Although it is not usual for Prime Ministers to make time in their busy schedules to meet activists, Sheik Hasina of Bangladesh made an exception to the rule and met a human rights activist from Sweden on a recent Monday evening. And that is not the only thing that makes this story extraordinary. The activist, [...]

Plusieurs grandes entreprises, dont Shell, seront présentes au Forum mondial de l’eau, qui se déroule à Marseille du 12 au 17 mars. Une présence qui pourrait déclencher quelques controverses concernant les impacts des entreprises sur la ressource en eau. Certaines d’entre elles tentent cependant d’appréhender ce nouveau risque. « Le management du risque-eau par les [...]

Bangladesh will almost double the minimum wage for its garment workers, a wage board official says, following months of violent protests over pay. It will rise from 1,662 taka ($25; £16) per month to 3,000 taka. The labour ministry is to formally announce the deal on Thursday. Workers wanted the rate, last raised in 2006, [...]

Laggards of the past often turn into leaders of the present. The case of Wal-Mart perfectly illustrates this paradoxical tendency, states a report published today by Geneva-based ethical reputation research firm Covalence – Covalence Retail Industry Report 2008. A year ago Wal-Mart was still last in Covalence EthicalQuote ranking calculated for 27 companies in the [...]

The issue of child labor strikes an emotional chord with a vast majority of consumers. When the BBC released a segment detailing the ongoing horrors of child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry in October 2007, massive public attention was drawn to the world’s third largest exporter of cotton and its unsettling child rights abuses. The [...]

H&M, the Swedish retailer, will open the first women-only department store in Saudi Arabia as part of moves to bring more women into the country’s workforce. The store, which will be H&M’s first in the country, will be staffed entirely by women in what is understood to be a landmark concession by the Saudi Government. [...]

Des chartes éthiques de moins en mois respectées par les grandes marques d’habillement. Que contiennent les habits que nous portons ? Quelles histoires humaines sont tissées dans ces vêtements ? Toutes les grandes marques de l’habillement ont mis en place des chartes éthiques, des codes de conduite qui bannissent en principe tout travail d’enfants, tout [...]

Marks & Spencer and Wal-Mart are driving the ethical agenda for the retail sector, according to a report published by Covalence, a Switzerland-based company operating an ethical quotation system. The Covalence Retail Industry Report 2007 refers to Marks & Spencer as a “proactive leader, appearing in many positive news items.” Wal-Mart is said to be [...]

Marks & Spencer and Wal-Mart drive the ethical agenda of Retailers, which has been dominated by environmental issues in 2006-2007, states a report released by Geneva-based ethical reputation research firm Covalence, Covalence Retail Industry Report 2007. Marks & Spencer is a proactive leader: it appears in many positive news items and maintains a remarkably low [...]

Two of Britain’s major high street retailers launched inquiries last night into allegations that factory workers who make their clothes in India are being paid as little as 13p per hour for a 48-hour week, wages so low the workers claim they sometimes have to rely on government food parcels. Primark, the UK’s second biggest [...]