A group of multinational retailers is to attempt to develop a single
global standard for ethical supply chain management that would replace
existing models and be used by all sectors.
The plan, a response to complaints that the business world is awash
with CSR-related codes and standards, will be taken forward by Comité
International d’Entreprises à Succursales (CIES), a Paris-based global
network of 400 retailers and suppliers in more than 150 countries.
Members backing the idea include the world’s four largest supermarket
chains – Carrefour, Metro, Tesco and Wal-Mart – which have combined
annual sales of over $500billion (£384bn).
Details are still sketchy but more information is expected this month
after CIES, which is also known as the Food Business Forum, has
discussed the project, which it is calling the Global Social Compliance
Programme. Migros, Switzerland’s largest retailer, is likely to take a
leading role in developing it.
CIES says a single, overarching programme is needed because ‘the number
of codes has proliferated and approaches have diverged’, leading
to ‘duplication of effort, confusion amongst suppliers, and
inefficiency’. It hopes the programme will become the main ethical
supply chain vehicle for businesses in all sectors and will offer ‘a
platform where all concerned parties can develop a shared and global
approach to the monitoring of working conditions in the global supply
chain, based on best practices’. It says the standard, although new,
‘will build on the very best of existing systems’.
Companies and their suppliers have long complained that the large
number of ethical supply chain codes and monitoring mechanisms, among
them the Ethical Trading Initiative, Social Accountability
International’s SA8000 workplace standard, and the Foreign Trade
Association’s Business Social Compliance Initiative, is confusing. Its
effort to remedy this is noteworthy chiefly for the size of the
organizations involved: CIES members have combined turnovers of $2000bn
a year, 4.5 million employees and 600,000 stores.
Nevertheless, reception has been mixed. Dan Rees, director of the
Ethical Trading Initiative, said the programme might limit duplication,
but Alice Tepper Marlin, chief executive of Social Accountability
International, told EP: ‘The proliferation of additional programmes –
in this case one designed by industry alone without the benefit of
stakeholder participation – is not constructive.’
Ineke Zeldenrust, founder of the Clean Clothes Campaign, said CIES
members would be better served by joining an existing supply chain
organization. ‘What we don’t need is another platform to discuss codes
or standards,’ she said.
