Child labor: Hershey gets “F” in annual report card
A year has gone by since non-profit groups shined a spotlight on Hershey for its use of forced child, and trafficked labor in its chocolate products. Twelve months later, the groups are saying that no progress has been made and that Hershey chocolate is still tainted by child labor.
Recently, Green America, Global Exchange and the International Labor Rights Forum published a follow-up to the report they released last year: Time to Raise the Bar: The Real Corporate Social Responsibility Report for the Hershey Company.
The updated report, the publication of which coincides with the expected annual release of Hershey’s own corporate social responsibility (CSR) report, critiques Hershey’s existing CSR initiatives and highlights the fact that Hershey is falling further behind its competitors in removing child labor from its products. The report urges Hershey to commit to sourcing Fair Trade cocoa to stop these abuses.
The three groups give Hershey an “F” for failing to remove child labor from its supply chain. September 19, 2011 marked the 10-year anniversary of the signing of the Harkin-Engel Protocol – an agreement made by US’s largest chocolate companies, including Hershey – to put an end to forced child labor in chocolate by 2005. A full decade after making this commitment, hundreds of thousands of children continue to work in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms in West Africa, and human trafficking continues.
While some of Hershey’s closest competitors, including Mars and Nestlé, have committed to begin sourcing cocoa that is independently certified to comply with labor rights standards, Hershey, the largest and most iconic chocolate company in the US – maker of Hershey’s Bars, Reeses’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Hershey’s Kisses – still lags behind.
Kraft Foods applauds employees for outstanding volunteer efforts
Finding homes for abandoned pets, working with orphans, counseling struggling youth, and securing an education for teens, these are just some of the many ways five outstanding Kraft Foods employees are making a difference in their communities.
The Kraft Foods Foundation is honoring Carlos Fonseca from Venezuela, Michelle Voss from the United States, Maria de Jesus Rocha from Mexico, Lizzie Lee from the United Kingdom and Marion Gathoga from Kenya for their extraordinary year-round commitment to volunteerism with the first-ever Delicious Difference Awards. The Kraft Foods Foundation will fund a $10,000 grant to each of the nonprofit partners of the award winners.
“The Delicious Difference Awards are our way of putting the spotlight on these five amazing employees, who are truly our superstars,” said Nicole Robinson, Vice President of the Kraft Foods Foundation. “I’m personally inspired by these individuals and so proud of the invaluable impact they each make in their communities year after year.”
IIRC launches Integrated Reporting Discussion Paper
Business and investment leaders have called for a new approach to corporate reporting in a landmark discussion paper, called Towards Integrated Reporting – Communicating Value in the 21st Century, published by the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC).
Integrated Reporting will provide more comprehensive and meaningful information about all aspects of an organization’s performance and position, presented in a much clearer, more concise and more user friendly format. In particular it will demonstrate the links between an organization’s financial performance and the social, environmental and economic context within which it operates.
The development of Integrated Reporting is designed to enhance and consolidate existing reporting practices to move towards a reporting framework that provides the information needed to develop the global economic model to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Integrated Reporting will be clear and comprehensible, providing a meaningful assessment of the long-term viability of an organization, meeting the information needs of investors and other stakeholders, and supporting the effective allocation of financial, manufactured, human, intellectual, natural and social capital.
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