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Paperback and at www.reebok.com. 76pp.
Reebok’s Human rights report 2005 is an impressive piece of work. It contains lots of highly informative facts and figures clearly presented in a very readable way. In his CEO statement Paul Fireman sounds as if he actually means what he says – no mean feat in a slot where sincerity is often over-polished. There is interesting material on how the company’s purchasing practices can conflict with its human rights standards, revealing comment from sourcing managers, NGO views (‘we found evidence to confirm several of the allegations…’) and riveting excerpts from text messages sent by factory workers (‘The owner hides some minors between 15-17 years old when … Reebok monitors visit’).
At times this comes close to reportage, as when Reebok’s Chinese human rights manager describes her undercover work to find out what factory owners are really up to: ‘Night surveillance is the only way to get the proof ... I pretend to be someone looking for work...’
It seems unfair to complain. Yet at the heart of the report is a large colour pull-out poster of a size found in teenage magazines. Except this shows no heart-throb, but the company’s compliance violations in a chart of more than 2000 colour-coded percentage scores. Isn’t the internet there to hive off this kind of data? And why were 54 per cent of emergency exits in European supplier factories inaccessible, unsafe or unmarked? Why, in South America, is the equivalent figure less than half this? Australia, a developed country, is grouped with six south-east Asian countries. So what were the figures for Vietnam? And so on. What, in short, is the utility of this information? The report nowhere discloses one thing I really would like to know: how much all this costs.
Faced with such a poster, one is left with the feeling that someone, somewhere said: ‘Information? We’ll give ‘em information. Lots of it.’ Did anyone stop to ask whether people would be able to digest it? Sunshine is the best disinfectant, but sometimes one hankers for the shade.
Alistair Townley
Reebok’s Human rights report 2005 is an impressive piece of work. It contains lots of highly informative facts and figures clearly presented in a very readable way. In his CEO statement Paul Fireman sounds as if he actually means what he says – no mean feat in a slot where sincerity is often over-polished. There is interesting material on how the company’s purchasing practices can conflict with its human rights standards, revealing comment from sourcing managers, NGO views (‘we found evidence to confirm several of the allegations…’) and riveting excerpts from text messages sent by factory workers (‘The owner hides some minors between 15-17 years old when … Reebok monitors visit’).
At times this comes close to reportage, as when Reebok’s Chinese human rights manager describes her undercover work to find out what factory owners are really up to: ‘Night surveillance is the only way to get the proof ... I pretend to be someone looking for work...’
It seems unfair to complain. Yet at the heart of the report is a large colour pull-out poster of a size found in teenage magazines. Except this shows no heart-throb, but the company’s compliance violations in a chart of more than 2000 colour-coded percentage scores. Isn’t the internet there to hive off this kind of data? And why were 54 per cent of emergency exits in European supplier factories inaccessible, unsafe or unmarked? Why, in South America, is the equivalent figure less than half this? Australia, a developed country, is grouped with six south-east Asian countries. So what were the figures for Vietnam? And so on. What, in short, is the utility of this information? The report nowhere discloses one thing I really would like to know: how much all this costs.
Faced with such a poster, one is left with the feeling that someone, somewhere said: ‘Information? We’ll give ‘em information. Lots of it.’ Did anyone stop to ask whether people would be able to digest it? Sunshine is the best disinfectant, but sometimes one hankers for the shade.
Alistair Townley
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