COMMIT!Forum
If Corporations Are Sustainable, Why Are Workers Dying? Tom Cecich, Chair, Board of Directors, Center for Safety and Health Sustainability
It is important to learn from recent tragedies such as the garment factory collapse in Savar, Bangladesh – a supplier to a significant amount of Western corporations, many seeking to be seen as “sustainable” – and better understand what corporations, consumers and investors can do about preventing such tragedies in the future. Western corporations wield tremendous economic influence with regard to the standards they expect their suppliers to not only adopt, but follow. Proof that corporations can be influenced to adopt and enforce standards at all levels of their operations can be found in sustainability reporting. The Center for Safety and Health Sustainability has recently found that many “sustainable” corporations listed in the Corporate Knights Global 100 report significant fatalities across their supply chains in their sustainability reports. One reported 49 fatalities in one year. The Center for Safety and Health Sustainability argues that a corporation should not be considered sustainable is it does not undertake appropriate measures to ensure the safety and health of its workers, including those in its supply chain. But corporations are overwhelmingly not using metrics that reflect transparency, nor are they using metrics that encourage proactive occupational safety and health practices. The Center has developed a list of key safety and health performance indicators to be used in sustainability-related reporting that address these shortcomings, promoting the use of occupational safety and health management systems, extending coverage to temporary or fixed duration contract workers, and increasing focus on workers for suppliers in the developing world. The Center has recently recommended that GRI consider these indicators so that it may improve the scope and global applicability of its G4 safety and health indicators and better enable organizations to improve their performance on worker safety and health.
If Corporations Are Sustainable, Why Are Workers Dying? Tom Cecich, Chair, Board of Directors, Center for Safety and Health Sustainability
It is important to learn from recent tragedies such as the garment factory collapse in Savar, Bangladesh – a supplier to a significant amount of Western corporations, many seeking to be seen as “sustainable” – and better understand what corporations, consumers and investors can do about preventing such tragedies in the future. Western corporations wield tremendous economic influence with regard to the standards they expect their suppliers to not only adopt, but follow. Proof that corporations can be influenced to adopt and enforce standards at all levels of their operations can be found in sustainability reporting. The Center for Safety and Health Sustainability has recently found that many “sustainable” corporations listed in the Corporate Knights Global 100 report significant fatalities across their supply chains in their sustainability reports. One reported 49 fatalities in one year. The Center for Safety and Health Sustainability argues that a corporation should not be considered sustainable is it does not undertake appropriate measures to ensure the safety and health of its workers, including those in its supply chain. But corporations are overwhelmingly not using metrics that reflect transparency, nor are they using metrics that encourage proactive occupational safety and health practices. The Center has developed a list of key safety and health performance indicators to be used in sustainability-related reporting that address these shortcomings, promoting the use of occupational safety and health management systems, extending coverage to temporary or fixed duration contract workers, and increasing focus on workers for suppliers in the developing world. The Center has recently recommended that GRI consider these indicators so that it may improve the scope and global applicability of its G4 safety and health indicators and better enable organizations to improve their performance on worker safety and health.