Ethical Consumerism And Business Practices: Lessons From Rana Plaza Disaster

Task 1: Preventing Recurrence of Events like Rana Plaza Disaster

Assignment Task

On April 24 2013, 1134 people were killed and 2,500 were injured when the Rana Plaza building in Savar, Bangladesh collapsed on top of garment workers inside its factories. It would be known as the worst accident in the garment industry anywhere.

This happened only five months after a horrific fire at a similar facility prompted leading multinational brands to pledge to work to improve safety in the country’s booming but poorly regulated garment industry.

Labour groups, Western clothing companies, the Bangladeshi government and others have made some progress toward preventing similar tragedies, but more still needs to be done.

There was never any doubt that improving working conditions in Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries, would be incredibly difficult. The collapse of Rana Plaza was just one, though by far the worst in a series of industrial accidents in Bangladesh’s garment industry, which has become one of the biggest exporters of clothes to the United States and Europe because of its low wages.

It was later discovered that 28 brands that sourced clothes from the plaza included Primark, Bennetton, Mango, Matalan and Bonmache, prompting public concern about the working conditions of garment factories around the world which contribute to western high street fashion stores.

Ethical consumerism encourages people to think about how the products they buy are sourced and produced which are not harmful to the environment and society. This can be evidenced through simply purchasing eggs that are free-range or boycotting goods/companies which promote child labour or unsavoury working conditions.

Ethical consumerism is a growing market. A recent report from the Co-operative Bank showed a third of UK consumers claiming to be concerned about ethical consumption, with a large number of the public willing to challenge and boycott companies which do not comply with ethical standards.

You are required to write an analytical business report that covers the following tasks:

Task 1

Discuss the ways in which companies, like the ones mentioned in the extract above, that sourced clothes from the Rana Plaza can help improve business practices to prevent recurrence of events of this nature.

Task 2

Choose any company, research and evidence how they operate ethically, taking into account their approach to consumerism, values and environmental friendliness.

Throughout this report, the researcher has been discussed the ethical consumerism by taking into account the case scenario of Rana Plaza. In addition to this, the study is also explained by considering the incidents of L'Oreal that has been exaggerated by the bad working situation of the organization. Existing issues of L'Oreal in terms of ethical aspects have been discussed in this report. Several issues of the ethical consumerism that help to attract the ethical consumers also have been discussed in this report. Number of the people is tending towards those companies who do the promotion of the goods and also the services ethically. The rate of the ethical consumerism has also been increased a lot. In the promoting of the ethical goods, the safety of the goods, environment free goods, fair trade of the workers is involved.

Task 2: Evaluating L'Oreal's Ethics and Environmental Friendliness

Rana Plaza is the eight-storied commercial building collapsed in the Savar Upazila, sub-district of Greater Dhaka, which is the capital of Bangladesh on 24 April 2013. It causes more than 1129 people dead and more than 2500 were injured at the time of collapsing the Rana Plaza building. Prior to this disaster, Rana Plaza is considered as the most useful place for garment business. The incident takes place only after the five months of the break out of the horrific fire of the one of the garment industry in Bangladesh.

It is clearly noticed that the Bangladesh Government becomes failed to take the necessary steps to prevent such of the devastating incidents. After these horrific incidents of the garment industry, the Bangladesh Government claimed to make some of the progress to prevent these types of tragedies. But this Rana Plaza incident showed that more progress to prevent these tragedies is still needed. It also makes the workers victim due to the collaboration of the eight storied commercial building. The Rana Plaza workers also boycott the work after they saw the huge cracks in the building which are noticeable in the building (Hossain et al., 2013).

So, the importance of the ethical consumerism is becoming major concern not only for the garment industry, but also other industry too. In order to do the business effectively, it is necessary to promote the values of the company in the environment and the society. In this report, this particular aspect has been emphasized with care (Ethical consumerism to reptile welfare: views aired at welfare forum, 2011). There are two tasks that have been performed throughout the study. In the first task, it discusses how the incidents like Rana Plaza disaster can be prevented in case of the sourcing companies in addition to the evaluation and the analysis of the case. In the second task, the evaluation and the analysis of the ethics, values and the environmentally friendly aspects of the L'Oreal is discussed in the detailed manner (Bucaro, 2007).

Rana Plaza is the one of the building in Dhaka, Bangladesh and the collapse of this building with the 1100 workers who were crushed to death and also the number of the thousand people are gets injured. This is all about the Rana Plaza disaster and also the one of the worst industrial disaster in the history of the Bangladesh (Carmody, n.d.). One of the main reasons for the Rana Plaza disasters is of the illegal extension of the building. The main cause of Bangladesh is the kind of permission for the rapid rise of the building which can be obtained by the building owners through the bribes (Braley, 2008). To help the victims of the Rana Plaza the donation scheme of the charity support is introduced (Chou and Chen, 2013). To prevent the incident like the Rana Plaza disaster, the independent agreement for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh which is known as "Acord" was launched. It is the committed signatory companies to look after the transparent and the independent inspections, safety and the health training of the workers. It also involved in the management of personnel, the right of the workers so that they can file complaints. Further, it also looks after the right to refuse any of the work with their wishes and also the active role of the trade unions and the workers. Recently, the analysis of the first inspection report is released by Accord, which is the comprehensive nature and also includes the plans of the clear remediation of the factory management (Bonerjee, 2009). Share is also been present in the regular contact with the publicly-traded companies to encourage the active participation in the Accord to review the overall the management practices of the supply chain to identify the potential risk that have not been addressed adequately. Number of the Canadian companies is involved in Accord and also pledging to do the elimination of the forced and the child labor from the supply chain (Borzaga and Becchetti, 2010). It also needs to pay attention in the way how the companies managing the overall addressing practices of the contractors like the demands for the turnaround to become fast at the low price from the supplier which leads to cut the issues of the health and the safety practices, problem with the poverty wages and the demand for doing the overtime (Birch and Moon, 2008). The Bangladesh government needs to become stricter with their rules and the regulations so that anyone cannot be able to break the rules and also the political level of corruption needs to be stopped on immediate basis otherwise this types of the accidents occurs in number. The workers should be treated in a more proper way (Hossain et al., 2013).

Conclusion

Another most important thing is that the building needs to be designed in such a way that it can support the loads. If the company needs to improve their business it needs to prevent this type of devastating accidents by using the better quality of the materials of the building the apartment (Carroll, 2009). After the Rana Plaza occurs SHARE and also its clients actively playing the role in the trying of ensuring so that the extreme disaster like Rana Plaza never turn out again, but the everyday situation of the globalized industries are rising to meet the principles of the straight work (Pramanik, Hossain and Azad, 2015).

L'Oreal is considered here to perform this specific section. The ethical issue of any of the companies is the growing concern of the business environment (Becker, Greve and Albers, 2009). The business ethics is defined as the standards and the principles which determine the acceptable conduct of the business organizations (Bearden and Teel, 2007). The most basic ethical and the social responsibility problems are codified in laws and regulations which encourage the business to conform the standards, attitudes and the values (Blowfield and Murray, 2008). Some of the good business reason for doing the strong commitment to the ethical values:

• The ethical companies were shown to be more profitable.
• Leadership of the L'Oreal is also enhanced by the ethical behavior.
• The alternative to voluntary ethical behavior is more demanding and also costly regulation.
• The ethical choices result in less down the stress rate of the employees and the corporate manager of the L'Oreal.

The ethical issues of the business of the L'Oreal are categorized in the context of the relation to the conflicts in the interest, communication, business association, fairness and honesty (Berry, 2007).

(Bloemer and Kasper, 2006)

L'Oreal encompasses some of the values which will tell that those values also support  the vision of the company. The core values of the L'Oreal which are going to be increasingly important due to some of the reason:

• The work in the stressful times gives the guidelines for the behavior.
• Values of the L'Oreal help to enable the people and also the company to get the success.
• Values also impact on the professional practices.
• Values of the L'Oreal also provide the basis for achieving of the cultural change.
• In this highly competitive world, it helps to show the customers of the L'Oreal how they are different from the other providers.

Some of the core values which the companies should require following (Bourne and Jenkins, 2013).

Teamwork: Respecting and listening to each other of the team members who are working together to achieve the mutual beneficial results. In the team work, it is possible to check with others when we are unsure about any matters. The team meetings include the progress of everyone and also the request for the help when it is needed and also helps to achieve the deadlines when it is needed. Conflicts are resolved according to get agreed with the guidelines of the team (Wempe, 2007).

Excellence: In excellence the quality is always delighted with the client while staying with the budget limitation. If the word is given, it needed to keep it otherwise it will be agreed by all the parties (Novak, 2014).

Professionalism: In the professionalism it is about that the employees are not able to talk behind anyone back. Don't upset one another intentionally and always needs to Endeavour to the negative and the present feedback on the construct basis (Michaelson et al., 2013).

Commitment: Working with the basis of the commitment and the urgency of the work is to be successful from the individual and also the company's perspectives (Barthy and Wolff, 2009). It always requires to always the need the urgent conditions to renegotiate the new timeframes with all the parties (Lin, 2014).

In the business landscape of today's world, the companies which are environment-friendly are measured to be the movers and the shakers (Benn and Bolton, 2011). In the environment-friendly aspect, it requires following and also have to maintain some of the eco-friendly aspects so that L'Oreal can maintain the eco-friendly nature in the business landscape like others (Kim, 2014).

Conclusion

To concluding the above study, it can be said that ethical consumerism is revolved around the personal consumption in which the choice is informed with the particular ethical issues. There are four types of consuming in the ethical consumerism which are positive buying in which the buying is done on the ethically made products, negative buying it is about the not buying of the unethical made products, in company based purchasing it involves the targeting of the business in a whole manner and at last in the fully screen approach it is all about the combination of the above three and also means looking and evaluation of the companies and also the products together in which the most ethical is the brand. Mainly the concept of the ethical consumerism indicates to the existence of the preference of the products and the services that match to the ethical aspirations. Assuming the decision-making of the ethical basis includes the rational basis of the calculations of the ethical obligations needs to conceptualize the appearance of the ethical consumption in the ways in which the practical moral dispositions are practiced and re-articulated with the help of the policies, practices and the campaigns that listed the ordinary people in the broader projects of the social change. It also involves both the governing of consuming self and the governing of the consumption. It therefore needed to argue for the importance of the growth occurrence of the ethical consumption which can be understood by the ethical and the political considerations of the new combination. It also therefore argues about the need of the growth in the ethical environment.

In discussing the recommendation of the discussed problems, it tells about the reduction of the environmental impact when the flow of the materials is reduced but it may become harmful in reasonably. In both the task, changes occur if it is driven by the features of the consumer behavior it is likely to find the means of overcoming of the financial disincentives. In the first task, it is all about discussed the Rana Plaza disaster of the Bangladesh and also the prevention which tells how to prevent this type of disaster in the future. In the recommendation part of this task includes the strict measures of the Bangladesh Government so that everyone follows the law and also the use of the better quality construction material in constructing the buildings and the apartments. To look after in this issue, the agreement named as Acord is launched which is committed by the signatory company. In the second task, it discuss all the ethics, values and the environment-friendly issues of the L'Oreal and also how they maintain them so that they can improve in the future.

References:

Barthy, R., and Wolff, F., (2009). Corporate Social Responsibility in Europe. 3^rd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bearden, W. O. and Teel, J. E. (2007) "Selected Determinants of Consumer Satisfaction and Complaint Reports," Journal of Marketing Research, 20, 21-28.

Becker, U.J., Greve, G. and Albers, S. (2009) The impact of technological and organizational implementation of CRM on customer acquisition, maintenance, and retention. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 26(3), 207–215.

Benn, S., and Bolton, D., (2011). Key Concepts in Corporate Social Responsibility. 6^th ed. London: McGraw-Hill Education.

Berry, L. L. (2007) Cultivating service brand equity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28 (1), 128-137.

Birch, D. and Moon, J. (2008) Introduction; JCC theme issue: corporate social responsibility in Asia. Journal of Corporate Citizenship 13: 18-23

Bloemer, J. M. M. and Kasper, H. D. P. (2006) “The Complex Relationship Between Consumer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty,” Journal of Economic Psychology, 16, 311-29.

Blowfield, M. and Murray, C. (2008) CSR: A Critical Introduction. 4^th ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bonerjee, S.B. (2009) CSR: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. 5^th ed. London: Wiley.

Borzaga, C, and Becchetti, L. (2010) The Economics of Social Responsibility. 6^th ed. New York: Routledge.

Bourne, H. and Jenkins, M. (2013). Organizational Values: A Dynamic Perspective. Organization Studies, 34(4), pp.495-514.

Braley, S. J. F. (2008). Ethics incorporated: Department managers set and enforce guidelines. Meetings and Conventions. 36(1), 58-66.

Bucaro, R. C. (2007). Tackling the ethics question in business. Club Industry. 17(1), 14.

Carmody, C. (n.d.). The Shirts on Our Backs: The Rana Plaza Disaster, Interdependence, and the Shifting Locus of Responsibility. SSRN Journal.

Carroll, A. (2009) Business Ethics: Brief Readings on Vital Topics, 3^rd ed. London: Routledge.

Chou, S. and Chen, D. (2013). Emergent disaster rescue methods and prevention management. Disaster Prevention and Management, 22(3), pp.265-277.

Ethical consumerism to reptile welfare: views aired at welfare forum. (2011). Veterinary Record, 168(22), pp.595-595.

Hossain, M., Nahar, N., Nayan, M., Jahan Ema, A. and Arafat Alve, M. (2013). Experience of Bangladeshi occupational therapists with “Rana Plaza Tragedyâ€Â survivors: recovery and rehabilitation phases of disaster management. World Federation of Occupational Therapists Bulletin, 68(1), pp.14-19.

Kim, H. (2014). A Case Study on Management Situations of Environment-friendly Farming of a Producers’ Organization. Korean Journal of Organic Agricultue, 22(2), pp.241-254.

Lin, H. (2014). Government-Business Partnership Formation for Environmental Improvements. Organization & Environment.

Michaelson, C., Pratt, M., Grant, A. and Dunn, C. (2013). Meaningful Work: Connecting Business Ethics and Organization Studies. Journal of Business Ethics, 121(1), pp.77-90.

Novak, V. (2014). Design management of sustainability values: a learning organization perspective. Architectural Engineering and Design Management, 10(3-4), pp.218-232.

Pramanik, M., Hossain, M. and Azad, M. (2015). Management of mass casualty in Rana Plaza tragedy, the worst industrial disaster in Bangladesh. Journal of Armed Forces Medical College, Bangladesh, 9(2).

Wempe, B. (2007). Four Design Criteria for any Future Contractarian Theory of Business Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 81(3), pp.697-714.