1.6.3 By civil society

Civil society has also approached business in order to promote corporate social behaviour. In 2000, as a joint effort by many civil society organisations in the world, the Earth Charter' was published and put into practice. It is a charter that establishes an ethical framework. It addresses individuals, business organisations, NGOs, international organisations and governments.1

The engagement of civil society with business sometimes led to drawn out legal battles and/or media campaigns. Due to environmental and human rights problems, Shell was approached by Nigerian environmental activists in the 1990s. This turned out to be the beginning of more than 15 years of campaigning and litigation.2 Another interesting example of a prolonged fight between NGOs and companies concerned an international supply chain conflict involving the Dutch jeans brand G-Star, its Indian supplier, the Dutch campaigning organisations Clean Clothes Campaigns and the India Committee Netherlands, their Dutch Internet Providers and a number of Indian unions and NGOs.3

Research into civil society campaigns conducted by Alex van der Zwart and Professor Rob van Tulder of the Rotterdam Erasmus University provides an interesting depiction of the tangible effects of campaigning.4 First of all, companies that sell consumer products are more susceptible to these types of campaigns than companies selling ' business-to-business'. Secondly, companies that have been ' under fire', usually transform themselves into frontrunners in their business sector in so far as CSR is concerned. Thirdly, campaigns not only impacted the willingness of consumers to buy the targeted company's products, they also negatively influenced the attractiveness of the company on the employment market. And finally, the researchers considered the moves in stock prices during reputation damaging campaigns. The evolvement of the American footwear brand Nike also followed the course of first being heavily targeted in litigation and media campaigns and currently being a model CSR company' that discloses on its website the names of all its suppliers and challenges its customers and suppliers' employees to report any labour abuse.5

Today, civil society involvement is moving in a new direction, i.e. away from the anecdotal discussions with companies and shifting to a more permanent and constructive collaboration with companies. Interesting initiatives are CSR standards developed by civil society, often together with business actors, such as the sustainable timber certificate FSC, the fish label MSC and the Fair Wear textile standard. Collaborative partnerships can be found between WNF and Coca-Cola focussing on sustainable water use, and between Shell and IUCN aimed at avoiding or mitigating biodiversity impacts of the oil business.6