Business in the Community has created a set of practical principles
that provide simple pointers to how companies can behave in a
responsible fashion in their chosen markets.
The Marketplace Responsibility Principles have been developed by a
working group of ten senior executives chaired by Mike Clasper, former
chief executive of international airports group BAA, and a number of
large companies have already signed up.
Among other things, they say companies should:
support vulnerable customersseek potential customers within excluded groupsactively discourage product misusetreat suppliers as partnersapply consistent standards.
The principles act as a basic framework for assessing marketplace
strategies, including relationships with regulators, and are supported
by examples of ‘the behaviours that support companies in managing these
relationships’ culled from 3M, Camelot, Fonebak, Marks & Spencer,
Tata and Waitrose.
A taskforce will produce, by February 2008, guidance on sustainable
product design, supply chain management and working with vulnerable
customers, possibly working on the latter with the UK’s All Party
Parliamentary Group on CSR.
