Case study 1:
Europe’s largest oil and gas companies plan to survey their suppliers to establish for the first time a global database on supplier corporate social responsibility policies. ‘The message the companies are trying to give is that your attitudes to corporate responsibility are important to us and also to every player down the supply chain,’ said an oil company executive.

The surveys will be self assessed but it is expected that the oil companies will audit the information to build up an accurate ranking of suppliers across the world. If successful, the pilot could be extended to 52 other ole and gas companies that use Achilles (a company specialising in identifying, qualifying, evaluating and monitoring suppliers on behalf of major organisations worldwide to help manage their supply chains. More than 1,000 of the 5,000 suppliers surveyed by UK based utility companies have already responded.

The moves marks an escalation of individual attempts by large companies to put pressure on their suppliers to adopt ethical and socially responsible policies that echo their own in order to reduce the risk of damage to the reputation of their own brands.

Clothes manufacturers such as NIKE, Inc and Gap, plus other retailers, have taken a close interest in the employment practices of their suppliers for some time, with UK retailers setting up the Suppliers Ethical Data Exchange to share the result of supplier audits.

The government has repeatedly tried to encourage large companies to use their buying power to ensure that suppliers meet certain health and safety, employment, environmental and wider social standards. The government has used the Company Bill to require directors to operate their businesses ‘with regard’ to impact on the environment and local community.

In 2006, the Royal Bank of Scotland launched a corporate responsibility report, setting