Responsible Business Guide: A Toolkit for Winning Companies

RBG
Responsible Business Guide: A Toolkit for Winning Companies
In recent years EU legislation has been passed to regulate product compliance for a wide
range of products. To date, the legislation primarily targets food products, with requirements
to disclose origin, level of processing, exposure to radiation or other treatment, additives
such as enzymes or preservatives, and genetically modified or allergenic content. Non-food
items, particularly plastics and recycled materials, are also the subject of regulatory
compliance, particularly when in contact with food. Among articles of ordinary use, the
most frequent regulatory disclosure requirement is conformity labeling or the “CE” mark,
followed by eco-labels. Appliances are required to comply with energy ratings and safety
marking. The social labeling requirements are expected to get more and more stringent,
with the EU considering fair-trade as a new area for compliance.
Apart from the compliance and disclosure required by law, there is another area of
compliance that addresses quality and specifications, with thousands of product standards
developed by the International Organization on Standardization (ISO). In the electronic
technology arena, product standards are developed by the International Electro-technical
Commission (IEC).
Hence, compliance is an important aspect of business, from corporate performance to
product quality. A responsible company understands all compliance requirements relevant
to its business, and ensures that appropriate steps are taken to provide verifiable evidence
for the authorities or the client through credible disclosure mechanisms.
At the business-to-business level there are recognized codes of conduct, often industryspecific
and sometimes voluntary, that require business partners to disclose procurement
mechanisms across the supply chain, particularly those relevant to human rights,
discrimination, and corrupt practices. Over the past decade or so, a number of voluntary
disclosure codes and indexes have gained wide acceptance. Allowing companies to present
their way of doing business for general scrutiny, these instruments are often used by
investors or clients to make investment or purchasing decisions beyond the traditional
“Price-Quality-Service” triad.
Well-known Disclosure Frameworks
Companies that aim to be successful in a globalized world face the challenge of being able
to prove to influential stakeholders that they conform to the minimum standards of
acceptable corporate behavior. Disclosure, thus, is a window into a company’s compliance.
The table below lists the various compliance and disclosure frameworks current today.
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