For retailers, the pioneering efforts of Levi Strauss and the Body Shop in building human rights criteria into their commercial decision-making have been echoed by the development of the Council on Economic Priorities' auditable social accountability standard, SA8000, and the United Kingdom's Ethical Trading Initiative. Both of these involve companies and non-governmental organizations in the development of principles to protect the human rights of the workforce down the supply chain. For investors, Shell and BP have led the way in explicitly spelling out new human rights principles for their companies and a commitment to their implementation. Rio Tinto has followed these major players on the world scene. The challenge will not go away.
Public scrutiny is recession-proof.
Companies will be judged as much on their principles as on their profitability, and, as some companies have already found to their cost, it is on the basis of principle that the brightest recruits will choose where to work. Inaction is not an option. The choice is between the exercise of corporate leadership in developing appropriate company policies, or being forced by public opinion to bring corporate practice into line with the values of society. The first would indicate that business recognizes that its growing influence in the world economy carries with it growing responsibilities. The second would threaten not just individual corporate reputation, but also jeopardize transnational companies' collective license to operate in the 21st century because their moral standards failed to match their economic reach.