Six months after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Bangladesh, more than 15 brands whose clothes were produced there have reportedly yet to agree to pay long-term compensation to injured workers or the families of the 1,129 people who died. The Clean Clothes Campaign, an international alliance group of labour unions and NGOs, has written to brands that include the Spanish fashion company Inditex which owns the retailer Zara, and the US supermarket Walmart, both of which had sold clothing made within Rana Plaza, calling on them to help victims of the disaster. The UK retailer Primark has announced that it will continue to pay wages for victims and their families for another three months and has built a database of just over 3,600 people who were affected by the collapse. Katherine Kirk, Primark's ethical trading director, said that a number of people who are due compensation are still to be registered but that Primark is working with a local bank to sign up people to bank accounts to enable support to be paid. (The Guardian; BBC)
Corporate Reputation
UK companies and religious leaders aim to restore faith in business
200 business executives from companies including Barclays, the US investment firm BlackRock and Unilever are meeting religious leaders at a London conference today in a move to restore firms’ reputations for ethical behaviour. Delegates at the conference will discuss the Blueprint for Better Business initiative, which was launched in 2012 after business leaders approached Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster and the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, to provide a forum to debate the issue. The initiative is focused on drawing up practical principles that can be applied to business situations and built into leadership training programmes. The draft principles urge businesses to “genuinely aim to promote the good of society as a whole through the provision of goods and services that benefit society; never use stakeholders, and society as a whole, as a mere means to business success.” Unilever is currently testing the principles through an internal working group and the initiative hopes to start signing up other companies to the principles early next year. (Financial Times*)
Environment
Report: Businesses can cut transport emissions 90% with biogas
According to a report produced by the US NGO Energy Vision, businesses that use renewable natural gas (RNG) created from food and agricultural waste can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90 percent. The report, Turning waste into vehicle fuel: Renewable natural gas – a step by step guide for communities, lays out a roadmap for businesses and cities to assess the potential for producing renewable natural gas. Over 60 million tonnes of food and agricultural is produced in the US each year and the report, which was funded by the US Department of Energy, urges businesses and cities to use existing biogas technologies to reduce transport emissions. The report follows the announcement earlier this month that the US firm Clean Energy Fuels had become the first company to commercially distribute a RNG fuel made from waste streams that include landfills, dairies and sewage plans, at 35 petrol stations in California. (Environmental Leader)
Hong Kong Government to replace polluting vehicles
The Hong Kong Government has announced that it will offer HK$12 billion ($1.5 billion) in subsidies to replace old diesel vehicles, in a bid to address air pollution and reduce smog. Christine Loh, the undersecretary for the environment, said that the scheme had been developed through consultation with businesses and heavy industry. According to a study by the Hong Kong NGO the Clean Air Network, smog has been responsible for more than 1,600 deaths since January 2013. The move, which is part of the Hong Kong Government’s aim to cut emissions by 80 percent, will also involve a partnership between the Government and local companies to install converters on more than 20,000 older buses and taxis. (Bloomberg)
Consumers
Johnson & Johnson targeting consumer behaviour change
The US manufacturing firm Johnson & Johnson has launched a recycling campaign to encourage consumers to recycle bathroom products. The campaign, Care to Recycle, is reportedly the first time a multinational company has run a recycling awareness campaign exclusively on the social media site Tumblr. In a study conducted by the US marketing firm the Shelton Group, which was commissioned by Johnson & Johnson, only 20 percent of participants stated that they consistently recycle bathroom products, 22 percent reported they had never thought about recycling in the bathroom and 20 percent did not know that some bathroom products were recyclable. Paulette Frank, the vice president of sustainability at the firm, said that “we saw a very real opportunity to help reduce waste by educating people about recyclable bathroom items. With its active community of highly engaged content seekers, Tumblr seemed like the ideal platform to help spread the word about recycling in the smallest room of the house and how it can make a big difference to our planet.” (Sustainable Brands)
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