SAI Newsletter May 2010

SAI Advisory Board Chair, Achim Lohrie, Head of CSr at Tchibo GmbH

Achim Lohrie: The advances in SAI's work speak to its understanding and acknowledgment of the 5-year plan. For example SAI's new online training system is an amazing addition that will prove to be a huge resource, as it will help to expand the number of programs to supplement their usual classroom-based training. Additionally exciting were new projects with Cotton Made in Africa's expansion into the US market, the upcoming project in India with GTZ and BSCI that is almost set to launch, a signed memorandum of understanding with the Rainforest Alliance to benchmark each others' standards, and the publication of SAI's 2009 Annual Report.

There were so many important and impressive discussions that took place, some which led to even deeper, and perhaps more controversial ones. But that is the role of this multi-stakeholder board, this is why we all come in from all around the world, to help advise SAI in making the challenging decisions, drawing from everyone's best practices, and expertise. Overall, I thought we made good progress at this meeting - I feel like we all became aligned with each other, really remembering what we are doing in the first place, which is to advance ethical workplaces.

Q. How was this Advisory Board meeting agenda developed, and what did the meeting focus on?

AL: About five weeks prior to the meeting, I met with everyone at SAI�s office in New York to get a sense of what staff was working on, and their efforts towards meeting the goals of the 5-year-plan. This helped to finalize the agenda of the Advisory Board meeting. The main items of the agenda focused on strategic issues of scaling up SAI�s training and capacity programs for corporate program members including developing management and supplier rating systems and of increasing impact and effectiveness

Q. What will be on the agenda for the next Board meeting in the Fall?

AL:For the next agenda, we will build on the successes from this meeting, and seek to prepare sets of best practices to assess how we can continually improve. The agenda will be designed with the similar strategic focus and alignment with SAI's 5-year plan.

Richa Gautam

Meeting Observer, Richa Gautam, Consultant- IICA-GTZ CSR Initiative

Q. What are some of your key takeaways from the meeting?

Richa Gautam: I think for me it was very useful to see SAI as an organization from the inside, to understand more of the dynamics and the basis for its priorities. The Board was very forthcoming in what they saw as SAI's role in the PPP and in India, which will also be useful in shaping the PPP. I was really impressed by the diversity of the board - not only in terms of gender and national origin, but diversity in expertise that greatly contributed to the discussions around the table.

Q. What are some of the core concepts of the upcoming PPP project?

RG: The main positive aspect is the creation of a multi-stakeholder platform, especially on the social side of CSR. There is an easy argument to be made for businesses, especially SMEs, to improve their environmental performance-- for instance, the energy savings argument immediately translates also into cost savings. However, the social side is less focused upon and the core value of the PPP lies in squarely addressing improvement in the social performance of businesses.

Q. What are your thoughts on this new PPP, and speculations on the potential impact it might have in India?

RG: Although several companies in India have a rich history of CSR, this is largely confined to the creamy layer of Indian businesses, with smaller businesses often not having the resources to inform themselves about improvements in environmental and social performance, and that of their suppliers. One of the objectives of the PPP is to bridge this gap and create new models for CSR consulting and training that are affordable for smaller businesses-- in this lies its true value. The CSR Expertise Centre should be established in a way that it can sustainably meet this need in India.

Tina Stridde

Meeting Observer, Tina Stridde, Marketing & Communications Director- Cotton Made in Africa

Q. What were some of your key takeaways from the Advisory Board meeting?

Tina Stridde: It was great to hear the feedback from retailers about the project, and of their perspective. I left the meeting with a lot of great ideas that will help support Cotton Made in Africa's (CMiA) outreach and marketing, especially in the US market. With our partnering with SAI for our outreach, sales and marketing to the US market, it will help to close the gap between taking care of sustainable production of cotton in the fields, to socially responsible production in the factories.

Q. What are some of the core concepts of Cotton Made in Africa?

TS: We're a business-driven approach that is about helping farmers to help themselves. Our aim is to increase their income in order to improve their lives. We've been active with over 150,000 farmers in Benin, Burkina Faso, and Zambia since we first started in 2005. Additional funding from the Gates Foundation allowed us to expand to Malawi, Ivory Coast, and Mozambique. We will then be working with 200,000 farmers and, considering the family members that will benefit from CmiA, we will reach out to 1.4 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.

Q. Can you describe what SAI is doing now with the Cotton Made in Africa project?

TS: With SAI, we are doing verification of labor conditions in three spinning mills in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and China. SAI is helping us with their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to help improve conditions.