Soul Economy

The useful life of footwear is relatively short, shorter still when one considers rapid market changes and consumer fashion trends. Footwear is also hugely in demand. From 1990 to 2004, worldwide footwear production has increased by 70 percent to around 17 billion pairs of shoes. By 2010 experts in the sector expect the global footwear [...]

The corporate sustainability agenda – the social, economic and environmental impact of business often referred to as CSR (corporate social responsibility or in most recent days as ESG (environment, social and governance performance) – is increasingly moving into the board room due, in no small part, to the increasing awareness about climate change consequences and [...]

Fairtrade Town is defined in Wikipedia as “a status awarded by a recognised Fairtrade certification body describing an area which is committed to the promotion of Fairtrade certified goods. By extension, the organisations also award the statuses of Fairtrade City, Fairtrade Village, Fairtrade Zone, Fairtrade Borough, Fairtrade Island, Fairtrade County and Fairtrade University.”
The Fairtrade [...]

While I watched the movie Blood Diamonds some time ago it is one of those movies that I continue to think about. So, I was very pleased to read an article recently about the fair trade jewellery movement.
The Sun Herald reports that ethical gold jewellery accounts for less that 1% of the global $56 billion [...]

It’s Saturday morning and the last wine bottle clatters into the recycling bin. Your head is one throbbing mass and the brain inside simmers in the little liquid your body has managed to conserve. In a matter of hours you will have managed to recover slightly, but the effects of alcohol extend much further than [...]

Corporations can lift human rights standards where these are inadequate and not in line with international expectations; or corporations can abuse them, often as an unintended side effect of operations, sometimes through negligence and in ‘worst case scenarios’, intentionally to obtain unfair advantage.
For some business executives the shift from assuming that human rights protection and [...]

Sustainable fashion – it sounds like an oxymoron. In an industry built upon the profitability of disposability, where a style of jean has a shorter lifespan than a wedge of Pecorino cheese, how could anything be sustainable? The use of sustainable textiles (think broader than purely organic textiles) in the production of garments has a [...]

“People are universally becoming much more concerned with the honesty of the company that they’re buying the product from and the environmental impact,” says outspoken fashion designer Katherine Hamnett on the current mainstreaming of organic and sustainable clothing. (see clip here)
Hamnett, who forged an image in the 1980’s with bold protest slogan T-shirts is now [...]

I have just across an article about “Our Moral Footprint” The New York Times by Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic.
He makes some pertinent points which have made me reflect on my moral footprint, in terms of my responsibility to leave as little of an impact on the earth as possible so [...]

This is a critical question in the current climate. Is it REALLY possible to be socially responsible and become a large and successful company at the same time? I have finally had the chance to take some time out and read a couple of very inspiring books that confirm that YES it is possible! You [...]