Nike and ethics

A few years ago Nike was accused of unethical behavior. They arenot the only company who acted in a unethical way, but Nike was the most criticized because of their leading role.

Nike was mainly criticized because of their sweat shop regime. A sweat shop is a work place were the working conditions are unhealthy and the workers are underpaid, often underage.
When the press found out a scandal was born. Nike was put in a negative spotlight.

Nike realized that they had to change if they did not want to lose their customers. They created a balance score card and closed their sweat shops.
Still there are doubts: have Nike really become ethical?

Nathalie De Braekeleer

Diageo and his taxes...

Diageo is an ethically-oriented multinational, it’s a producer and distributor of alcohol drinks. This year tax evasion is marked by investigation.

In 2007 the company was chosen for the top three of the companies with the best ethical reputation. In 2009 the whiskey Johnnie Walker has become Dutch domain so due to the transfer, employees in the Scottish Kilmarnock lost their job only for the profits of Diageo. Moreover, taxes were paid to foreign authorities, not to the UK so the tax gap was created... According Diageo the problem is that they don’t know where to pay the taxes, in the country they distribute or where the headquarters are.
In 2007 there was a similar unethical scandal in South-Korea. The company had been accused of illegal business, it sold whiskey to unlicensed wholesalers who didn’t pay any taxes...

Can we still say Diageo is an ethical company ?!

Justine De Kinder

Does Ikea believe in ethical behaviour?

Can you imagine a gigantic international furniture factory that performs in an ethical way, if you know that such an industry requires a lot of human labour and that animal skins are needed for the production of their goods.

A few years ago, Ikea has been accused of employing children in foreign countries. There were eye-witnesses who told their story to the newspaper. Maybe Ikea intended to reduce the production costs?

Nevertheless, this company is on the right path now. They don't want their customers to think that they behave unethically. They want to be trusted.

Moreover, the company promises to be ruthless if they discover wrong labour circumstances by their subcontractors. Ikea wants them to give their workers a fair salary and to allow them to be syndicated. Child labour is forbidden.

Thanks to all these initiatives, Ikea escaped from a menacing international boycott, which could have ended in a financial disaster.

Silke Delahaye

Ethical standards: key to succes...

Companies attach more importance to their social and environmental responsibility to see their profits grow. A study by The Business Roundtable confirms that if companies act ethically, their financial performance improves and is even better than unethical firms.

One of the reasons profits are larger in a company that governs ethical standards is that they attract more investors and people who want to work for the firm. Every person wishes a better, social and environmental world, so employees are motivated to work for such a company and production and incomes will rise. Another reason is when companies are unethical, the value of the stocks of shareholders will fall .

Ethical standards open gates to more wealth and more success…

Justine De Kinder

Ethical behavior starts at the top

A recent study from Deloitte & Touche USA has proved that senior management and direct supervisors play a large part in influencing ethical behavior at the workplace. So if a company wants to become ethical they will need to train the management to use the ethical standards of the company.

It's s important that the management demonstrates the ethical standards of the company every day to the workers, because ethics needs to be lived. For a worker only reading the ethical standards of the company simply isn't enough. When the management fails to do this, workers are not remembered of the ethical standards of the company and these will soon be forgotten.

Nathalie De Braekeleer

Ecover: environmental care.

Ecover has been established in 1979 in Belgium. It's an international company which main activity is the production of ecological detergents.

Ecover considers values such as fairness and respect for people, animals and the environment to be very important. Customers believe in these values and they support Ecover 's philosophy which is present in all the departments of the company, from production to marketing.

At the moment, Ecover wants to go a little bit further. With their new project they examine if their providers deliver ecologically correct raw materials. The company wants to make sure that the providers' employees are treated well and that they behave ecologically themselves too.

The goal of this ethical providers policy is to create co-operations with providers who share the same ideals. Not only does Ecover want to care about ethical production procedures, they also want to put child-labour and experiments on animals in the spotlight.


Silke Delahaye

Triple bottom line: not only profit counts...

The last ten years we notice that companies are not only focused on the profit they make. Social and environmental responsibility is becoming more and more important.First cost cutting was the most important goal of the companies, but times change...

Fifteen years ago, John Elkington announced 'the triple bottom line'. He said that companies should have three purposes; namely profit, people and planet. Climate problems are becoming bigger and bigger, labour markets aren't always well regulated,...

Companies are aware of these problems so they are re-examining the purposes of their policies now. Ethical standards and not financial performance come at first place. It is sometimes difficult for companies to combine the three Ps, but they improve the social and environmental relationship and it's good for their image, the loyalty of their customers grows.

Companies have become more 'human'....

Justine De Kinder