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Corporate Social Responsibility Study on Responsible Supply Chain Management

06/04/2011

A key area of corporate social responsibility is the extent to which companies manage their supply chains responsibly.

This includes ensuring their suppliers and/or subsidiaries:

• respect basic rights, including labour rights (a living wage, freedom of association, work-life balance, etc.)
• guarantee health and safety at work
• do not use child or forced labour
• respect citizens in local communities.

The Commission's study "Responsible Supply Chain Management", potential success factors and challenges for addressing prevailing human rights and other CSR issues in supply chains of EU-based companies", looks at how European companies apply responsible supply chain management in practice.

The study focuses on three industrial sectors important to the EU (cotton, sugar from sugar cane, and mobile phones), in relation to five key CSR supply chain management issues (child labour, freedom of association and collective bargaining, an adequate standard of living, unfair price levels, and biodiversity).

The emerging results are correlated with the "Protect, Respect, Remedy" framework proposed by Professor John Ruggie, the UN Secretary-General's special representative on business and human rights.

The study includes some valuable research and a number of insightful case studies and recommendations.