Pay staff their tips, UK business secretary tells restaurant chains
UK business secretary Sajid Javid has insisted restaurants should pay tips to waiting staff, after a row broke out over high street chains removing money off their tips to cover “administrative and other business costs”. Javid’s intervention comes as restaurant chain Giraffe, owned by Tesco, said it will no longer take a 10 percent administration fee on tips; a practice unions said was hurting low-wage workers. A spokesman said, “This is a welcome step by Tesco, who are living up to their motto, and it shows leadership in the industry.” Other restaurants such as Cafe Rouge, Prezzo and Strada still charge a 10 percent administration fee, with Pizza Express, ASK Italian and Zizzi charging 8 percent. On Friday, French restaurant chain Côte faced a public backlash after it was claimed that an optional 12.5 percent service charge goes straight to its head office rather than being distributed among staff in individual restaurants, something the company denied. (The Guardian)
Circular Economy
H&M closes the loop with recycled denim range
Swedish clothing giant H&M is making strides towards its goal of creating a closed loop for fashion with the launch of a new denim range made from recycled and organic cotton. The new collection comprises 16 denim styles for men, women and children. Each item is made using cotton recycled from unwanted clothes donated by shoppers via designated containers in H&M stores. The clothing giant has moved to the forefront of the debate on sustainable fashion, driven by a company-wide target to use only sustainable cotton in its products by 2020. In the past year alone, the group has collaborated with rival retailers to develop a circular business model for producing polyester and cotton fibres; unveiled a ‘Conscious Denim’ range to tackle water and energy use; and worked with WWF to reduce the impact of textile production on the world’s water supplies. (Edie)
Scotland launches circular economy consultation
Scotland’s environment secretary, Richard Lochhead, has launched a consultation on creating a fully-fledged circular economy for the country. The consultation will run until 30th October 2015 and will explore the priorities for building a better circular economy and how products and materials can be kept in high value use for as long as possible. It lays out Scotland’s ambitions to improve on its Zero Waste Plan launched in 2010, by looking at potential actions on the key areas: design, reuse, repair, remanufacture, recycling, recovering value, communications, developing skills and measuring progress. Lochhead said: “In a world of finite resources, where global population and consumption growth are generating volatility and vulnerability in the supply of raw materials, the circular economy approach offers a new and exciting perspective.” (Edie)
Diversity
Silicon Valley startup helping Slack, Pinterest and Airbnb tackle diversity
Diversity in the US tech industry is dismal, with white men making up the vast majority of its workforce. That being said, tech companies are aware of the lack of diversity and some are actively taking steps to do something about it. Paradigm works with 13 tech startups, including the likes of Pinterest, Slack and Airbnb, to develop diversity strategies. Pinterest, for example, has set goals to increase hiring rates for full-time engineering roles to 30 percent female, and to interview at least one person from an underrepresented background as well as one woman for every open leadership position. Paradigm also hosts unconscious bias training programs with the goal of “[making] people aware of their inherent biases and give them tools to help minimize the negative outcomes of these biases,” according to Slack’s VP of Policy and Compliance, Anne Toth. (Tech Crunch)
Policy
Spain’s campaigning judge seeks change in law to prosecute global corporations
Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who made headlines around the world when he ordered the 1998 arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London, has set his sights on widening the definition of international law to target corporations that carry out economic or environmental crimes. Next month, he and other leading activists, judges and academics from a dozen countries will come together at a conference in Buenos Aires to push forward the idea that economic and environmental crimes be considered crimes against humanity, akin to torture or genocide. Actions that could be considered criminal, said Garzón, include those of the so-called vulture funds that undermine countries’ debt restructuring, or companies that turn a blind eye to the abusive exploitation of natural resources such as coltan, used in mobile phones, digital cameras and computers. (The Guardian)
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