There you are in the potato chip aisle about to make the most momentous decision of the day when you suddenly have an attack of conscience. Not about your diet, but about your stance on social responsibility.
Is there any way, you wonder, for me to affect the welfare of others with this purchase?
Maybe so.
Opening to page 298 of “Shopping for a Better World,” the consumer’s guidebook for letting conscience be your guide in everyday purchasing matters, you find some answers.
Handy charts show you that General Mills is a conglomerate with a heart of gold. The company wins A’s for charitable giving, community outreach, advancement of women and workplace issues. A company profile tells you it is a leader in minimizing packaging; it hires and promotes minorities; has 1,500 workers with disabilities and takes accessibility seriously; and has good relations with its unions.
United Biscuits, on the other hand, gets poor marks. The company gets C’s and D’s in community outreach and in the advancement of women; and it refuses to release information on environmental practices, workplace matters and family issues.
“Shopping for a Better World,” is written by staffers at the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP), a non-profit, New York research organization that gathers data about the good and the ill that companies do and distributes it to everyone from activists to investors.
“Part of our mission is helping people cast their economic vote as conscientiously as their political vote,” says Rosalyn Will, a project director with the council.
The $17 guide debuted in 1989 as a pocket book its authors hoped people would carry into the grocery store with them. The 1996 edition (call 800-729-4237 for information) is a full-size paperback that goes beyond groceries to include reviews of companies that make and sell appliances, clothing, cars, computers, toys and shoes. Next year it will be out on CD-ROM. In all, the guide has sold 1 million copies, Will says.
It’s a given that the book is successful. But does socially responsible thinking in the aisles of any store do any good in the long run? Besides the occasional high-profile boycott, is there really such a thing as an economic vote?
Yes, says Tim Smith, director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Smith’s group is made up of big-time investors, such as churches and the City of New York, which look to invest $50 million in pension funds and other monies in ways that foster community good. He says consumers can do the same.
“You’re looking at two questions,” he says. “First, as an individual or a household, how can you be morally consistent? You don’t smoke, you are mad as hell about smoking, and you would prefer not to buy products from a company that is killing adults and hooking kids. You’ve got to know that when you buy anything made by RJR Nabisco, that’s Joe Camel. And Kraft and Miller Brewing. that’s Philip Morris.”
Whether it does any good or not, Smith says, it makes many people feel better to know their own moral houses are in order.
But beyond that, socially responsible purchasing does influence large companies, he says. “Companies spend an enormous amount of money trying to assess what the marketplace thinks and what it wants, and they spend even more money trying to get them to buy what they make. Do they care when their product gets associated with child labor? You bet they do.”
Companies care about social image because there is a group of consumers, maybe 5 percent, Smith says, whose marketplace choices are influenced by political and social concerns. “They’re fighting very hard for every percent of the market so they do pay attention and they do care very much.”
Last year, the U.S.-Guatemala Labor Education Project, a Chicago-based non-profit group, started a grass-roots leafleting effort aimed at getting Starbucks to champion the lot of poor Guatemalans growing and picking the beans it sells.
“We weren’t accusing Starbucks of doing anything wrong,” says Erich Hahn, an organizer, “we were encouraging the company to do more good work.”
And it did, introducing a “code of conduct” for all its bean suppliers. The code–the first of its kind in the agricultural industry–called for sound environmental practices and for improved quality of work life for those who produce, harvest and process coffee.
Ten years ago, prodded by the Environmental Defense Fund about polystyrene foam packaging, McDonald’s began making environmentally motivated changes in the way it wraps burgers and fries. As recently as last year, according to an article in Executive Female magazine, the company eliminated 294,000 pounds of paper–150 truckloads–with one minor change in its napkins.
This spring, Starbucks won one of the Council on Economic Priorities’ annual corporate conscience awards for its worker code. Hewlett Packard also won for its compassionate stance on downsizing, which gives a targeted employee 90 days without job responsibilities to look for another position within the company; if he is unsuccessful, his manager takes up the search. Pfizer also won for establishing the largest pharmaceutical access program in the U.S., providing nearly 1 million prescriptions to more than 335,000 low-income, uninsured patients.
“Businesses that think doing the right thing means losing out on profits don’t see the whole picture,” Smith says. “What goes around comes around.”
Gavin Anderson, a retired vice president with Colgate-Palmolive, didn’t always see it that way.
“The first year (a questionnaire was sent to Colgate from CEP), it went astray. I don’t think we even answered it,” he says. “The second year we did a little better. We got hold of it and liked it. We thought it was raising some very good questions.
“It’s not a small task, reviewing everything (CEP) asks for,” he says. Anderson worked with 40 managers and middle managers, getting answers to CEP questions and using the group’s inquiries to re-evaluate company protocol.
He became Colgate’s liaison to CEP, and his company won corporate conscience awards. Now he serves on CEP’s board. “I help CEP understand the point of view of an international company,” he says.
