The State of Responsible Competitiveness
There’s been a spike in reports of corporate responsibility recently. UN News Service has one on how CSR helped companies "achieve and retain market leadership". Inter Press News has one on the "hazy" impact of the Global Compact. CSR Asia has one on how irresponsible countries may lose out on a USD$750 billion market. The Herald Tribune has one on the increase in toxic Chinese exports. CorpWatch (via the Inter Press News) has one on how investment firms are being pushed to act responsibly for a terrible mudslide from a gas project they funded. There’s also one in the Wall Street Journal about how Singapore’s Temasek Holdings is feeling international pressure to become more transparent, but I can’t link that because it’s a paid read and I’m too poor to pay for it. Thanks to Professor Montesano for showing it to me.
So, we have some good news and some bad news. Hopefully, over time, the good news will outnumber the bad news. We’ve got another piece of good news to encourage everyone with. Very nice folks at the Glasshouse Partnership (thanks!) have informed us of AccountAbility’s report, summarized on their website thus:
"The State of Responsible Competitiveness 2007: Making Sustainability Count in Global Markets is essentially a progress report on countries’ efforts in advancing competitiveness based on responsible business practices. It provides a unique health check on responsible globalization."
You can download the full PDF report, or take a look at their Responsible Competitiveness World Map, which ranks countries according to how responsibly competitive they are (makes sense, right?). Singapore didn’t come off too bad. We’re 15th. China is 87th (I’m quite scared of their food exports now and my father’s stopped eating snacks from there). Here’s a brief SEAsian view:
Malaysia is 25th, Thailand 37th, Indonesia 48th, Philippines 61st, Cambodia 99th. No news on Laos, Vietnam, Burma, Brunei and East Timor. How strange. Well, at least we know Singapore isn’t all that bad. 15th! Still, there is enormous space for improvement.
News reports on AccountAbility’s report can be found in The Guardian and in Reuters.
All right, folks, it’s lunchtime for me. I shall now go and chew my veggies and wonder from which country they came and which farmer or company grew them, and where my spoons and bowls and cups come from and if all these companies have been good or bad. Bon appetit!
"He’s making a list, and checking it twice…"
