labour will give a good opportunity to do this and thus also draw attention to the need for broad public-private cooperation to defend human rights at work.

Julkaistu

Governments, business and stakeholders need to work together for supply chain sustainability

Supply chain social responsibility is on the move this spring. The tripartite ILO International Labour Conference will be a high point with governments, employers and trade unions debating how best to secure human rights and promote decent work. Countries around the world are following up on the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, setting their own National Action Plans. Many sustainability schemes and initiatives are developing and stepping up their own work. The professional social auditors have established their own organisation APSCA to secure and develop audit quality.

It is important to ensure that the activities and programmes are efficient and help bring about positive change. The attention to policy and structures should not move away the focus from real and concrete efforts to improve labour conditions. Taking care of the tools and using them effectively should complement each other, not compete about our attention.

We need broad engagement for sustainable supply chains

Public-private cooperation is an important element of any effective sustainability efforts, also in consumer countries that work on their own social and environmental responsibilities in global supply chains.

Governments need to influence supplier countries to play an active role in ensuring human rights and decent working conditions. They must also set rules for buyer companies and other supply chain participants to follow. Bringing together business and stakeholders around joint objectives and tasks, such as Germany is doing in its textile alliance – – Bündnis für nachhaltige Textilien – is equally essential.

Buyer brands and retailers can and must use their commercial power and know-how to require and help their business partners to behave responsibly. Carefully designed buying practices and agreements can both encourage and enable this.

Trade unions and non-governmental organisations are important partners in this work, enabling and helping workers to participate in setting labour conditions.

GSCP has created a solid base for convergence and cooperation

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP has done much to help brands and retailers translate their sustainability commitments to concrete action. The GSCP Reference Code and a collection of sustainability tools now form a solid base for effective sustainability engagement. They were all created through a multi-stakeholder process and aim at securing full respect for universal human rights. Furthermore, they set minimum requirements for decent working and employment conditions, based on ILO International Labour Conventions. Key toolbox elements deal with sustainability management systems, both for suppliers and for buyer companies. Others cover all aspects of social auditing and auditor competence, setting minimum standards that should ensure reliable audits.

GSCP was created to drive an upward convergence of social responsibility codes and standards, based on the ambitious reference code and the application guidelines in the toolbox. This would enable mutual recognition of social audit results and help direct more resources to capacity building and remediation at supplier workplaces. The GSCP equivalence process was developed for the analysis and benchmarking that serves this process.

This important initiative by many of the world’s largest brands and retailers has had a much broader impact than only driving its core convergence objective. We have seen a remarkable growth of both awareness and engagement in the business community with activities levels stepped up across many industries. A good and welcome example is the commitment made by the Consumer Goods Forum CGF to play an active role in working for the UN Sustainable Development Goals SDG’s.

The first concrete joint measure by the CGF companies will be launching of an ambitious and welcome project to eliminate forced labour from their supply chains. This will also be reflected in the work of GSCP now that the Reference Code, toolbox and equivalence process are in place. This does not mean that other parts of the Code would be neglected, they will continue to be as important as ever on the agendas and programmes of the individual brands and retailers.

Sustainability schemes and initiatives update their own approaches

Buyers need to be actively engaged if we really want to secure human rights and decent working conditions in global supply chains. Corporate social responsibility CSR schemes and initiatives can contribute to the quality and efficiency of this engagement. To achieve this, both transparency and full civil society engagement are needed.

There have been big changes and efficiency boosts also on the standard and code application side. As an example, Social Accountability Accreditation Services SAAS has further increased the reliability of the already demanding SA8000 Social Standard. The sustainability auditing industry itself has established a new organisation to safeguard audit quality and reliability. The Association for Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA) is an important initiative and I was happy to accept an invitation to join their Stakeholder Board.

Also other sustainability programmes such as Social Accountability International SAI and the Business Social Compliance Initiative BSCI have updated their codes or standards. They have continued to add more emphasis on remediation and capacity building and have developed new innovative approaches for this. Others, such as the Better Cotton Initiative BCI and the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS are also working on code and standard revisions and the Fairtrade movement has just released a new textile standard.

Improvements in conditions are the test for schemes and initiatives

To improve the instruments is of course not enough. Supply chain workers are still too often working under sub-standard conditions and paid far below what is needed for a decent life. Voices that reject voluntary business initiatives and call for far reaching legislation instead will grow stronger unless concrete and significant improvements at supplier workplaces are made at a faster pace.

There is today a genuine disappointment over the slowness or lack of visible improvements in labour and social conditions in global supply chains. These sentiments go also beyond the many advocacy organisations and trade unions that are actively voicing their frustrations.

The best way for the business community to respond is to step up their contributions to bring about real improvements of human rights and labour conditions in the supply chain. The new Consumer Goods Forum CGF forced labour initiative is a good example of this and can lead to substantial positive change. This is a sign of success also for the patient work done by GSCP, to build awareness and drive convergence in the sustainability work of global buyers. The challenge is now to use the significant commercial power of these world class companies to translate this commitment into real action. GSCP will have an important role in making this possible, as will also cooperating sustainability schemes and initiatives.

Sustainability initiatives and mainstream labour relations can complement each other

The best approach to improve labour conditions includes organised social partners, effectively applied labour legislation, collective agreements and an efficient labour inspection system. As this is still a distant dream in large parts of the world also other approaches are needed. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is a manifestation of this.

Voluntary schemes and initiatives are there also to help buying brands and retailers respect their obligations. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights could hardly be applied without these business-driven or multi-stakeholder programmes which build on social auditing and focus on remediation and capacity building.

We should remember that all leading schemes demand full respect for freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. Also unions and advocacy organisations could and should use this for supporting organising efforts.

Colder labour relations climate hurts supply chain cooperation

Buying brands and retailers are targeted also without valid reasons and the CSR concept itself is put in question. Often this relates to anti-globalisation drives and is more general and political than referring to concrete supply chain issues. It does also reflect an overall polarisation of opinions and a deterioration of labour relations where social partnership gives way for the struggle over dwindling resources.

Recession pitches business and unions against each other. Having negotiated how the fruits of growth are shared, capital and labour are now engaged in a combat over who shoulders losses. High unemployment and deteriorating social services add to conflicts. Unions are pushed into defence by business circles and their political supporters who want to get rid of collective agreements and legal regulations that are seen as restrictive.

Supply chain sustainability cooperation is clearly affected by this lack of confidence.

Conflicts at home is not an excuse to forget joint obligations

The commercial workers’ trade unions engaged themselves for improving supply chain conditions during the time that I was in charge of UNI Commerce Global Union. We joined the advisory and stakeholder boards of initiatives such as Social Accountability International SAI, the Business Social Compliance Initiative BSCI and the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP.

These decisions were not made without thorough considerations. Many of the large retailers that we came to work with were formidable opponents in their own employer roles. What made us sign up to these initiatives was the conviction that our own conflicts should not be played out at the expense of the already hard pressed and badly treated supply chain workers and their families.

This was a very mature and responsible stance by the large commerce trade unions around the world that were our members. Something of the same spirit would be needed also today. This would require also many buyer brands and retailers to take a more positive stance to involving workers and their unions in supply chain sustainability work.

Julkaistu

Global Supply Chain Leaders GSCP and SAI Position Themselves in Changing Landscape

Many things are moving in the social sustainability landscape this spring, but will they contribute to real improvement for working families world-wide? This question is relevant also for four international events during the next few weeks that I am preparing for. They all deal with global supply chains, but from very different angles.

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP meets in Berlin at the end of the month, both for its own meeting and for a multi-stakeholder conference arranged together with the German Government. Later in the week, the Advisory Board of Social Accountability International SAI (SA8000) meets for three days in Florence, Italy. After the First of May weekend, Germany’s multi-stakeholder Textile Alliance (Textilbündnis) convenes a working meeting in Frankfurt a.M. to continue preparing its principles and work programme, also hosted by the Federal Government.

GSCP Brings Leading Brands and Retailers to Sustainability Work

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP is first in line with a members’ meeting in Berlin at the end of the month. This initiative represents many of the worlds largest brands and retailers and has been driving convergence in a very much split corporate responsibility landscape. Its work builds on a reference code and a number of tools that set high standards and provide guidance for sustainability work. An intention is that global supply chain actors could recognise each others’ social audit results and cooperate more actively in the important remediation and capacity building.

GSCP is now pretty much done with creating this foundation and is increasingly trying to support and promote real change for the better. Much attention is still given to developing management systems for social and environmental sustainability, both in supplier and buyer companies. Monitoring conditions and their development through social and environmental auditing continues to be an important and necessary pillar for these activities.

Public – Private Cooperation Supports Sustainable Development Goals

A major GSCP achievement has been to raise the sustainability awareness of the Consumer Goods Forum CGF and its members. These companies are among the largest in the world and can play a critically important role for global supply chain sustainability.

The second event does in fact reflect these developments. In a letter last summer to the German G7 Presidency, the CGF member companies committed themselves to participate in the world-wide work for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This promise is now followed up at an international Conference arranged in Berlin with the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development BMZ, directly following the GSCP meeting.

Action on Forced Labour Opens Concrete Cooperation

The concrete human rights and sustainability commitment chosen by the CGF brands and retailers for joint action is to remove all forced labour from their supply chains. This does not mean that the other human and workers’ rights would be left out. The obligation to apply the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights is still on the agenda even if the particular issue of forced labour has been singled out as a specific aim.

To support the credibility of the entire CSR field, these large companies should now say clearly what they intend to do and deliver substantial results reasonably fast. Work on this is in fact going on, involving also GSCP.

Important resources must also be allocated to define the major problem areas and address the issues effectively. Walking away from suppliers who cannot prove that their own supply chains are not clean will not be an alternative. Forced labour is found from high seas fishing and cotton growing to mining and manufacturing, all areas that need to be addressed. A special challenge will be to go deeper down in the supply chains than to the final suppliers only. This has not been the strong point of most sustainability schemes and initiatives and will need particular attention.

I have been a member of the Advisory Board of GSCP since the beginning of this initiative. During these years I have seen how many of the large buyer companies have acted effectively in support of workers’ rights in their supply chains. There have been both interesting and innovative approaches to this which would have merited much more public attention. I have no doubts that – with a serious engagement – we will see much of these also in the activities against forced labour.

Recognising the importance of this CSR work and the social audit based supply chain engagement of buyer companies can contribute significantly to improving conditions for the working families concerned. This does not mean that we can be complacent. Criticism is important as it helps to push things forward, but it also needs to recognise the importance of the engagement and participation of global brands and retailers. The BMZ Berlin Conference will hopefully contribute to a broader coalition building and cooperation instead of an often ideologically influenced negativism against business driven action.

Social Accountability International SAI Continues as Innovative Leader in Sustainability Field

Social Accountability International SAI meets immediately after this for its Advisory Board meeting. The three day event hosted by Gucci in Florence, Italy is also the starting point for a new stage of the organisation’s development. With a new President and CEO Jane Hwang and a new President of the Board of Directors Dan Henkle, SAI is well prepared to secure a leading role as an innovative and highly respected multi-stakeholder initiative. The SA8000 Social Standard and the detailed application guidelines make this into a unique and recognised benchmark for best sustainability practice.

I have had the privilege of working with SAI and its founder and President Alice Tepper Marlin over many years, both in the Board of Directors and the Advisory Board. This is where I have learned what sustainability and social responsibility in global supply chains really means. Alice and her team, where also Jane Hwang has played an important role, have built up a solid organisation which is well positioned to meet today’s challenges and make use of the opportunities to effectively promote human rights at work.

Julkaistu

Germany’s G7 social supply chain agenda calls for more positive business and union attitudes

UN - Palais Wilson in Geneva
Palais Wilson in Geneva is the UN human rights headquarters. The UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights created a solid basis on which Germany’s G7 Presidency can now try to launch a new and more socially responsible approach to global supply chains. Geneva is also the home of the global social dialogue and tripartite cooperation at the International Labour Organisation ILO. Governments and the social partners need to see to it that they use the opportunity that they now have thanks to the German government and bring justice and humanity to the people who produce much of what the more well to do parts of the world consume.

The German Presidency of the G7 Group of leading industrialised countries deserves much appreciation for their activity in supporting human rights and better labour conditions in global supply chains. The Summit on Sunday and Monday at Schloss Elmau in Bavaria could set conditions that drive real improvements in conditions which still are unacceptably bad in many producing countries. At a G7 Conference earlier this spring in Berlin, where I participated on behalf of the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS, the German development and labour ministers Gerd Müller and Andrea Nahles made their country’s commitment to improve supply chain conditions very clear. This has been repeatedly confirmed by Chancellor Angela Merkel herself in the run up to this weekend’s G7 Summit.

The obligation to ensure proper living and labour conditions for supply chain workers and their families is of course with the national governments, and the employers directly concerned. This does not mean that the international community would be free of responsibility and lack influence. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are quite clear about this, both when it comes to government and business.

As labour conditions in general, the basic protection of supply chain workers should be set through legislation. This comprises the universal human rights conventions and includes the fundamental rights as defined in the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Woirk and its Core Conventions which forbid child labour, forced labour and discrimination. Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining is also one of these fundamental rights, although all too many employers conveniently try to forget it.

It is obvious that the G7 countries and others need to put effective legislation in place to ensure that businesses based in these countries respect these norms also when they are active abroad. This would be welcome also for those responsible buyer companies that take their supply chain commitment seriously as it would create a level playing field where good corporate behaviour would not hurt their competitiveness. This follow up to the UN Guiding Principles is in fact already in motion in many industrialised countries, large and small.

All the necessary elements for decent work are not covered by the UN Guiding Principles or Core ILO Conventions. This we can see also by looking at leading supply chain codes and standards such as the GSCP Reference Code or the SA8000 Social Standard – and many of the Fairtrade Standards – which are much more complete.

Labour legislation can define minimum requirements and thus hinder at least the most serious forms of rights violations and exploitation that could push also general conditions down. In a developed industrial relations system, laws are completed by employers and trade unions through collective agreements and social dialogue on different levels.

We are still very far from this in most important producer regions and it could take very long before local tripartite structures would bear the responsibility for regulating wages and conditions. This is of course a main reason that the UN Guiding Principles has come about.

Here we need public-private partnerships, to help make good intentions and principles into reality. The German authorities have clearly understood this and involved brands and retailers, trade unions and other stakeholders. Hopefully the business and trade union communities will also grow up to the challenge. They need to cooperate on these supply chain issues even when other interests may pitch them against each other.

Both business and unions have indeed been active as the G7 Summit comes closer.

We have seen some concrete commitments from leading businesses, in addition to general support statements for Germany’s G7 initiatives. Leading global food brands and retailers have promised to take concrete action to help realize the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which will be formally agreed on later this year. In a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel on behalf of the 400 Consumer Goods Forum member companies, the CEOs of Royal Ahold and Nestle commit these leading retailers and food brands to acting concretely to help secure and improve human rights and labour conditions in global supply chains.

These companies will now have to deliver on their promises which I am very optimistic about. The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP, which works independently but is hosted by the Consumer Goods Forum, will have to play an important coordinating and supporting role. The corporate social responsibility CSR schemes and initiatives will be important tools and resources for practical on the ground work.

Maybe also the International Trade Union Confederation ITUC needs to take a new look at what CSR organisations such as SAI SA8000, ETI, FWF, BSCI and others are doing today. They have nothing to do with the paternalist approach to human resource management that sometimes has been labelled as corporate social responsibility. The CSR organisations which all involve civil society and build on third party verification of conditions in the supply chain have their main focus on capacity building and remediation of conditions at supplier workplaces. All of them have codes or standards that are clear on supporting freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. Sometimes it is difficult for me to understand why they are not mobilised to support efforts to organise workers, gain employer recognition and negotiate fair and decent conditions.

It is equally important that buying brands and retailers and the business community more broadly understand how important it is in supplier countries that workers can organise freely and that proper structures and practices for collective agreement negotiations and social dialogue are established.