Promoting socially responsible business
It is easy to find healthy food, like salad, on the menu at the international fast food chains these days. Its introduction, however, was neither early nor easy. There was a long debate between the health
group and fast-food suppliers in terms of responsibility for reducing obesity, and they would not reach an agreement without the continuous mediation and good offices of a business group.Opening up a brand-new office in Hong Kong last year, the international Business Leaders Forum (IBLF), an independent, business-led and not-for-profit organization, is dedicated to help companies carry on responsible business across various sectors in the past 20 years.
Director in Asia Pacific of the group, Peter Brew, told China Daily how IBLF helped to resolve the disparities of healthy diet between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the fast-food restaurants.
“The two sides were not making any progress on the issue for years, so we brought them together to the same table. At the beginning, the fast-food suppliers insisted that ‘customers would make the choice’ as they had laid out nutrition information on the menu. However, with the discussion underway, they realized there were things they could do or should prepare to do to accept their responsibility to society, which was to diversify the menus and give the customers more choices for a healthy diet,” said Brew.
Brew said IBLF has also worked with business and government to improve working conditions in footwear and garment factories in several developing countries, to introduce better health and safety standards for workers. Anti-corruption, employability and environmental stability are among the common subjects IBLF normally deals with.
Sometimes IBLF initiates the ideas, but it also promotes some successful concepts drawn from the wider community.
IBLF’s chief executive Adam Leach said one international hotel started a training program for youths years ago. One year after the program start-up, these young people not only had enhanced knowledge and technological skills, but also greatly improved presentation skills, which brings in more opportunities to work in other walks of life.
Learning of this, Leach said IBLF then actively participated in popularizing this program among other hotels, to encourage workforce neophytes, to get them involved and to help them receive better exposure in the fierce and competitive job market.
“We might not help the companies make a perfect world directly, but we are definitely helping them to take more responsibility toward the whole society,” said Leach.
Leach said the group has a 20-year track record in providing the impetus, the platform, the global reach and the methodology for companies to pursue responsible business management and to contribute to sustainable development.
Its Beijing office, which partners with the People’s University of China, has, for the past five years, brought together Chinese and foreign business leaders every quarter in Beijing to discuss the improvement of business standards and practices.
The increasing focus on responsible investment in developing countries in recent years eventually motivated IBLF to launch a new representative office in 2009 in Asia’s economic hub – Hong Kong.
Leach said they do not intend to run a business in Hong Kong, but expect the city could set a role model for the rest of world, particularly the emerging markets they are currently working with.
“Hong Kong is renowned for transparency and integrity in doing business, where trust is highly respected and moral values have been firmly strengthened. There is no better place than Hong Kong to educate the world about how to conduct business responsibly,” he said.
(HK Edition 03/17/2010 page2)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2010-03/17/content_9599919.htm