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** New ** Getting Smarter: Ethical Trading in the Downturn

Report authors: Rosey Hurst, Dr Martin Buttle, Michelle Lehrer and Jonathan Sandars

High energy prices, food inflation, financial turmoil, recession and consumers tightening their belts – 2008 proved to be a challenging year.  The situation poses obvious but important questions for companies: how should they tackle the challenges of ethical trade and labour standards in a downturn?  Is work on upholding labour standards an optional extra to be discarded when times are hard?  Or have ethical issues moved to a point where they are considered core to operations?

Economic hard times present difficulties to all of us, from the CEOs of corporations to buyers, suppliers and the workers along the supply chain.  It is more important than ever to ensure that work on labour standards earns its place at the table, by demonstrating that products and services delivered by workers who have decent jobs provide better quality and value to businesses and consumers than those made by workers whose rights are infringed.  The challenge for everyone working in ethical trade is to develop ingenious and cost effective solutions which achieve the win-win of better business and better jobs all along the supply chain.  The task is getting harder, we need to get smarter.