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Posts Tagged ‘Ethical’

Banking Sector Report

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

Covalence Banking Sector 2010 report covers the progress in ethical reputation of the banking sector. The report analyses and compares the ethical reputation of 29 international banks, internally as well as against the 18 sectors benchmark covering 581 large companies.

Key Findings

The ethical reputation of banks shows a smaller progress than other sectors mainly due to a low volume of positive news regarding products, as well as criticisms related to remunerations and gender discriminations.

The Impact of Product criteria group only represents 16% of positive news registered on banks, against 37% for the 18 sectors benchmark.
Banks are shy in demonstrating the social utility of their products and in presenting their innovations in this field.
Many banking activities can be described in terms of contribution to sustainable development but banks don’t use these terms much.
The low level of criticisms targeting banks’ products can be interpreted as a lack of incentives.
Secondly, bankers seem to consider that highlighting their sustainable products may be counterproductive to the serious, conservative, cautious, and money-oriented corporate culture and image they show to their clients.
Next to the usual suspects (tax issues), wages was the most active criteria.
CEO compensation, traders’ bonuses, and the differential between the highest and the lowest salaries within banks have been abundantly criticized.
This report also highlights an increasing amount of negative comments about the status of women at work (discrimination on wages and promotions, a work atmosphere described as unfriendly to women).
On the positive side, banks registered the most points on social sponsorship (philanthropic donations, community investments) and on climate change mitigation.
Some banks are less shy than others in their offering of sustainable products, which allows them to score well in Covalence EthicalQuote Ranking.
For example, they communicate on their involvement in microfinance and renewable energy projects, on interest rates favorable to green buildings, or on their signing of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.

Author(s)

Covalence

Source

Further details

Tags: banking, banks, Covalence, Ethical, reputation, sector
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Ethical Reputation Ranking

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

Ethical reputation organization, Covalence, has released its report for the first quarter of 2010. Covalence analyses data from 581 companies across 18 sectors in its quarterly reports, and the data informing this report spans the five years from 2005-2010 (March).

Key Findings

The top ten leaders across all sectors are: (1) IBM Corp., (2) Intel Corp., (3) Cisco Systems, Inc., (4) HSBC Holdings plc, (5) Unilever, (6) Marks and Spencer Group plc, (7) General Electric Co., (8) Pepsico Inc., (9) Xerox Corp., (10) Dell, Inc.

Sector Leaders

Automobiles and Parts: BMW Group
Banks: HSBC Holdings
Basic Resources: Alcoa Inc.
Chemicals: DuPont
Construction and Materials: Holcim
Financial Services: American Express
Food & Beverages: Unilever
Health Care: GlaxoSmithKline
Industrial Goods & Services: General Electric
Insurance: Swiss Re
Media: Walt Disney Co.
Oil & Gas: Suncor Energy Inc.
Personal & Household Goods: Procter & Gamble
Retail: Marks & Spencer
Technology: IBM
Telecommunications: AT&T Inc.
Travel and Leisure: Starbucks
Utilities: PG&E Corp.

Author(s)

Covalence

Source

Full report

Tags: Cisco, Covalence, Dell, Ethical, General Electric, HSBC, IBM, Intel, Marks and Spencer, PepsiCo, ranking, reputation, Unilever, Xerox
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M&S Product Portfolio to be 100% ‘Eco’, ‘Ethical’ by 2020

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

M&S UK retailer Marks & Spencer is stepping its plans to sell only items that have at least one “eco” or “ethical” attribute. By 2015, the retailer aims to have half its products meet that standard. By 2020, the goal is 100 percent.

To meet the standard, products should carry a certification such as those performed by the Marine Stewardship Council, Forest Stewardship Council or Fair Trade, or they should otherwise exhibit elements of sustainability. For instance, eggs that were produced from free range hens would pass muster.

The effort is a $75 million extension of Marks & Spencer’s Plan A, which calls for the company, by 2012, to become carbon neutral, send no waste to landfills and extend sustainable sourcing.

As of last June, the company said it had so far met 39 of 100 targets laid under Plan A.

However, the retailer also has its critics when it comes to its environmental impact. A study last year showed Marks & Spencer to be the UK supermarket with the worst packaging impact.

Under the new plan, M&S will work with its 2,000 suppliers to ensure that each and every product has at least one sustainable quality, so that the item can become a “Plan A product,” according to a press release.

It is a mammoth undertaking – in all, M&S has 36,000 product lines.

M&S plans to help suppliers create 200 “Plan A factories,” as well as help 10,000 farmers join the retailer’s sustainable agriculture program.

As one example, all cardboard for M&S food packaging will come from a yet-to-be-determined “model” forest program.

M&S will push through traceability of all raw materials used in clothing and home products.

The retailer has tabbed six raw materials for special attention – palm oil, soya, cocoa, beef, leather and coffee – all of which have been tied to deforestation.

M&S also will reach out to its shoppers, encouraging them to recycle garments. Currently, about 2 million garments are recycled under the program. The goal is 20 million annually.

As for M&S employees, the retailer plans to offer them free home insulation and free home energy monitors.

Source

Environmental Leader

Full article

Tags: eco, Environmental Leader, Ethical, M&S, Marks & Spencer, Plan A
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Ethical Metal Sourcing Report

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

ethical metal This report evaluates the efforts made by jewellers towards responsible sourcing of precious metals. It is based on the results of a survey completed by 39 jewellers between February and October 2009. Those jewellers were either signatories to the Golden Rules (a commitment to working towards sourcing precious metals in such a way as to avoid destructive mining impacts), or were jewellery retailers whose sales were worth more than US$100 million.

Key Findings

In general, the gold supply chain from mine to market is still extremely opaque, despite Golden Rules signatories, having committed to undertaking audits to better understand their sources and supply chains.

• Most of the smaller jewellers taking part in the survey, as well as some of the larger companies, had conducted an audit. Similarly, most of the smaller jewellers included the mine in their audit and shared their supply information with No Dirty Gold. Few large companies matched this.

• Most of the smaller companies reported supply sources that were close to compliance with the Golden Rules. They reported sourcing either refineries that claim to be using recycled precious metals, or are sourcing from small-scale mining operations that state that they do not use cyanide or mercury.

• Few large jewellers had sourcing policies that came close to fully reflecting the Golden Rules, although many of the smaller companies did.

• Few jewellers reported that the Golden Rules are part of their contract language, although such contract arrangements are not as common for some of the smaller jewellers.

• Almost all jewellers had taken the important step of informing suppliers of their intent to operate according to the Golden Rules.

• Many smaller jewellers are actively pursuing use of recycled materials. Few of the large companies are following suit.

• Some retailers, including Birk & Mayors and Tiffany & Co. have taken additional implementation steps towards responsible mining, including supporting the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, supporting responsible mining law reform, maximizing material and energy efficiency, and using renewable energy at facilities.

Author(s)

Earthworks/No Dirty Gold

Source

Full report

Tags: Earthworks, Ethical, jewellery, metal, No Dirty Gold, Sourcing, Supply Chain
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Stakeholder Politics: Social Capital, Sustainable Development and The Corporation

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Author(s):

Robert Boutilier

Publisher:

Greenleaf

Publication Date:

2009

Pages:

248

At last, a book that gets to the heart of the stakeholder issue, namely the dynamics of power. Or at least, that’s what I expected when I saw ‘politics’ in the title. In actual fact, the book turns out to less about politics as power and more about stakeholders as networks of relationships. (Perhaps a case of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover?’)

If that was the first surprise, then the second is that it takes until page 96 before stakeholder theory – developed by Ed Freeman in 1984 – is introduced and explored. Stakeholder academics may also be perturbed by the absence of any reference such classic (and surely highly relevant) models as the power-legitimacy-urgency model of Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997, 1999).

But perhaps I am being overly harsh. The cover flap describes this as a “how to” book, so it must be aimed at the practitioner, rather than the scholarly market. Through this lens, it scores somewhat better. The style and presentation is accessible, with good use of bullets, tables and illustrations. The Introduction also works well as an executive summary for busy managers.

Stakeholder Politics is structured into 11 chapters, including an introduction to sustainable development, several chapters on social capital and social performance measurement, two case studies (from Peru and Papua New Guinea) and various takes on stakeholder mapping. There is a good reference list for researchers and copious endnotes for the die-hard reader.

Despite its presumed commercial target market, the book is quite dense and it is hard to imagine a busy manager reading it from cover to cover. The chapters are distinct enough to allow dipping into areas of interest. Even so, the modelling and network mapping, which looks and feels a bit like something out of a PhD, will take some getting into.

For the persistent reader, however, there are many insights to be gained (mostly into stakeholder processes) and enough tantalising ‘tools’ to take the stakeholder discussion beyond the superficial mapping stage that it has been languishing at for so many years now. More case studies would have been desirable, but there is enough to illustrate the methodologies proposed, including the author’s “Stakeholder360” social capital measuring system.

Reviewed by:

Wayne Visser, Founder Director, CSR International
First published in Ethical Performance.

Tags: capital, Ed Freeman, Ethical, Greenleaf, managers, market, politics, power-legitimacy, Robert Boutilier, stakeholder, sustainable development
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Ethical Ideology and Ethical Judgements in the Portuguese Accounting Profession

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Author

P.A. Marquez, J. Azevedo-Pereira

Date

June 2009

Region/Country

Portugal

Description

This study examines the attitudes of Portuguese chartered accountants to the ethical questions that arise in their professional activity.
276 accountants completed a questionnaire that was circulated during two conferences.
Respondents’ ethical judgments did not differ significantly based on their ethical ideology, supporting the idea that ethical ideology is not an important determinant of ethical judgments.

Key findings

Gender seems to be the most important determinant of ethical judgments.
Age, however, was shown to have little influence on ethical judgments.
Against expectations, men evidenced significantly stricter judgments than women in two of the five ethical scenarios presented in the questionnaires.
Neither gender nor education had an effect on accountants’ sense of relativism.
Age, however, was demonstrated to be significant, suggesting that, as experience is gained, chartered accountants are less willing to follow rules.
Older accountants also generally expressed greater leniency in the ethical scenarios.
Relativism may have a stronger effect on ethical judgments than idealism, but the results from this study were not conclusive.

More information

Journal of Business Ethics (2009), 86, 227-242

Tags: accountants, education, Ethical, gender, idealism, ideology, judgment, leniency, relativism
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Organizational Leadership, Ethics and the Challenges of Marketing Fair and Ethical Trade

Monday, June 15th, 2009

journalethics5

Author

W. Low, E. Davenport

Date

June 2009

Region/Country

Global

Description

This article critically evaluates current developments in marketing fair trade-labelled products and ‘‘no sweat’’ manufactured goods.
Specifically, the authors look at the concept of mission-driven organizations pursuing leadership roles in developing affinity relationships to promote fair and ethical trade and developing ethical spaces.
The authors argue that both the fair trade and ethical trade movements increasingly rely on strategies for bottom-up change, converting consumers ‘‘one cup at a time’’.

Key findings

In response to the question, “What sort of organization do we want to be?” a range of organizations are responding to this question by restructuring their operations so that their mission is reflected in ethical practices throughout their operations, including product sourcing and product sales.
Values-driven Businesses may willingly engage in selling the product and the message of fair trade, mainstream businesses are much more likely to be worried about their own market share than they are about promoting the transformative message about international trade reform’’.
With respect to the fair trade movement, that an ‘‘Alternative High Street’’ is needed to counter corporate appropriation of the convenient elements of the movement and the ‘‘Clean-washing’’ of its transformational message in order to create a valuable market niche.
A variation on the idea of ‘‘affinity marketing’’ is proposed as the means to grow ethical consumption. Affinity marketing refers to ‘‘a unique exchange process, in which value-expressive products and services are marketed to reference groups with cohesiveness, common interests, and/or values, usually in return for the group’s endorsement, as marketing leverage to its individual members of constituency.’’
Thus, affinity marketing involves ‘‘customers who already have sympathy to one brand (be it commercial, not-for-profit or another membership organization) being sold another service, by another organization, with the endorsement of the affinity organization and using its channels of communication.”
The critical feature of affinity marketing is that ‘‘products or services are targeted at an identifiable group of consumers who have an emotional or psychological bond with a particular cause or organization’’
The authors suggest that the fair trade and ethical trade movements can use this strategy to build business-to-business (B2B) affinity relationships that take us out of the realm of individualized shopping for a better world and into a sphere of mission-led policy and practice.
The scale of public sector spending means that public organizations offer many prospects for developing affinity marketing relationships with fair and ethical trade organizations.
A major challenge facing efforts to expand on ethical spaces through affinity relationships in public and non-profit sectors is an ingrained culture of financial management that adheres to a narrow concept of ‘‘value-for-money’’.

More information

Journal of Business Ethics (2009), 86, 97-108

Tags: bond, cohesiveness, common interests, Consumer, Ethical, faire trade-labelled, international, leadership, marketing, non-profit, organization, transformational
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Is Corporate Responsibility Converging?

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Author

S.Chen, P.Bouvain.

Date

May 2009

Region/Country

US/UK/ Australia/Germany

Description

This study aims to move beyond the superficiality of previous analyses of CSR reports by using textual analysis software and a more robust statistical method to more objectively and reliably compare the CSR reports of firms in different industries and countries.
The sample comprises leading companies (based on national stock market indices) from the US, UK, Australia and Germany. The analysis examines whether or not membership of the Global Compact makes a difference to CSR reporting and is overcoming industry and country specific factors that limit standardization.
Businesses from different countries differ significantly in the extent to which they promote CSR and the CSR issues they choose to emphasise in their reports.

Key findings

In US company reports, a relatively high importance is placed on community and employee-related issues.
In UK company reports employee and community-related issues remain significant, but are related to health and safety issues.
The UK, which has a strong consumer awareness of ethical sourcing issues, displays much greater emphasis on customer and supplier-related issues in their CSR reports.
In Australian company reports communities are discussed in connection with customers.
German company reports are shown to be quite clearly distinct from US, UK, and Australian company reports. While employees remain central, there is a much clearer emphasis on social and environmental issues.
In an examination of the relative importance (as measured by frequency of mention in the CSR reports) of each of the six areas of CSR (workers, customers, suppliers, community, environment, and society), countries showed significant differences in the mention of society, community, and customer issues.
There was some overlap in the use of the terms ‘social’ and ‘community’ with German companies preferring the use of the word ‘social’ while US, UK, and Australian companies preferring the use of the word ‘community’ to describe similar activities.
However, the differences appear to be more than semantic. For instance, one issue that was discussed at length by several German companies, but rarely by companies in the other countries was political dialogue and actively participating in the political process in their home country to bring about social change.
Another significant difference between countries was in the use of third-party assurance of CSR reports. Here the UK stood out clearly as the country where third-party assurance was most frequently used and the US as the country where third-party assurance was least frequently used.
There were few significant differences among industries. Industry made a significant difference only to frequency of mention of the environment.
Multinationality of the company also had a significant effect on mention of the environment.
Global Compact membership was shown to make a significant difference in mention of environmental and worker-related issues but not for mention of society, community, suppliers, and customer issues.
Global Compact membership was also shown to have a significant effect on the inclusion of measured CSR performance statistics in the report.

More information

Journal of Business Ethics (2009), 87, 299-317

Tags: Community, csr, employee, environment, Ethical, global compact, industry, multinationals, political, social change, society, software, suppliers
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Ethical Issues Relating To The Health Effects of Long Working Hours

Monday, April 20th, 2009

journalethics

Author

A.E. Dembe

Date

April 2009

Region/Country

USA

Description

This article reviews the ethical implications of long and unconventional working hours, particularly from the points of view of employee health and wellbeing, and the risk of errors arising from fatigue.
The paper uses the context of proposed changes to US legislation as a framework for the discussion.
There is now abundant evidence that working in jobs requiring especially long hours or nonstandard shifts raises workers’ risks for injury and disease.

Key findings

Working overtime increases the likelihood for on-the-job injuries by 61%, evening shifts carry a 38% greater chance of job injury and night shifts a 31% increased risk of job injury compared with working in a conventional day shift.
Other studies have confirmed that long working hours and shift work raises the odds for workers to be injured, to be fatigued, stressed, and to suffer from a range of serious medical ailments.
Health problems created by excessive working hours can have spillover effects for employees such as diminished performance, mistakes in judgment, and errors in performing work activities.
These spillover effects are perhaps most worrisome when the affected worker is employed in a position that is critical to public safety and welfare, such as health care, law enforcement, air traffic control, nuclear power generation, firefighting, and other emergency services.
The perils associated with schedules that endanger workers might also end up jeopardizing others in the society.
The ethical considerations inherent in demanding work schedules are further complicated by the distinctive employment context in which the risks arise. In most employment contexts, employees are only partially in control of their work activities and their working environment.
A number of areas of special ethical concern are raised in the paper. These include: Mandatory overtime and the possibility of coercion – In the US It has been estimated that 27.7% of full-time workers are in jobs that potentially require mandatory overtime, and that over 76% of those (21.1% of full-time workers) end up actually working mandatory overtime schedules in any particular month.
Possible deception in overtime arrangements – A related concern arises from the potential to devise schedules designed specifically to circumvent overtime pay requirements or mandatory overtime regulations.
Limits to voluntary assumptions of risk – To the extent it exists, hazard pay generally does not adequately compensate for the additional risks incurred by the affected workers.
Effects on the welfare of others – A number of professions, including health care and public safety, involve working patterns which, when the cause of illness or fatigue, can have severe consequences for others. This has included catastrophic accidents such as oil spills and major transportation accidents.
Inequitable distribution of employment opportunities – Generally speaking, it is cheaper for an organisation to hire fewer workers to work longer hours. This has significant implications for gender and age balance in the workplace, as well as employee wellbeing.

More information

Journal of Business Ethics (2009), 84, 195-208.

Tags: coercion, employee, Ethical, health, overtime, public safety, welfare, wellbeing, working hours
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CSR Professionals Survey

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Author

Acona/Acre Resources/Ethical Performance

Date

April 2009

Region:Country

Description

A new survey of UK executives working in corporate social responsibility has been carried out by CSR consultancy Acona, Acre Resources and Ethical Performance. 350 UK CSR professionals took part in the research. CSR professionals are ‘overwhelmingly happy’ with their positions, commanding significant salaries and experiencing a greater degree of job security than many of their fellow managers.

Key findings

Median salaries for in-house CSR executives stand at £45,000 to £50,000.
Eight out of 10 respondents claiming they were happy with their current role and 97% stating that they would recommend CSR positions to other people.
The high levels of job satisfaction are likely to be attributed to the ‘deep personal interest’ that many CSR executives have in environmental and ethical issues.
Despite the onset of recession, the growing importance of CSR to many firms meant that a relatively high proportion of executives still feel secure in their roles.
Over half of respondents said they felt just as secure now as they did a year ago, while 15 per cent said they felt more secure.
Only 11% of all CSR professionals have a specific professional CSR qualification. However, some evidence is emerging that postgraduate qualifications are becoming the norm for the more senior and better paid roles, especially in-house.
The survey also revealed that while CSR departments can have responsibility for equality issues, they appear to be subject to much the gender pay gap as other parts of the business.
The research found that while 62% of respondents were female, women only occupied 49% of director level roles and only a third of jobs with salaries of over £100,000.
London and the South East were the most common work locations for respondents. Overall, 64% worked in London and 14% selected South East.
80% of consultants were based in London compared to 58% within in-house roles.
Just over 40% of respondents having a global focus in their work and a similar percentage identifying the UK (or particular regions of the UK) as their area of operation.

More information

The CSR Salary Survey 2008/2009

Tags: consultancy, corporate social responsibility, Environmental, Ethical, executives, job satisfaction, recession, secure
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