On Wednesday, the Sustainable Business Forum hosted "Supplier Management - Social Responsibility" presented by SGS, the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. The Sustainable Business Forum is a platform for the voices of leading experts and promotes constructive discussions on business sustainability, focusing on the crucial topics that make up the core of sustainable business strategy.
This week’s featured webinar was run by ISM and provided a “how-to” on market intelligence with examples of market data usage, potential sources of information and some real-world examples of why this topic is so important (or should be). Although Reed Elsevier (owners of LexisNexis) sponsored the event, it was remarkably non-salesy. The event is available on demand (as are the slides) and can be accessed on ISM’s site with their other Previous Web Seminars.
In September 2011, Wal-Mart announced a plan to spend $20B with woman-owned businesses by 2016. More recently, they expanded their Women’s Economic Empowerment program to include a ‘women-owned’ labeling program. Products that meet company ownership requirements will start appearing on Wal-Mart shelves this September1. Qualified companies can apply to be a part of the program through WBENC and WEConnect International.
Despite the company’s apparent good intentions, the program has not been warmly received by all, including some critics who feel calling additional attention to these products simply because of female company ownership does little to advance equality. As one commenter posted in response to a BusinessWeek article on the program, “The path to gender equality does not involve stickers pointing out that a product has been made by a female entrepreneur.”2
