In 2012, Apple became a high profile example of corporate irresponsibility. Its supplier, Foxconn, a Chinese electronics manufacturer was accused of, low wages, excessive hours, safety breaches and even the suicide of it’s workers. This was quite a change from the clean, white and responsible image Apple portrays in their marketing.
For corporations with global supply chains, often in developing countries, does Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) present our best means of holding big business accountable for it’s social impact?
Creating a toolset for the market:
S-LCA has emerged as a new tool in the analysis of social impacts, developing it’s own data inventories such as the Social Hotspots Database. These inventories provide valuable generic information on potential social ‘hotspots’ based on detailed country level commodity trading and socio-economic data. Aggregating information from over 400 sources, the Social Hotspots Database is the most comprehensive source of its type detailing labour and human rights, governance, health and safety, across 57 economic sectors, and 227 regions worldwide.
Although these data inventories represent an important step toward market readiness and the social accountability of business, could the practical benefits of S-LCA be undermined by their use? How should this wealth of social life cycle data be used appropriately?
Consider Bangladesh. In 2013, the growing Bangladeshi garments industry suffered two horrific failures in corporate social responsibility. In April, 1,200 workers were killed in a building collapse, while in November protesting workers set fire to a 10-story factory causing millions of dollars in damage.
While these events and a history of instability, could mark Bangladesh as a country where labour exploitation is highly likely, there are of course exceptions. Alternatively, in a seemingly low risk country like Mauritius, labour protection laws and workers rights are not extended to migrants.
So it is clear that what we observe in trends and averages may not always reflect reality. The Social Hotspots Database provides a generic country level baseline and an extremely useful scoping tool, but this convenience should not come at the cost of sourcing product specific data to correctly inform our sustainability strategies and actions.
For companies concerned with the social impacts of their production, could the use of inventory data (based on trends and averages) create an incentive to favour ‘safe’ countries for the sake of product certification? And if they did, how many highly constructive or demonstrative projects would be foregone in countries that most need assistance?
There will always be a cost reduction and temptation to utilise inventory data where possible. To educate practitioners on it’s use, continued comparative research between observed and inventory data will create a better understanding in industry.
How can we communicate S-LCA to consumers?
Product labelling of sustainability attributes have seen substantial growth and uptake in recent times. Existing sustainability labels, which provide valuable and accessible information to consumers, cannot match S-LCA in their comprehensiveness across all relevant life cycle stages and issues. For example:
- Fairtrade – engages with stakeholder interactions to ensure fair wages and prices for workers at the raw materials production level, but does not consider the impacts of usage and disposal
- Ethical Consumer ratings – which account for internal processes and some upstream supply chain production, but neglect the impacts of product usage and disposal.
It is consumers who ultimately have the power to hold companies responsible for their social and environmental impacts, and while S-LCA is a valuable tool for business to identify issues in their supply chain, as yet it has no clear method of communication with consumers. To a consumer, product credentials are most useful when they can be compared across all competitors in a comparative sense. A single product S-LCA considered in isolation cannot be used to fully inform consumption.
As consumers, transparency within the market should be demanded, and in today’s global supply chains, S-LCA represents the most comprehensive means of assessing the social impact of a product. The development of labelling and greater communication with the consumer should be a priority of S-LCA and would surely drive faster change as we see big business in competition for the ethical consumer.