Does ethical responsibly apply to me? How do I start? How do I identify the risks in my supply chain? Can I really make a difference?

Here at SA we say that the answer to all the above is YES!

The idea of ethical and environmental practice can be daunting to many, however with the right tools the process of identification and implementation of ethical practices can be rewarding. Thus, help change the course of unethical practices in supply chains.

The Ethical Trading Initiative – Norway  (ETI-Norway) recently launched “A Practitioner’s Guide To Ethical Trade”,a new tool to assist businesses implement tf ethical practices. Per Bondevik, Managing Director of ETI -Norway explains that:

“We have developed this guide in order to show that ethical trade is doable and that it also yields results,even for small and medium-sized enterprises. It’s really just a matter of getting started.”

Among many aspects the guide provides information and guidance about: 

– Ensure commitment to ethical trade in the company and its supply chain

– Ensure company-wide commitment, plan and organise the work

– Communication with suppliers

– Risk assessment in the supply chain

– Purchasing Practices

– Collaborative approach to making improvements

– Measuring performance, reporting and communicating

–  E stablish key performance indicators

– D ocument progress and challenges

– C ommunicate results and challenges

– Test yourself

The test your self section provides a simple yes/no questionnaire and is very useful in order to identify if ethical practices is relevant for you.

Whether you’re a tutor, student or a business professional, this guide gives a good explanation as to how ethical practices must be integrated and structured within an organisation and can be useful in education and as a tool to analyse how  different companies work with such challenges within their value chain.

Source: ETI -Norway

A one-day workshop from 9am to 5pm, on June 14th 2010
To be held at the Pearson North Lecture Theatre, University College London

Waste is a valuable, yet often little understood, resource that may be used to subvert and reconfigure moral, legal, social and political boundaries in the pursuit of livelihoods and business success. Textile recyclers have developed a range of socio-technological practises to enable material transformations to take place that often remain invisible to those studying modern economies. This one-day interdisciplinary workshop brings together researchers working on textile recycling across disciplines and sectors, including anthropologists, geographers, historians, designers, waste consultants and consumer researchers. Through this exchange we hope to develop a greater understanding of the underlying relationships between people and things, raw materials and technologies, the emergence of entrepreneurs and innovators in social networks, and their contextual variations. For further details, please see the Call for Papers.

Participants:

• Beverly Lemire, University of Alberta, Canada
• Olumide Abimbola, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany
• Karen Tranberg Hansen, Northwestern University, USA
• B. Lynne Milgram, Ontario College of Art and Design, Canada
• Julie Botticello, UCL, United Kingdom
• Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Tone Skardal Tobiasson, Charlotte Bik Bandlien and Kirsi Laitala, SIFO (NICE), Norway
• Nicholas Morley, Oakdene Hollins, United Kingdom
• Pammi Sinha and Kanchana Dissanayake, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
• Lucy Norris, UCL, United Kingdom

Organisers:
Lucy Norris and Julie Botticello, Dept of Anthropology, UCL

Registration:
The registration fee covers refreshments and lunch with vegetarian options.
Waged: £25 and Unwaged: £18

Please contact Julie Botticello on ucsajboucl.ac.uk to reserve your place. The deadline for registration is 7th of June 2010.

Programme:

  9.40 – 10.00     Registration & Coffee (in the North Cloisters)

10.00 – 10.10     Welcome: Danny Miller; Introduction: Lucy Norris and Julie Botticello

Session 1: Building networks and breaking boundaries

Chair: Danny Miller

10.10 – 10.40     Beverly Lemire, Textile Networks and Textile Meanings: the European Secondhand Trade in Historical Perspective, c. 1600-1850

10.40 – 11.10     Julie Botticello, Negotiating Status and Value: Processing Rags for Global Export.

11.10 – 11.40     Lynne Milgram, Mobilizing Livelihood, Centering Margins: Women and the Transnational Hong-Kong Philippine Used Clothing Trade

11.40 – 12.00     Coffee Break (in the North Cloisters)

Chair: Nicky Gregson

12.00 – 12.30     Karen Tranberg Hansen, From Family Business to International Empire: Global Networks in Secondhand Clothing Trading

12.30 –   1.00     Olumide Abimbola, Igbo Trade Networks and Secondhand Clothing

  1.00 –   1.15     Discussion

  1.15 –   2.00     Lunch (in the North Cloisters)

Session 2: The return of recycling technologies

Chair: Dinah Eastop

  2.00 –   2.30     Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Tone Skardal Tobiasson, Charlotte Bik Bandlien, Reinventing Old Solutions t0 New Problems?

  2.30 –   3.00     Nick Morley, Pulp Fiction? Re-innovating Paper Manufacture from Textiles

  3.15 –   3.30     Coffee Break (in the North Cloisters)

Chair: Susanne Küchler

  3.30 –   4.00     Pammi Sinha, Kanchana Dissanayake, Local Knowledge and Skills in Remanufacturing Fashion

  4.00 –   4.30     Lucy Norris, Remains or Resource? Alternative perspectives on dirt and the success of used clothing transformations in India.

  4.30 –   5.00     Final discussion

Check out the Journal of Material Culture for their contribution to the workshop. The event is taking place as part of the Waste of the World programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council

Source: UCL Department of Anthropology

“Sick water? The central role of wastewater management in sustainable development” not only identifies the threats to human and ecological health and the consequences of inaction, but also presents opportunities, where appropriate policy and management responses over the short and longer term can trigger employment, support livelihoods, boost public and ecosystem health and contribute to more intelligent water management.”

Transforming wastewater from a major health and environmental hazard into a clean, safe and economically-attractive resource is emerging as a key challenge in the 21st century.

Why?

It is a challenge that will continue to intensify as the world undergoes rapid urbanization, industrialization and increasing demand for meat and other foods unless decisive action is taken says a new United Nations report released today. Urban populations are projected to nearly double in 40 years, from current 3.4 billion to over six billion people – but already most cities lack adequate wastewater management due to aging, absent or inadequate sewage infrastructure.

What is wastewater?

Wastewater is a cocktail of fertilizer run-off and sewage disposal alongside animal, industrial, agricultural and other wastes. 

The report says that the sheer scale of dirty water means more people now die from contaminated and polluted water than from all forms of violence including wars. Dirty water is also a key factor in the rise of de-oxygenated dead zones that have been emerging in seas and oceans across the globe.

Yet many of the substances that make wastewater a pollutant – for example nitrogen and phosphorus – can also be useful as fertilizers for agriculture. Wastewater can also generate gases to fuel small power stations or be used for cooking.

 The report notes that already some 10 per cent of the world’s population is being supplied with food grown using wastewater for irrigation and fertilizer and with better management and training of farmers this could be increased substantially.

The report, launched to coincide with World Water Day, goes so far as to say that the concentration of nutrients in wastewater “could supply much of the nitrogen and much of the phosphorous and potassium normally required for crop production. Other valuable micro-nutrients and organic matter contained in the effluent would also provide benefits”.

The full report can be found here.

That was our first though. As Mary’s post on the World Water Day on Monday presented us with some worrisome facts, it fuels the drive to contribute to positive change even more through responsible design.  

Mary mentioned the ecessive use of water resources to produce cotton – there is yet another challenge.

What about all the highly toxic chemicals from pesticides, tanneries and material development which, in a large number of developing countries, leak int the scares water resources and the eco-systems of the local community surrounding the production site?

We want your throughts on this problem – so either leave a comment or send us an email.

Source: UNEP, Sick Water?

Cotton Picking in Uzbekistan - Environmental Justice Foundation 2010

A new report released 22nd February 2010 by the Environmental Justice Foundation exposes how cotton production in the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan remains one of the most exploitative enterprises in the world.

“Slave Nation” EJF’s reveals how the Government of Uzbekistan continues to lie to the international community while routinely compelling hundreds of thousands of children as labourers in the country’s annual cotton harvest.

With evidence that little has changed despite the promises of the Uzbek Government and with the spring planting season just around the corner, EJF asks whether it will be children forced to pick the crop again when the harvest comes around later this year.

The report can be found here.

You can also read Nadira’s stories on forced and child labour in the  Uzbek cotton sector here.