The article in the url link below evaluates the jewelry industry’s reaction to the recent democracy protests in Burma (Issues: Country of Origin, p223). Burma supplies a large amount of the world’s jewels and is particularly dominant in supplies of rubies (90%) and jade (98%):
“Within days, they were telling their cut-stone suppliers that they would not buy any more gems mined in Burma and would conduct random checks to ensure that the stones they did buy were not coming from there.”
Two aspects of this story are notable:
1. That the jewelry profession is moving so quickly on this, without any obvious external prompting.
2. The framing of this action as “an emotional response,” rather than a strategic business decision:
“Cartier's move reflects the strong response by big western jewellers to last month's crackdown in Burma after many of them had long overlooked human-rights concerns.”
A positive interpretation of this move recognizes the actions as a form of atonement for the industry’s slow reaction to the negative publicity it received over the issue of ‘conflict diamonds.’ The swift action on this issue suggests that lessons have been learned. A less than positive interpretation, however, suggests greenwash, or, at a minimum, strategic PR. The main argument supporting this interpretation is that Tiffany is the only jewelry company that has been boycotting Burma for any length of time (“since 2002”). While this suggests that Tiffany has undergone a somewhat genuine process of reflection following the conflict diamonds fiasco, the implication for the rest of the industry is that it is jumping on the bandwagon rather late in the day. The military regime in Burma did not turn anti-democratic overnight. The main difference with these protests is that pictures of the violent clampdown were broadcast on TVs and computers direct to Western consumers (Figure 3.4: The Free Flow of Information in a Globalizing World, p56).
Take care
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther
The junta's exports lose their sparkle.
By AMY KAZMIN
787 words
27 October 2007
Financial Times
London Ed1
Page 9
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/45c8f650-83e9-11dc-a0a6-0000779fd2ac.html
