Broken Promises - `Aid Not Trade, ' a Play on the Body Shop `Trade Not Aid' Slogan. "Body Shop Gets the Aid in the Form of Native Images, " Says Dr. Terence Turner. "In Return, Natives Get Almost No Trade".

Every day businesses are faced with making decisions that can have far reaching effects within their organization and the communities in which their business are based. Company Q is one of these businesses. Recent decisions made within this company have demonstrated a trend that would suggest Company Q has a negative attitude toward social responsibility. This attitude can be evidenced by the closing of two stores in high-crime rate areas because they were consistently losing money, offering minimal amounts of health-conscious and organic foods despite high demand, and declining donations of day-old products rather than donating these items to the local area’s food bank due to concerns of fraud and stealing by employees.

An argument for a very limited approach to social responsibility for an athletic shoe company.

Primark, an Irish clothing retailer company was set up and headquartered in Dublin in 1969. Nowadays, there are over 250 stores across the United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe and the United States. Moreover, Primark operates with about 700 suppliers in China, India, Bangladesh, Turkey and Eastern Europe. Primark takes corporate social responsibility for the shareholders, owners, customers, suppliers as well as employees. Corporate social responsibility is that a company not only creates profits for the shareholders, but also undertakes the social responsibility for customers, employees and environment, including complying with business ethics, rights of workers and the rules of environmental protection. In order to develop continuously, corporate social responsibility plays an significant role in a company, which drives stakeholders have reliance on the company. This essay focuses on the ways in which Primark taking its duty to society and the ways in which the company should have done better.

Admittedly, more and more brands and retailers are taking action to respond to the ethical and sustainable issues. From the consumer side, there is an apparent growth of ethical purchase. Kate Spade, as an American luxury fashion brand, undergoes ethical enhancements of its manufacturing process in Africa. However, instead of transforming this approach into a charitable purpose, Kate Spade chooses to retain its high-quality standard and beautiful products to attract customers . This report will first focus on the elements Kate Spade practically supports in Africa, then review the performances of their program, using a comparable retailer’s moral action as a comparison. We will eventually conclude by examining the positive and negative impacts of such a policy for Kate Spade.

Woolworths believes their existence is directly linked to the global environment as well its community. In carrying out its activities, Woolworths believes it must maintain respect for human dignity, and strive towards a society where the global environment is protected. Woolworths are committed in understanding how people feel, their fears and their needs and aligning the business’s focus into addressing those needs in order to build both loyalty from customers and effort from employees (ICAA, 2011).

4. How sustainable is The Body Shop’s success? In particular, what should Roddick do about the emerging problems and expected difficulties of developing its operations in the United States?

After many years of customer requests, Company Q began selling a very limited amount of health-conscience and organic products. When local food banks asked for donations of day-old products, management declined due to worries over employee theft and fraud. If Company Q had looked at this request through the eyes of a socially responsible business, they could have donated the left over products to those in need, which in turn, would have given the perception that Company Q is concerned about the people in the neighborhood. When the residents of a neighborhood see or feel that a company is giving back to the community, they are more willing to patron the business. “The actions of a company color the perceptions, behavior, and well-being of its customers, prospects, and the community at large, affecting its own health as well as that of the world around it.” (McKee, 2012) Employees who work in the grocery store would also feel a sense of pride that their employer is giving back to the people who spend their hard earned money at their store. Employees who are happy and proud of where they work have less

In this report I will be talking about how my chosen organisation, which is Primark, uses ethical issues to consider in its every day operational activities. Primark may not have some ethical issues that I will be discussing about in this report, but I will talk in detail about how they could use them, issues in their business. I will be explaining how Primark’s way of selling affects ethical issues and will be discussing about the things they need to be aware of whilst selling their clothes.

"Public Disclosure of the Sweatshop Practices of American Multinational Garment/Shoe Makers/Retailers: Impacts on Their Stock Prices." Competition & Change, vol. 7, no. 1, Mar. 2003, p. 23. EBSCOhost, cucproxy.cuchicago.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,cpid&custid=s8419239&db=bsh&AN=10077067&site=ehost-live. The article gives details about the anti-sweatshop movement such as the time it started in the 1990’to where the movements affected. The article contains a list of the specific occurrences of what happened at a retail store whether negative or positive to demonstrate the change caused by movements and legal action. There were many political involvements when discussing sweatshops such as the Clinton administration creating apparel partnerships to combat the conditions of sweatshops. There are also stockholders introducing no sweat labor codes that ultimately help not only the workers in sweatshops but the stockholders as well. There is the introduction of specific store names such as Walmart as well as the countries affected by the stores being named to target the emotional view of the public. The article discusses and mentions all the positive effects that movements and social action have created as well as the cause of laws that help prevent abuse at such a large scale to continue to

Throughout the article, Jeffcott begins by assuring that workers of the global supply chains deserve improved wages, good working conditions as well as a better quality of life for those working in sweatshops. In detail, he describes the conditions they work in, are for long hours and for such little money. The labor environment are more approachable in third world countries which is why companies move to other countries where the demand of the product is made faster and cheaper but, of course in harsh conditions for their employees. He then uses logos to persuade the audience in a logical path as he reveals, “We should worry a little less about our shopping decisions, and a bit more about what we can do to support the young women and girls..” (Jeffcott, 2007) In other words, he suggests that if we simply stop buying these products we will stop creating work for those brands and prevent the women along with the children to work under these conditions. Persuasion becomes appealing because Jeffcott is trying to show how easily we can prevent abusive conditions on the women and children that work in sweatshops.

The trend of buying local has continued to draw traction in Canadian markets, suggesting Canadians are willing to pay a premium for quality products made in Canada. In an attempt to align themselves with this trend CG and Roots have maintained a strong Canadian heritage. Furthermore, research suggests that nine out of ten Canadians are willing to pay more for clothing produced ethically. Whereas Roots has adapted well to this trend, CG has not, which may present social pressures

Watching the documentary, doing the project and listening to the discussion, I realized that we are a part of the exploitation of workers. Having clothes are nice but realizing that people are exploited is awful. Companies’ should strive harder to make sure that it doesn’t happen. If you are running a multi-million dollar company, why can’t you pay a little extra to accommodate others? I would rather support a business that pays their workers well, and gives them protection. We are competing while polluting people’s homes at the same time. How does that sound? Sounds like America and Capitalism to me.

The barrier I have selected is the greenwashing mindset. According to the article in “The Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics”, “the greenwashing mindset—otherwise known as companies exaggerating trivial environmental changes to products, services, and processes—pervades many discussions of the environment. Characteristic of this mindset is the view that business could never act on values other than profit maximization, and that whenever a company engages in something that looks like it might be good for the environment, people should be deeply skeptical. In reality, this mindset asserts that the company is probably trying to make money, create a public relations smoke screen, avoid some future cost, or engage in other narrowly self-interested schemes.”

Elaine: “I’m certain you’ll disagree with me. But the fundamental thought of Wilkin’s was to increase the profit of his company by expanding the operations. This meant that he was aware of the steps he might have to take to attract foreign clients. One of the steps was that he’d promise the public, his company’s ‘giving back’. This would of course guarantee the people that Wilkin’s company would assist in social contributions (MacDonald) and environmental change.”

According to the article by Cardwell (2013), Tesco has said that there are over 40% of apple from Tesco that was dumped into the trash each year which is the total of 28,000 tonnes. In addition to the article, Tesco is trying to find the solutions for this leftover products. One of their solutions is to create an awareness campaign including advertising in order to raise an awareness to the society about this problem (Cardwell, 2013). Moreover, Tesco has also tried to reduce electricity consumption. According to the organization that studied about people’s living condition in Europe called EMCC (2013), Tesco is responsible for 5.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions in the UK, which its main cause is due to a high electricity consumption. Therefore, they have come up with a strategy of reducing their consumption. They have come up with a project called “Zero-Carbon business”, which its idea is to try to make as least of carbon emission as possible, even if their expense will increase (EMCC, 2013). In addition, to EMCC (2013), one of the ways that Tesco decided to do is to work collaboratively with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in order to invent the new technologies that can help companies reduce their carbon emissions. However, there are still many people who believe that Tesco has not done enough to helping the environment. According to the