By Jasmin Malik Chua, Source: Ecouterre

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Well, here’s a plot twist we didn’t see coming: H&M, Levi Strauss, and the Gap just made Ethisphere Institute’s “Most Ethical Companies” list for 2014. The third is the most surprising. This past January, the Public Eye Awards jury named Gap—which also owns the Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta, and Intermix brands—the worst corporation of 2013 for its “steadfast [refusal] to contribute to effective reforms in the textile industry.” One of the top purchasers of clothing in Bangladesh, the American retailer has frequently come under fire for its refusal to sign the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety, choosing instead to align itself with an alternative plan, one that trade unions and labor advocates have largely denounced as a “corporate-controlled sham agreement.”
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MIND THE GAP

Its spotty human-rights record notwithstanding, Gap has also aroused the ire of Greenpeace, not only for its alleged role in toxic water scandals from China to Mexico, but also for its failure to “credibly commit” to eliminating hazardous chemicals from its products and supply chain.

Greenpeace has implicated Gap in toxic water scandals from China to Mexico.

Meanwhile, the company scored a middling 42 points (out of a possible 100) in the Responsible Sourcing Network’s recent evaluation of companies’ efforts toward eliminating forced labor from their supply chains.

But Ethisphere, which has listed the company in its rankings for the eighth consecutive year, is firmly Team Gap.

“The entire community of World’s Most Ethical Companies believe that customers, employees, investors and regulators place a high premium on trust and that ethics and good governance are key in earning it,” Timothy Erblich, Ethisphere’s CEO, says in a statement. “Gap Inc. joins an exclusive community committed to driving performance through leading business practices. We congratulate everyone at Gap Inc. for this extraordinary achievement.”

To its credit, Gap did announce in February its plan to raise the minimum wage for its U.S. workforce to $9 for the remainder of 2014 and $10 in 2015, a move it says will benefit 65,000 of its employees. But Gap’s consideration of its overseas workforce, to put it mildly, falls short of reasonable expectations.

Read the full article at: Ecouterre