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A series of Canadian government-sponsored roundtables on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the extractive industries sector (e.g. mining, oil and gas) has resulted in a set of recommendations that could raise the bar on Canadian government oversight of corporate actions.
The consensus recommendations, outlined in a report from an Advisory Group made up of industry, trade union and civil society representatives, include measures to increase industry transparency and tie government assistance to performance on human rights standards.
Revealing Clothing, ETAG's second Transparency Report Card, picks up where Coming Clean on the Clothes We Wear left off. It assesses and compares public reporting on labour standards compliance by 30 top apparel retailers and brands selling clothes in the Canadian market, including Levi Strauss, Nike, adidas, H&M, Mountain Equipment Co-op, Roots, La Senza, Reitmans and 22 others. This year's report also discusses worker involvement, purchasing practices and sustainable compliance.
Coming Clean on the Clothes We Wear assesses and compares 25 retailers and brands based on the information they provide to the public on their efforts to address labour rights issues in their global supply chains.
In this brief but dense publication, Utting takes a critical look at the potential and limitations of voluntary approaches to business regulation. Rather than dismissing all forms of voluntary regulation as "simply part of a broader trend of ‘deregulation' promoted by neoliberalism," Utting views them as "part of a more complex process of ‘re-regulation'...."
The MFA Forum's Collaborative Framework for Guiding Post-MFA Actions identifies the roles and responsibilities of companies, governments, international institutions and trade unions and NGOs during the post-quota period.
Thirteen-page report summarizing research by AccountAbility, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the World Bank on predicted impacts of the phase-out on industry, policy options for different actors, the private sector perspective on the impacts on sourcing decisions, and lessons learned from the restructuring of other industries. View Report.
A combination of governmental regulations and incentives and voluntary initiatives to provide consumers, shareholders, stakeholders, workers and governments with sufficient information and policy tools to seriously address the global problem of sweatshop abuses in the apparel industry.
A Needle in a Haystack examines Canadian investment and sourcing practices in the garment assembly-for-export industry in Mexico and Central America, and labour practices and working conditions in those factories. This report includes case studies on two Canadian manufacturers -- Nygard International and Gildan Activewear; country labour "vignettes" for Canadian homeworkers and maquila garment-for-export workers in Nicaragua, Honduras and Mexico; and corporate profiles of prominent Canadian retailers and manufacturers.
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