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Companies from the electronics and telecommunications sectors agree with the consensus that has emerged over recent years among different stakeholder groups and in different sectors that learning and capability building is critical to improving the social, environmental and ethical (Corporate Responsibility) performance of companies throughout the supply chain.
From this perspective, learning and capability building is a catalyst for improvement that complements and enhances the traditional approach of questionnaires and audits, helping companies to understand why responsible business practice is important and how it can increase their overall efficiency and attractiveness to customers. Learning and capability building can help drive a collective improvement in performance, therefore, by helping individual suppliers take ownership of their own Corporate Responsibility challenges and issues and find creative solutions that can be shared with other companies. Learning and capability building projects at national and regional level also provide the opportunity for companies to engage with stakeholders from the public sector and civil society and to build the supportive and collaborative environment that is necessary for collective sustainable improvements.
Within this context the GeSI supply chain working group and the EICC have come together to develop and implement a shared strategy and tools for learning and capability building that in the long term aim to serve all companies in the supply chain. This approach consists of the following three main areas of concrete activity which GeSI and EICC members can contribute to by participating in the group.
(Click on the numbered items below to learn more details about each step.)This area of activity aims to identify key stakeholders, issues and directions that will serve as an overall framework for learning and capability building. This framework is flexible and will evolve to integrate the experience, perspectives and key learnings gained from the group’s activities.
In order to achieve improvements on the ground, the group aims to create and support existing practical multi-stakeholder projects designed to build capability at national and regional level, within the context of our overall strategy. The FIAS project is the first example of this kind of activity:
EICC and GeSI have participated in a year-long collaboration with FIAS - the World Bank Group’s investment climate advisory service, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), and Shenzhen Electronics Industries Association (SEIA). The project “Corporate Social Responsibility in China’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Sector” is designed to develop a capability-building strategy for the ICT sector in Shenzhen to help meet international social and environmental requirements and improve the soft competitiveness of the industry. The project was carefully constructed as a multi-stakeholder initiative to be supported by the government, civil society, industry associations and customers.
The final project report – including key recommendations for different stakeholder groups – is available in both English (PDF) and Chinese (PDF).
The next phase of the project is a pilot, which will test activities and strategies that were prioritized as most likely to improve social and environmental conditions and also provide business benefits to the ICT supply chain.
One of the first priorities for training identified by the group is to build the understanding and capability of Supply Chain Managers within our member companies, so that they are better equipped to help their suppliers improve their Corporate Responsibility (CR) performance. This first online training course aims to introduce managers to the subject of CR, familiarize them with key issues and provide them with a structured approach to supplier management for CR based on the supplier engagement model embedded in GeSI and EICC tools. This course will be available towards the end of 2007.
The second priority identified at this stage of the group’s work is the supplier management audience. Recognizing that "Often poor standards are the result of managers not knowing what else to do", the first online training course for suppliers will include similar elements to the Supply Chain Manager course tailored to the supplier perspective, focusing on the importance of and the business case for Corporate Responsibility and providing practical guidance on how to implement a responsible approach within their own companies.
The aim is to develop, over time, additional courses for suppliers and their workers on key aspects of Corporate Responsibility within the context of our overall strategy.
