Strategic CSR - Mining

The article in the url below makes the case for reviving mining in the U.S. for the key raw materials required to transition to a more sustainable energy industry:

"Although America has abundant deposits of many of the critical minerals that go into our vehicles, electronics and buildings, these materials are mostly mined abroad in poorer nations where labor is cheap (or worse, workers are enslaved) and environmental laws are more permissive, rarely enforced or easily sidestepped with bribes."

The argument is that, by outsourcing much of this extraction, we currently focus on poorer societies where the materials can be mined more cheaply, primarily because the standards to do so are so low:

"The decline of domestic mining means that Americans are outsourcing the environmental and social costs of our inexpensive consumer goods to lower-income nations. More than 70 percent of the world's cobalt, sometimes called the blood diamond of electric vehicle batteries, comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where child labor and sexual violence are rampant in mines. About half of the world's nickel, another key ingredient in electric vehicle batteries, comes from mines in Indonesia, some of which have wiped out almost 200,000 acres of rainforest amid allegations of operating illegally on Indigenous land."

So, mining domestically would introduce higher standards, by definition; it is also required so that increased supply can match growing demand:

"A United Nations study found that meeting international climate goals by 2030 could require building as many as 80 copper mines, 70 lithium mines and 70 nickel mines to supply the materials for electric vehicles, solar panels and a host of other low-carbon technologies."

And, the article advocates for a consumer-led component to the economic equation, with individual customers willing to pay the (relatively) small premium that domestic production would generate:

"Many of us are already paying more for responsibly sourced goods, such as chocolate and coffee. We should demand the same for our smartphones and batteries. … Although mining will never be zero-impact, it has the potential to be fair and responsible."

Take care

David

David Chandler

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation (6e)

© Sage Publications, 2023

Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: https://study.sagepub.com/chandler6e  

Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/

The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: https://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/

This Dirty Industry Is Better Off Operating in America

By Stephen Lezak

July 28, 2024

The New York Times

Late Edition – Final

SR8

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/opinion/lithium-copper-minerals-mining.html

 

Strategic CSR - Diamonds

The article in the url below suggests that artificial (man-made) diamonds are beginning to make serious inroads into the market for natural diamonds:

"More than a third of all engagement rings with center stones purchased last year were created in a lab, according to an online survey of nearly 12,000 U.S. couples. … That's double the number from 2020."

Since the survey data are self-reports, the results might be dismissed by some but, if there is a bias, I would expect it to be in favor of inflated numbers for real diamonds. More important, I think (and missing from the report), is whether it is price or values that is driving demand. A natural diamond takes millions of years to be created and then, of course, needs to be mined under conditions that are often far from ideal. Artificial diamonds, on the other hand, clearly do not take quite so long and are much more accessible (and ethical):

"Man-made diamonds are grown by placing a diamond seed in a sealed chamber with a carbon-containing gas such as methane. The carbon atoms bond like a lattice to the seed, building up a diamond crystal. It takes about 600 hours to grow one carat depending on the method. Their appeal, according to lab-diamond makers, is that they cause less environmental and human damage than mining diamonds from the earth as well as their cheaper price."

As a result, it is assumed, their popularity is spreading:

"It's not just engagement rings. Diamonds grown in a lab accounted for 13.6% of the $88.6 billion in diamond jewelry sold globally in 2022, up from less than 1% in 2015 where they had hovered since the early 2000s."

Specifically, the goal (for supporters) is to eradicate the possibility of an unethical supply chain:

"Proponents of man-made diamonds say growing diamonds in a lab helps stamp out conflict diamonds, or diamonds mined in war-torn regions and used to fund insurgencies. [In response] The mining industry says it traces the origins of diamonds to help stop the flow of conflict diamonds under what is called the Kimberley Process."

But, even if the primary motivating factor is morality (and the environmental angle is interesting), it is not clear there is an easy choice, as the main lobbing group for the diamond industry is getting better at arguing:

"'Consumers are being told that lab-grown diamonds are sustainable and that couldn't be further from the truth,' says David Kellie, CEO of the Natural Diamond Council, a diamond mining trade group. The group began airing videos on social media in April as part of what it calls a 'myth-busting' campaign. According to a new report by the group, more than 60% of lab-grown diamonds are made in China and India, where climate-polluting coal is the major power source. The report also touts efforts by the mining industry to cut carbon emissions and boost the economies of countries with major diamond mines such as Botswana and Namibia."

Take care

David

David Chandler

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation (6e)

© Sage Publications, 2023

Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: https://study.sagepub.com/chandler6e 

Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/

The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: https://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/

This Wedding Season, Diamonds Face a Challenge

By Suzanne Kapner

April 29-30, 2023

The Wall Street Journal

Late Edition – Final

B1, B6

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-wedding-season-diamonds-face-a-challenge-171c9e7

 

Strategic CSR - Cobalt

The book review in the url below highlights the challenges we face in moving to an electric future. In short, there are constraints on many fronts. Not only is there ideological resistance and inertia in all aspects of the economy (including capital investments), but there are challenges simply finding and extracting the raw materials we need to effect the change we are (slowly) working towards:

"Why cobalt? Because today's smartphones, laptops, leaf blowers, toys and so much more owe their revolutionary portability to the advent of cobalt-infused lithium batteries. Up until the late 1990s, the uses for cobalt—in magnets, dyes, inks, chemical catalysts and little else—required some 20 kilotons of the mineral a year, a relatively modest figure by mining standards and one that had remained little changed over the previous three decades. Then the first lithium decade vaulted annual cobalt demand to about 60 kilotons."

Not only is it challenging to identify sufficient quantities of cobalt, but most of our known supplies are located in countries with poor labor and environmental laws:

"Three-fourths of that cobalt comes from the Congo, a market share that's more than double OPEC's claim on oil. Now comes the electric vehicle's half-ton battery, each one using thousands of smartphones' worth of minerals. Even at only 10% of global auto sales, electric vehicles have already pushed annual cobalt demand to 140 kilotons; it is expected to exceed 200 kilotons by 2026 as new battery factories come online and will explode from there when proposed EV mandates are supposed to kick in, many within the coming decade."

So, ironically, extracting the materials we need to build an electric future increases the level of environmental pollution and leads to horrendous human suffering:

"The heart of Mr. Kara's mission is to document the use of artisanal mining—that is, human digging and toting by manual, brute force rather than using trucks and backhoes. You're halfway through the book before Mr. Kara's bombshell: The artisanal share of the Congo's output, often dismissed as negligible, may exceed 30%. As the author warns: 'Do not be fooled by the word 'artisanal''—it's far from 'pleasant mining activities conducted by skilled artisans.' In place after place he visited, whether with official escorts or by surreptitious entry, what he saw was 'a hellscape of craters and tunnels, patrolled by maniacs with guns.' It was a 'lunar wasteland,' a 'devastated landscape' that 'resembled a battlefield after an aerial bombardment.'"

It is hard to even begin to imagine the hardships of those who mine this material that we need in order to feel better about the products we purchase and the lifestyle we live:

"The reader senses that the author has been left shell-shocked, not from the aesthetic carnage but from seeing thousands of people mining by hand, hammer and shovel in vast open pits hundreds of feet deep, most of the pits arrayed with hand-dug tunnels. Mr. Kara reports visiting a typical mine where 'more than three thousand women, children, and men shoveled, scraped, and scrounged … under a ferocious sun and a haze of dust.' The book has no photographs, an understandable absence given the risks of using a camera with armed guards everywhere. Instead Mr. Kara captures the impact of artisanal mining through the powerful stories of the miners—men, women and children—that he has gleaned through interviews. It's often hard to read his descriptions of the miners' daily lives, the risks, accidents, promises unfulfilled and, too often, heart-wrenching tales of maimed or dead children."

As the review of the same book (Cobalt Red) in the second url below concludes:

"How is your phone powered? Problematically. … [the author] writes, 'there is no such thing as a clean supply chain of cobalt from the Congo.' … Returning from his travels, [the author] sees Western prosperity with new eyes. 'The world back home no longer makes sense,' he writes. 'Clean air and water feels like a crime.'"

Take care

David

David Chandler

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation (6e)

© Sage Publications, 2023

Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: https://study.sagepub.com/chandler6e 

Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/

The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: https://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/

The Human Price of Cobalt

By Mark P. Mills

February 2, 2023

The Wall Street Journal

Late Edition – Final

A15

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cobalt-red-review-the-human-price-of-cobalt-11675293373

Assault and Batteries

By Matthieu Aikins

January 29, 2023

The New York Times Book Review

Late Edition – Final

16

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/23/books/review/cobalt-red-siddharth-kara.html

 

Strategic CSR - Conflict minerals (III)

Well, the verdict is in on the first year of conflict minerals reports that were due over the summer:

 

"Companies by June 2 had to report on their attempts to determine whether their suppliers used gold, tin, tungsten or tantalum traced to mining operations run by armed militias in Democratic Republic of Congo and the surrounding region. The effort is part of a rule under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 aimed at cutting off funding to violent groups."

 

And, as noted in the article in the url below, the results were resounding:

 

"Some 80% of the companies said they couldn't determine whether their supply chains contained those minerals, according to the study, by law firm Schulte Roth & Zabel."

 

How sure can firms be of their lack of certainty? What evidence do we have that the firms took the regulation seriously and performed due diligence?

 

"Only four out of 1,300 U.S.-listed companies sought external audits of their efforts to root out so-called conflict minerals in their supply chains, according to [the] study released Thursday."

 

Chalk up another success to the effectiveness of coercion (that something must be done) over persuasion (that it is in the firms' self-interest to do it).

 

Have a good weekend.

David

 

David Chandler & Bill Werther

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation (3e)

© Sage Publications, 2014

 

Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: http://www.sagepub.com/chandler3e/

Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/

The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: http://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/


Conflict-mineral Audits Get Few Takers

By Emily Chasan

September 19, 2014

The Wall Street Journal

Late Edition – Final

B2

http://online.wsj.com/articles/conflict-mineral-audits-get-few-takers-1411082818

 

Strategic CSR - Conflict minerals (II)

The two articles in the urls below contain interesting perspectives on the Dodd-Frank requirement that firms investigate and report on the conflict mineral exposure within their supply chains. The first article comments on the consequences of this rule for U.S. firms. In particular, the article quantifies the extent of the work that is necessary for full compliance:

 

"Some 1,300 U.S.-listed companies recently filed reports on whether their suppliers used minerals from mines blamed for fueling violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and surrounding area. Companies screened an average of 743 suppliers each in their efforts to uncover any gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum from mines run by warlords in the Congo region. Many companies spent years and millions of dollars on their reviews, which were required by the Dodd-Frank Act. The deadline for their initial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission was June 2."

 

While a number of companies screened only a few suppliers, at the extreme:

 

"Caterpillar Inc. said it had identified 38,700 suppliers who might potentially provide components containing conflict minerals, the highest number cited in the reports, while ABB Ltd. and General Dynamics Corp. listed more than 30,000 and more than 13,000, respectively."

 

The task of complying with the rule was clearly immense for those companies with the most potential exposure to the four "conflict minerals" (tantalite, tin, tungsten and gold). As a result:

 

"… most companies said they couldn't be certain if these metals and minerals were used by their suppliers. This month the Commerce Department also acknowledged it 'does not have the ability to distinguish' which refiners and smelters around the world are being used to fund militia groups."

 

The second article comments on the consequences of this rule for the African nations that contain the minerals used to supply the U.S. firms. In particular, as a result of the complexity involved in compliance:

 

"Many of the companies are voting with their feet, leading to a de facto boycott of mining in 10 African countries by some of the world's largest consumer-goods companies. African governments, eager to attract investment in their mineral sectors and integrate their primary products into global supply chains, now turn instead to Asian partners."

 

Ultimately, the effect of the law is limited given that:

 

"... private U.S. companies and foreign firms and their subsidiaries are not covered by the provision. Indeed, the law hands those companies a distinct competitive advantage over public companies in the U.S."

 

Perhaps worse is that U.S. firms are now paying more for the same materials—they are just having to source them from Asia, where their origin remains unclear:

 

"The perverse result is that as America's biggest competitors increasingly source these minerals in Africa, global traders and producers, especially in China and Russia, are buying the raw minerals, turning them into usable components and reselling them at a premium to the affected American companies."

 

Take care
David

 

David Chandler & Bill Werther

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation (3e)

© Sage Publications, 2014

 

Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: http://www.sagepub.com/chandler3e/

Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/

The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: http://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/


Average U.S. Firm Screened Hundreds of Suppliers for Conflict Minerals
By Emily Chasan and Maxwell Murphy
September 16, 2014
The Wall Street Journal
Late Edition – Final
B10
http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2014/09/16/average-u-s-firm-screened-hundreds-of-suppliers-for-conflict-minerals/

Dodd-Frank's Collateral Damage in Africa

By Rosa Whitaker

September 16, 2014

The Wall Street Journal

Late Edition – Final

A13

http://online.wsj.com/articles/rosa-whitaker-dodd-franks-collateral-damage-in-africa-1410822882

 

Strategic CSR - Conflict minerals (I)

As part of the Dodd-Frank Law that was passed in 2010, firms were required to report on the presence of "conflict minerals" in their supply chain. The first deadline for reports was in early June. In the aftermath of that deadline, a number of issues have become apparent. As a result, all three CSR Newsletters this week will focus on some of these issues. Today, we will start with some of the information that was unearthed by companies as they began to learn more about their supply chains, as reported in the article in the url below:

 

"As companies scrambled to meet a deadline to report whether their suppliers used minerals from mines controlled by armed groups in the Congo region, they stumbled on something even more troubling: Many of their products may contain North Korean gold. Dozens of companies disclosed over the past week that their suppliers used gold refined by North Korea's central bank. These companies include Hewlett-Packard Co., Ralph Lauren Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Rockwell Automation Corp., and Williams-Sonoma Inc."

 

The Dodd-Frank conflict minerals clause was specifically drafted to identify whether any of four materials (gold, tungsten, tantalum, or tin) that appeared in any firm's products or production processes (anywhere in the supply chain) were sourced from mines controlled by armed groups in the Congo or used to fund wars in that region. As part of the process of better understanding their supply chains, however, the companies identified the North Korean connection. The U.S., of course, currently imposes sanctions on North Korea, which prevents any U.S. company from doing business with any North Korean entity:

 

"U.S. sanctions law bars importing materials from North Korea even if they come from deep within a supply chain and are in a completely different form by the time they reach the end user, sanctions experts said. 'It's a problem even if the raw materials are coming very indirectly through suppliers,' said Alexandra Lopez-Casero, an attorney at Nixon Peabody LLP who specializes in sanctions."

 

To the companies' credit, they have declared this potential issue, even though, for many, they cannot be sure whether North Korean gold was used, or not. What this reporting process is revealing, however, is how little many firms know about their own supply chains. They are having difficulty identifying the source of many raw materials primarily because they have never bothered to find out up until now.

 

Chalk one up for regulation that has prompted firms to discover information in an area of operations about which it is in their interest to know as much as possible!

 

Take care

David

 

David Chandler & Bill Werther

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation (3e)

© Sage Publications, 2014

 

Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: http://www.sagepub.com/chandler3e/

Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/

The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: http://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/


Gold From North Korea Stymies U.S. Firms

By Joel Schectman

June 5, 2014

The Wall Street Journal

Late Edition – Final

B1

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB20001424052702304710104579604121373592990

 

Strategic CSR - Distributors

While we have done a better job within the CSR community of holding firms responsible for their supply chain, there is much less discussion about distribution. But, if we are going to say a firm is responsible for actions taken by firms that precede it in the supply chain, why are we not willing to say the same about actions taken by firms that come after it?

 

This does not diminish the good work done in terms of lifecycle pricing and the post-consumption obligations of the business to consumer relationship. In fact, it is all part of the same discussion—it is all a matter of where to put the emphasis. In particular, I have not heard any discussion of responsibilities further up the distribution chain for businesses.

 

This issue emerged in a discussion I had with a colleague recently while we were talking about the mining industry. Why are extraction firms not held accountable for subsequent uses of the raw materials they take out of the ground? While there has been some discussion of conflict diamonds/minerals, responsibility for the supply chain appears to rest with the firm that sells the finished product, rather than the firm that sold the component parts. Take e-waste, for example—Why are we willing to hold a firm like Dell responsible for recycling those parts of the computer that are toxic (precious metals and minerals), but not the firm that was responsible for extracting those metals and minerals and selling them to Dell (and others)?

 

This is an issue that has yet to emerge for extraction companies, but it is not difficult to imagine a day when that happens. If we want to hold GAP, Nike, and Walmart responsible for the actions of other firms far removed from them closer to source, we will one day surely hold extraction firms responsible for the actions of other firms and consumers closer to consumption.

Given this, the progressive extraction company that is sensitive to the relationships it has with its stakeholders, broadly defined, will act now to get ahead of this issue and prevent the future risk to business that it could well become (see: A Rational Argument for CSR, p16).

 

Take care

David

 

Bill Werther & David Chandler

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders in a Global Environment (2e)

© Sage Publications, 2011

http://www.sagepub.com/strategiccsr2e/

 

Instructor Teaching Site: http://www.sagepub.com/strategiccsr/

The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: http://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/

 

Strategic CSR - Conflict Minerals

The article from Newsweek in the url below is interesting because it describes a growing pressure on technology firms to be held accountable for the raw materials they use to produce many of the communication products on which we rely (see also Issues: e-waste, p326):

“It takes a lot to snap people out of apathy about Africa’s problems. But in the wake of Live Aid and Save Darfur, a new cause stands on the cusp of going mainstream. It’s the push to make major electronics companies (manufacturers of cell phones, laptops, portable music players, and cameras) disclose whether they use “conflict minerals”—the rare metals that finance civil wars and militia atrocities, most notably in Congo.”

What I found most interesting about the story, however, was a throwaway line heralding the topical nature of the campaign:

“… new rules requiring American-listed companies to improve their supply-chain transparency are folded into the financial-reform bill that passed Congress this week.”

A little searching on the web led me to this industry association blog entry (http://blog.ipc.org/2010/06/28/1061/ on the IPC website, which carries the tag line: Association Connecting Electronics Industries) complaining about the “heavy-handed legislation.” I thought the blog’s summary of the requirements in the legislation (plus comments) was worth quoting at length:

“Once passed by the Senate and House and signed by the president, the legislation will require companies whose manufactured goods contain tin, tantalum, tungsten, or gold to:

• Report annually to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) if the minerals did originate from the Congo or adjoining countries. It is unclear what the obligation will be for companies who cannot determine from where the minerals originated.

• Submit a due diligence plan with the company’s annual SEC report that includes:

a. A description of the measures taken by the company to prevent sourcing from the Congo;

b. A description of the products manufactured or contracted to be manufactured that are not conflict free, the facilities used to process the conflict minerals, the country of origin of the conflict minerals, and the efforts to determine the mine or location of origin;

c. An independent third party audit of the company’s due diligence plan; and

d. A certification by the company of its due diligence report (there is no definition of “certify” included in the language so that obligation is vague).”

While claiming that:

“For the past several years, industry groups, including Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI), the International Tin Research Institute (ITRI) Tin Supply Chain Initiative (iTSCi) and the IPC Solder Product Value Council (SPVC), have been working to provide transparency and accountability concerning the supply of raw materials coming from the conflict zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).”

the blog entry predicts the new legislation will likely result in:

“… total industry divestment from the DRC and adjacent countries — removing an important legitimate source of income in the resource-poor region in addition to clamping down on illegitimate mines.”

Although the IPC clearly has an interest in this issue, because it represents firms in the electronics industry, they post more information about conflict minerals in consumer electronics goods at: http://www.ipc.org/minerals

There is also more information available from the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27kristof.html) and a quick Google search for ["conflict minerals" Dodd-Frank] produces a great deal more information.

Take care
David

Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders in a Global Environment (2e)
© Sage Publications, 2011
http://www.sagepub.com/strategiccsr2e/

Instructor Teaching Site: http://www.sagepub.com/strategiccsr/
The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: http://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/


The Genocide Behind Your Smart Phone
Our biggest gadget makers—including HP and Apple—may inadvertently get their raw ingredients from murderous Congolese militias. A new movement wants them to trace rare metals from ‘conflict mines.’
By Alan Mascarenhas
NEWSWEEK
Published July 16, 2010
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/16/the-genocide-behind-your-smart-phone.html

Strategic CSR - De Beers

The article in the url below is an interview with Gareth Penny, CEO of De Beers. Penny took over as CEO of the diamond company in 2006 in the middle of the ‘conflict diamonds’ crisis (Issues: Country of Origin, p223):

“Rapper Kanye West's "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" in 2005 and the movie "Blood Diamond" in 2006 were triggering a wave of negative publicity about buying "conflict diamonds," which were sold in the 1990s by African rebels to help pay for their wars.”

The interview asks Penny about what he has done to steer De Beers through this (“One hundred percent of De Beers diamonds today are conflict free. … It is estimated that 99.8% of all diamonds in the world flow through the Kimberley Process, which is extraordinary”) and other CSR-related issues. It also delves into his perspective on De Beers’ role as a leader in the diamonds industry today:

“Today, De Beers is "in transition," says Mr. Penny, 45 years old. The company, whose sales slipped 2.8% last year to $6.84 billion, has a new business model and is trying to polish its image. And Mr. Penny now casts himself as an unofficial ambassador for Africa who can help bring businesses and jobs to the continent.”

Take care
Dave

Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006

Boss Talk: De Beers Polishes Its Image --- CEO Penny Refashions Business Model to Tackle Diamond Giant's Flaws
By Vanessa O'Connell
1255 words
7 July 2008
The Wall Street Journal
B1
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121538963806131221.html

Strategic CSR - Conflict Jewelry

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