One of the issues that brands entering China are coming to more fully apprecaite is the fact that as they transition from a export led model to one meant to capture the local Chinese market, the costs and risks of their supply chain are going to increase.  That unlike before, where a firm could compartmentalize and seperate the secrets of their supply chain, skeletons are being exposed at a far higher rate, and the costs of exposure are far higher.

It is the core message of my recent article for Supply Chain Asia, and I encourage you to download the full 5 page article when you have the time.

Hello everyone.

As some of you know, for the last 9 months I have had the privilege of teaching a project based course to 193 MBA students on sustainability at the China Europe International Business School. Split into 35 teams, they have been focused their research projects across 25 separate issues, and for the last 2 months have been working on developing strategic plans with corporations, NGOs, and social enterprises in China to turn the theoretical into the tangible.

But, I want to take this further. .. I want you to hire them as your interns, bring them in-house for 2 months, and let them to help you understand the opportunities you have to improve on your current products, processes, or partnerships.

CEIBS Responsible Leadership Program (RLP) Summer Internship Program

The question of whether companies should embrace sustainable business practices that will continue the business to be profitable while at the same time, address community needs and stakeholders’ interests isn’t just a question of moral obligations anymore. It has become one where it makes good business sense to do so. In addition, the gradual change in people’s values is a key compelling reason for companies to re-evaluate the way they operate.

In light of both the internal and external pressures that companies face in evolving their business practices that address the sustainability issues, the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) recognizes that future business leaders should be equipped with the knowledge, skill sets and drive to help meet these needs.  The School has since launched a full-year class, “Sustainability and Responsibility Leadership” for its current cohort of students.

Over the last year, 190 MBA students at CEIBS have enrolled in this course. They have researched and managed projects on more than 25 of China’s most pressing issues. They include:

• Market landscape and entry strategies for green building technologies, smart grid, water filtration, e-waste management, and cold chain logistics
• Business plans for improving small scale CDM project funding, food labeling, organic food and clothing, and natural cosmetics
• Capacity development for community enterprises focused on elderly care, migrant education, urban poverty alleviation programs and assisting persons with disabilities

Why Hire a Summer CEIBS RLP Student?
CEIBS RLP students are trained to think strategically to understand market and regulatory landscape. They have also been taught to conduct stakeholder mapping and partnership development. Bringing their previous experience in human resources, operations, finance and marketing, they have brought the projects to fruition.

CEIBS is providing an opportunity for both these students and companies to be engaged for two months in building and improving a current product, process or partnership that aim to address the changing business environment.

How Can Hiring a RLP Intern Help Your Company?
The most tangible means for CEIBS RLP students to work with your company is to evaluate the risks that are brought about from changes in regulations, stakeholders and the public. They can help research current opportunities to develop a new product, service and/or embark in a new partnership that will have direct positive impact for your company, customers, partners and community.

Sample projects could include (but are not limited to):

• Analyzing cleantech market applications and investment opportunities
• Identification and research of new sustainable products and services in China
• Market entry strategies for foreign products and services within the sustainability sector
• Consumer and branding studies for consumer focused green products
• Industry level regulatory, stakeholder, and risk analysis
• Community partnership development as part of a CSR outreach program
• Lifecycle analysis and strategy construction related to waste management and reduction

What are the requirements of hosting an RLP Intern?
As graduate students at China’s top MBA program, CEIBS’ students look for internships where they can truly provide the expertise and value add that your firm currently lacks. They look forward to internships that are strategic in nature, and at the same time be hands-on in the project(s) that they are assigned to. CEIBS also expect the same as well.

The duration of the internship is two months, starting from early July and ending late August 2010.

Note: Some students might be more flexible in their availability depending on their time and location of their internship.

Internships should be paid positions, with work related expenses reimbursed.

How To Get Started
To learn more about this opportunity, please see the list of issues and projects that the students are currently undertaking. Following which, please download the form where we will need you to provide a brief description of the position and contact information where we can reach you. Please email the completed form at rlpinternships @ collectiveresponsibility.org.

For more information of this program, please contact:
Rich Brubaker, Visiting Professor of Responsibile LEadership, CEIBS and Founder of Collective Responsibility

Does sustainability mean the same to all?

Growing up in America, getting CPR certified was something that everyone could do should they want to.

following the 5.12 earthquake I thought about this more and more, especially as many of the volunteers who showed up in Sichuan did so without basic knowledge of first aid.

It is encouraging to see that Ruijin Hospital and the Luwan Government are now making it possible to learn CPR in Shanghai.

When writing the post The Difficulty of Evaluating CSR Reports, I had not begun reading Sinopec's 2007 Sustainability Report.

Had I, I would have had another example of just how wide the spectrum can be.

CD News has posted a very interesting interview of Dr. Simon Zadek, Chief Executive of AccountAbility discussing the role of corporate responsibility in today's world.

A new report from Labour Behind the Label, a pressure group, has come out in the UK, ranking retailers for their 'sweatshop' performance. Since the web-site seems to be inaccessible in China, have a read of this comment from the Independent on the report. Apparently:

Some very large retailers admit, in the words of the report, they "have no plans to do anything about garment employees' poverty wages." Step forward Clarks, Debenhams, French Connection, House of Fraser, John Lewis, Laura Ashley, Matalan, River Island and Levi Strauss.

If you are not British, you might know who some of those companies are, but they do represent a very sizable portion of the retail market in the UK.

For the report to include Levi Strauss in that list seems to be ludicrous, as Levi Strauss have definitely be doing a lot in this area for several years. Apparently a number of other companies did not did not 'respond to the survey or make any information public', including Burberry (who I know for a fact are leading the way as luxury retailers go) -the website I looked at for Burberry has plenty of information. I am thus very dubious as to the quality of the data in this report.

update:

click here to download the report if you are inside China.

Having read the report, I can reveal the report focuses on 'Living Wages' and thus deems paying minimum wage as not being good enough. The entire report is around trying to get companies to pay a 'living wage' to the employees of their contract factories, which should be decided by workers themselves (this is not how the UK minimum wage is decided though!). The minimum wages the workers get in China are living wages. In fact most of those workers are able to save money to send home. Other countries might be different; in which case the report should compare minimum wages with 'living wages'.

Instead of lambasting companies for not paying a 'living wage', the report should focus on lambasting companies for not meeting other, more important, requirements, such as Minimum wage, having labour contracts, health and safety practices, environmental pollution and all the other laws these contract factories are breaking. Meeting the minimum law is, yes, only the minimum, but that is still what is needed. Beyond that, it is up to the market and laws to change; not necessarily the role of the buyers (unless they chose to, to distinguish their brand).

Factory and labor conditions have been a hot topic in China for a while. It peaked last summer when product safety recalls focused the spotlight on China, and the recent implementation of the labor law has looked to push reforms into the system that protect industry.

Labor conditions and code of conduct have traditionally been a black hole for CSR reporting. Companies rarely highlight the fact that they have problems proactively, and if these issues are reported on it is because someone was caught doing something wrong.

Dell has released their 2008 CSR report (h/t Environmental Leader) and it has a lot of China content in its 112 pages (40 mentions to be exact), something to be expected as Dell has a large investment in an operation in Xiamen.

For those looking to gain a sense of what Dell finds important as a company, you only need to look at the website itself where Michael Dell lists 4 of their operational achievements/ focuses (2 philanthropic focuses are also listed outside of the below):

• Pledging to make Dell’s operations carbon neutral beginning in 2008 .
• Committing to producing energy-efficient products that deliver the most performance per watt for our customers .
• Launching ReGeneration.org , a global meeting place that enables people to learn about going “green,” share ideas and protect the environment .
• Continuing our focus on environmentally responsible product design .

As you can see, all of these goals are environmentally related, and all very worthy on their own right.

I am going to be interested to learn how they intend to achieve these goals (i.e. will carbon neutral be achieve through 100% solar panels or offsetting?  Are their efforts in product design focused on packaging alone, or are they looking to find ways for consumers to reduce their need to scrap a computer carcass every time their Intel chip dates itself?

China though adds another layer, and perhaps were Michael Dell to write a China report, his comments would reflect the fact that with nearly 80% of Dell's supplier spend in the region, labor conditions are as important as the environment.

Some highlights from their China supplier portion

• Dell brought in its tier 1 and 2 suppliers to a EICC (code of conduct) training session in Shanghai, with those sessions also including workshops on how to create effective manager/ employee relationships, how to mitigate and address child labor, and hiring diversely
• Another workshop was held in Shenzhen to address business process improvement and the EICC.
• Dell has put in place an internal citizen team that identifies high-risk suppliers, arranges site visits , and conducts ongoing evaluation and training

What comes into my mind when reading some of the endless articles of Chinese companies irresponsible practices in Africa, like this from Bloomberg news, is not the reasons why it is happening (of course there is pressure to keep costs low and pressure to access resources), not if Chinese companies are any worse than Western companies (either past or present) or other 'developing countries' companies (presumably not that much difference, but more Chinese companies out there and China is in the spotlight more) -but i wonder what the people running these companies are thinking.

I am a strong believer that people are inherently good, though also selfish. This thus means many people will put themselves over others, but if it is a matter of 'a bit more wealth' vs 'death for a child', i am mystified how people can, as human beings, make such a choice. The answer might be that such a choice never happens -that poor decisions create accidents, rather than people purposely acting irresponsibly knowing the impact it will have. Besides, if it is not forced labour, if it was so bad, wouldn't the workers find work elsewhere?

read on for more on China in Africa and the role of the Chinese government...