ABSTRACT
NIKE NOW HAS STRINGENT REQUIREMENTS ABOUT PAY AND working conditions in its suppliers’ third-world factories. It has invested heavily in verification systems to ensure that these conditions are being met. This came about because of highly publicised NGO (non-governmental organisation) and media campaigns about the poor conditions in suppliers’ factories. Shell is now committed to sustainable development and to triple-bottom-line reporting against environmental and social as well as business performance. These are now integral to Shell’s business principles and strategy. Shell’s commitments were the result of an intense, worldwide examination, led by top management, of the changing expectations that stakeholders had of a global business such as Shell. This examination was prompted by the Greenpeace-led campaign against the company’s plans to dispose of the Brent Spar platform in the North Sea which generated media and political pressure, as well as criticism of a perceived low-level response to the execution of Nigerian activist Ken Sara-Wiwa; and — probably most significantly — to Shell employees consequently expressing concerns about the company’s values and behaviour. The world-famous De Beers diamond house supported an industry-wide ‘mine to finger’ certification system — now known as the Kimberley Process — to answer a media and NGO campaign against ‘blood diamonds’, which alleged that income from diamond mining was being siphoned off to finance bloody civil wars in Africa: allegations which, if allowed to fester, might have threatened consumer demand for diamonds (see Step 2, page 99).
