Report: Buying your way into trouble

Few companies look at their supply chain as an integrated system and most importantly, at how their own buying practices affect suppliers' ability to meet their own commitments to uphold international labour standards. This report explores how certain characteristics or organisations link to, and may undermine, commitments in typical supply chain labour standards codes of practice. Indeed some companies may be inadvertently pursuing a buying strategy that creates tension, or in some cases directly conflicts with their commitments to ethical sourcing.

First published in 2004