Ethical trading shift
The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) - an alliance of non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations - has launched a new agenda, which emphasizes learning and collaboration with suppliers and workers. It takes away the focus of auditing on being a way to improve labour conditions.
The new agenda includes: spending more time collaborating with suppliers on corrective plans; encouraging employee involvement and education about labor rights; securing worker representation within suppliers' management structures; and training buyers on ethical issues. According to Ethical Performance, participating companies are likely to integrate environmental and social considerations into their production and logistics systems. Levi Strauss & Co.'s vice president for the global code of conduct Michael Kobori says: ‘As an industry, we have spent 80 percent of our resources on monitoring and 20 percent on actually changing working conditions. This needs to be reversed.’
Vince Desmond, IRCA deputy director, says: ‘There has been trend away from the stick towards the carrot led by forward thinking companies which we support. In fact, there will be knock on effects for social systems auditors who will increasingly be required to report within this context of capacity building, rather than compliance, and IRCA auditor certification can contribute to this through auditor development.’
