Social sustainability - Part 1

The social pillar of sustainable development is related to both preserving and developing humans and their relationships, culture, and institutions. In context of supply chains, they can be classified into five major themes: goods/service-centric, human-centric, organization-centric, corporate-centric, and management-centric.

Goods/service-centric

This theme is related to goods and services as they must be safe, secure, healthy and transparently traceable. There are also some non-humanistic rights which must be respected like property rights and animal rights/welfare.

Human-centric

The next theme has a human-centric as it is directly related to human resources, or human capital or labor or employees, of supply chains. Healthcare of employees, and even their families, as well as their safety are some criteria.
Humans also have several rights which are usually called ‘labor rights’ for employees in businesses. Employees have rights to be treated equitably by having: equitable/fair employment opportunities, written contracts, legal wages and compensations, gradual increase in the minimum wage rate in accordance with economic growth, retirement funds, maternity leave, fair working hours, and fair return on their contributions. Moreover, any form of discrimination - including discrimination based on nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, class, or wealth of the employees - , child labor, forced labor, bonded labor, and harassment and abuse should be banned. Labor rights also include freedom of movement and association, right to collective bargaining, right to strike, inclusion in decision-making or democratic decision-making, and decent working conditions.

Organization-centric

Organizations shape social values or culture of supply chains stakeholders in particular the employees. A Sustainable organization should provide the right culture for development of its employees. Although giving a recipe for creation of such culture is difficult the literature’s recipe is that organizations should:
a) Enhance the ability to attract, retain, and motivate employees; and protect their dignity, loyalty, commitment to work, wellbeing, and satisfaction;
b) Foster diversity, while at the same time [organizational] integrity and inclusion, and respect or advance minorities;
c) Exploit innovation and creativity by being open to new suggestions as well as external stakeholders;
d) Create a learning context by: education; sharing knowledge; encouraging lifelong learning; increasing absorptive capacity; social interaction and networking; training; and developing employees’ skills, capacity, talents, career;
e) Develop sustainability capabilities by effectively coordinating complex bundles of heterogeneous human and non-human resources to achieve sustainability goals and visions.                                       

Corporate-centric

This theme is related to responsibilities beyond organizational boundaries i.e. in relationship with stakeholders and macro society. Such responsibilities are usually classified as Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) namely, economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary.
Ethical sourcing/ social responsible buying/ purchasing social responsibility

It is related to responsibility of sourcing from ethical or socially responsible suppliers who follow the criteria which were previously mentioned or minimum standards/requirements, transparency of suppliers, developing suppliers’ skills and capabilities.

Ethical trade/ fair trade/ business ethics
Ethical trade or fair trade or business ethics go one step further than just ethical sourcing as it sheds light upon all trade and production processes in the market(s) where the supply chain operates. Setting equitable pricing system; providing pre-payment; more equally redistribution of revenue along the supply chains; avoiding fake trade; avoiding obscure contract terms; avoiding corruption, extortion, bribery, and illegal payments to authorities; being honest and transparent; and conducting business consistent with morals and values of society are some examples of codes of ethics.
Corporate citizenship
This sub-theme refers to responsibilities of corporations in relationship with macro society like social investment, supporting public services, community development, and philanthropy.

Management-centric

This theme consists of activities which have managerial or governmental thematic. Such activities can be classified as:

Modeling, assessment, and measurement

A common purpose of these sub-themes is evaluation of social sustainability in supply chains. Some examples are: Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA), [fuzzy] multi-criteria performance measures, sustainability indices (like FTSE4Good and DJSI) and indicators, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and equilibrium models.
Compliance with standards and codes of conduct
These sub-themes may facilitate top-down and bottom-up governance mechanisms.
Accountability 8000 (SA 8000), AccountAbility (AA1000) Stakeholder Engagement Standard (AA1000SES), and OHSAS 18001 are some examples of standards. Those who follow the standards can get certification(s) and /or label(s) which is (are) mostly audited by external or third party or independent authorities. Those who do not comply can apply for joint remediation or get penalties through sanctions and fees. Businesses and organizations may also follow guidance/guidelines (like ISO 26000, the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises, the Global Sullivan Principles) and conventions and declarations like those of the international labor organization (ILO).
Corporations are also increasingly demonstrating their commitment to sustainable development through self-regulatory mechanisms by: setting guidelines and codes of conduct – which are also called by phrases such as codes of ethics, codes of practice, corporate credos, mission statements, and values statements–; publishing repots especially according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework; voluntary self-assessments; setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs); and taking initiatives (like following: UN Global Compact, UN Millennium Development Goals, Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), Global Social Compliance Program (GSCP), International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling (ISEAL) Alliance, and Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI)).
There are also examples of sector-specific and industry-driven standards, guidelines, and initiatives like: GlobalG.A.P., Fair Trade certified label, …

Collaboration

Collaboration is an inseparable part of sustainable supply chains as it can leverage the information, interests, skills, experiences, innovations, and technologies of other stakeholders to the firm; facilitate compliance with codes of conduct; facilitate joint action; facilitate access to scare resources; leverage emerging valuable and rare inter-firm resources and capabilities; facilitate corporate strategy alignment; minimize risks and conflicts, build trust in the chain; maintain a firm’s competitive advantage; leverage stakeholders engagement, satisfaction, and feedbacks; add democratic value to the regulatory arrangements; build credibility and legitimacy; provide social support during the adoption of sustainability practices ; and strengthen relational embeddedness in the network.

Supply chains co-adapt with their surrounding societies by creating shared values with them. Supply chains can contribute to sustainable development of their surrounding societies by: fulfilling demand and needs for safe, secure, and healthy goods and services; creating new jobs; employing the labour forces while respecting their rights and dignity; developing the employees’ innovation and absorptive capacities while keeping them loyal and motivated; lowering poverty; and supporting public services and humanitarian aids. However, supply chains activities may have negative effects on their surrounding societies which should be mitigated. Some examples are negative effects on residents’ health and safety, noise, congestion, injuries, accidents, visual intrusion, mobbing of employees, human right abuses, land-take, and deterioration of cultural carrying capacity.
The surrounding societies can contribute to sustainable development of supply chains, too. Providing proactive welfare and healthcare services; creating a solid infrastructure; educating a labour force which understands and respects human rights, gender equality, democracy, peace, liberty, social solidarity and inclusion; creating and preserving a culture supportive of creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and diversity can directly flourish sustainable development of supply chains. However, surrounding societies may have negative effects on sustainable development of supply chains which should be mitigated. Some examples are corruptions, scandals, bribery, extortion and blackmail, power abuse, thefts, hijacking, smuggling of goods, breaking the intellectual properties, and prejudice.