Conscientious commerce: Key quotes

The first Principal Voices round-table of 2007 took place in Johannesburg, South Africa on May 29. The guests discussed how business can play a major role in improving the communities in which they operate and how social entrepreneurs are forging a new form of conscientious commerce.

An essay about the discussion can be read here, and there is also a full transcript of the event here.

Following is a short series of quotes from the participants.

Rory Stear, executive chairman of the Freeplay Group.

"There's a massive energy issue on this continent, in fact in world today 35 percent of the world's population has zero access to electricity and another 35 percent have intermittent access, so straight away as an entrepreneur there's an opportunity and good business reason to be involved in providing energy access."

"With something as simple as a radio, and now the cell phone, it's really helping to cross not just the digital divide, but the analogue divide on a continent that's only 20 percent electrified and a vast amount of people that have zero accesses to electricity. Reliable information is an extraordinarily difficult thing to get."

"Organisations like Home Depot have badged 3,000 products as environmentally friendly, GE has been going for the greening of their operation. M&S in the UK has gone very solidly towards fair trade and organic. They're doing because that's what consumers want. These are huge examples, but rare examples."

"In the developing world the debate is at a national and government level. Protectionist nature of economies is the single biggest problem that any company has in being competitive. Governments aren't taking the long view of allowing these services and products to build an income internally."

"My personal belief is that businesses and communities in which they operate are inextricably linked and therefore the relationship goes beyond merely measuring success in terms of profitability."

Kailash Satyarthi, founder of Rugmark and the Global March Against Child Labor.

"I was frustrated seeing that with the growth in export of rugs from India, Nepal and Pakistan, child slavery was also increasing and that compelled me to think of a solution linking with the corporate as well as with the consumers' consciences. Because it has not been attempted before, how the consumer power can change the corporate behavior and eventually change the lives of millions of children

"The people are not all aware that children are making the rugs they have in their homes, or a lot of other things, like clothes or toys which their children are playing with, in extremely inhuman conditions. The most important thing is the education and sensitization of consumers."

"First of all business must understand they cannot flourish at the cost of ruining the childhood of millions, because the media is there to watch them, civil society is getting stronger and spreading all over the world - you can see it with consumer consciousness and more importantly the very poor people are demanding education for their children."

"When you talk of the corporate behaviour it shouldn't be confined to the internal monitoring by companies, we should go for more transparent and multi-stakeholder approach, where consumer bodies, civil society, communities and corporations can work together to find solutions, governments as well."

"We must not undermine the responsibility or the accountability of the government. The government has to be held accountable. We initiated Rugmark when we saw that the government inspection system wasn't working well in the field of child labor, but it does not mean we should let the government officials off scot-free.

Rick Aubry, founder of Rubicon Programs.

"What Rubicon and other social entrepreneurs do is see a market failure, poverty in the United States in our case, that is not being touched by government programs and we use new ways of using resources that are already there. We change significantly how resources are used so that someone can be moved out of poverty instead of enrolling on one more training program."

"Governments may be able to help in term of tax structures, so there is somewhat of a role for them, but fundamentally change is going to come from much greater transparency in terms of how companies do responsible business."

"Published scores on social responsibility might start effective consumer behaviour, because then it's not just a claim, but a certified third party system that gives both consumers and investors more idea."

"Investors have already shown they're willing to trade off a little bit return for social responsibility. But they really need an outside mechanism that gives them an insight into who truly is responsible. Everyone claims they are socially responsible, so right now it doesn't mean anything for investors."

"There are some companies doing a great job, but we as consumers can't know that because as long as it's just a claim that you make for yourself consumers, understandably, are sceptical of that."

Ngozi M. Awa, chairwoman and chief executive of Colela Group Investments that fosters the development of small and medium sized businesses.

When you're a woman and you're black in Africa and you talk about finance, it's very difficult for people to take you seriously. It's getting better now, but I find that the structure to support small businesses is not in place.

"This is one of the countries in the whole of Africa, together with Botswana, that has a very good, what I call, support system in place for small businesses. But are they functioning? The problem we see is the support system in place and the ability of the small businesses to actually access those funds."

"In South Africa one of the most successful people in construction is a woman. South Africa is a different kettle of fish. Women, because of the apartheid system, have learnt to be self-sustaining."

"If you buy into business you are supposed to take an active part. Now can we blame that on the government? The government has set up the policy, it's how it's implemented. You have to factor in human nature. We have to take it back to ourselves to support a more enabling environment."

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