The Hindu Business Line : `Indian corporates show high level of conscience'

FOUR years since the UN Chief floated the concept of `Global Compact' for corporates, India figures among the top three nations with sizeable number of subscribers to it.

GC is meant to prod corporate conscience towards society and environment and till March this year, 46 public sector and 40 from the private sector are now into the voluntary, value-based initiative of the ILO, according to Dr S.M. Dewan, DG, Standing conference of Public Sector Undertakings (Scope). As many as 13 are from the Tata Group.

Addressing a first Scope-ILO training programme for managers of PSUs, he said the concept mooted by Kofi Annan at the 1999 WEF makes CEOs to look beyond the company bottom-line and act fairly towards labour and society. Globalisation, he said, had caused regional imbalances and GC, which encompasses ILO-prescribed labour rights, and Rio environmental concerns as good business ethics, can soften some of the harsh effects of a highly competitive world.

Of the 1,200 companies subscribing to GC so far, India, he said, is only after Spain with 118 GC practitioners and the Philippines with 90 of them.

Mr Roy Chacko, ILO official from Geneva, said GC provoked new thinking that benefits the public. Companies need to write to ILO about their GC intent and show proof of its practice after a year.

According to Dr Rajen Mehrotra, a Delhi-based ILO specialist on South Asia, GC is gaining relevance today. What started as ethical trading and sourcing practices in apparel, footwear, sports and toy industries is now getting extended to farm produce, auto, oil, gas, biotech, FMCG.

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