ABSTRACT
A critical perspective emerging from the 'Earth Summit' at Rio concerned the non-sustainability of the pattern of trade. Links between 'environmental trade', such as in pollutants, and trade in goods and services were stressed. Equity, seen as a prerequisite to long-term survival, requires that the terms of trade take greater account of human and environmental needs. Most interesting, perhaps, was the need to identify criteria that each stakeholder group wished to use during the auditing process, which was quite unlike financial or environmental audits. Social auditing is the process of defining, observing, and reporting measures of the ethical behaviour and social impact of an organisation in relation to its aims and those of its 'stakeholders'. Economics leaves little room to explore the complex texture of ethical behaviour. The approach adopted was permissive in allowing a range of cognitive statements from stakeholders to coexist with market data.
