An interesting story developed over the past few days in Singapore - as shareholders arrived at the Annual General Meeting of Golden Agri Resources, the palm oil arm of Sinar Mas on Tuesday, Greenpeace held their own press conference in Singapore to "release fresh evidence showing how Sinar Mas continues to destroy Indonesia's rainforests despite promises to stop."   Interesting in that the story got half page coverage in the local paper (in the Money section) and as the journalist who covered the story pointed out  this is "a rare confrontation in corporate Singapore".   NGO pressure has not been a significant driver for sustainable practices in Singapore to date - however, perhaps this is changing.  Businesses who do have operations outside of Singapore and are part of global supply chains are becoming increasingly vulnerable to scrutiny and resulting campaigns.   Businesses based in Singapore would be sensible at the very least to KIV (keep in view) this issue and at best start becoming global NGO aware and understand the risks and opportunities that NGO's can bring to a business. 

There's been a few people suggesting that the mascot for the Shanghai World Expo is a Gumby rip-off. I'm not convinced on that one, but I am convinced that it's a copy of the logo for Xinxiang Haibao Electrical Appliance Company (新乡海宝电器有限公司). In the picture left, the Shanghai Expo mascot (Haibao) is on the left; the original Haibao Electrical Appliance Company logo is on the right. You can see larger versions here (the Shanghai Expo mascot is here, and the Haibao Electrical Appliance Company logo is here).

The official line from Haibao Electrical Appliance Company is that it's never had so much free publicity... But the mascot is clearly a copy.

Somebody has posted a very interesting story at Tianya, China's most widely visited BBS forum (it's in Chinese only - obviously...). So far, the story has been visited 393,421 times and resulted in 2,081 comments (according to the Tianya site counter, a further 500 people visited whilst I was writing this post). So, what's caused all the commotion?

It's pretty simple. The writer says that he was born in a drought affected area in China, and during the current extreme droughts affecting parts of China donated immediately relief was sought (FYI: drought has affected parts of China for months, with rainfall 60 percent below normal since September. Guizhou province has been particularly hard-hit, with 86 out of its 88 cities within the drought zone and more than 17 million people short of drinking water). However, when the writer returned to his home village in Guizhou, he was shocked to discover a brand new car sporting a sign in the window saying "Guizhou Drought Relief Vehicle" (click on the link above to see more and larger photos of the car and sign).

Like many others in China, he had seen the pictures on TV of the relief efforts funded by donations (his included), but now wondered just where his money had gone. Going by some of the comments I've read, many others are wondering that, too. The original poster was so angry at the misuse of money, that he picked up his camera and started shooting. And now it's on Tianya and hundreds of thousands are reading it.

The question is relevant to companies. Where do donations go? Into this nice, new 'drought relief' vehicle?

Rob Hanlon and I recently wrote an article in which we argued that the portrayal of Google as a defender of human rights for withdrawing from China is a theatrical performance (you can see the article here, and the follow up here). This morning I had an email from Salil Tripathi - Director of Policy at the Institute for Human Rights and Business - who pointed me to two pieces he's written from a more positive perspective on Google's withdrawal from China (you can see them here and here). Rob and I are not necessarily convinced by his argument, and we'll be following up with another article on this soon, but Salil's articles are interesting and worth a read.

One of the issues that concerns me about Google's response to our article (see the Google letter here) is the way in which the company accuses us of "gross[ly] misunderstanding ... Google’s actions and motives" but then fails to demonstrate what we misunderstood. Apart from repeating a handful of publicly available statements (e.g., they entered China with 'reservations', that they were not failing China, and so on), the statement does little to convince us that they are indeed the defenders of human rights some (including Salil) make them out to be. But more troubling, and an issue we will take up in an upcoming article, is the claim that (in response to our view that withdrawing from China and not, say, Vietnam, smacks of 'human rights opportunism' - or as we call it "Google Theatre") "a comparison with other countries would not be responsible".

Why would it not be responsible? Is there some sort of hierarchy of human rights abuses, where a company can determine not to do business in countries with the 'worst violations' but remain in countries with 'lesser violations'? Surely human rights are human rights, and there is no gradation that allows Google to say that comparing its actions in one country with another are not responsible.

It is also interesting to note that Google did not mention the term 'human rights' once in its response to our article. That in itself is perhaps more telling than anything else...

On 31 March, Rob Hanlon and I published an article in the CSR Asia Weekly called "Google Theatre" (you can download a pdf version here). In that article, we argued that "the portrayal of Google as a socially responsible business…is a theatrical performance". Obviously our view was critical of Google (and other companies gaining good publicity over their withdrawal from China on purported human rights grounds). We also took a swing at human rights groups (in particular Amnesty International and HRW) over their failure to make a strong case that human rights are a business responsibility. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre picked it up and sent it to all organisations named, and now has posted responses to our article from two of the organisations we criticised (Google and HRW), which you can read here.

Rob and I would be interested to hear from anybody on either our article or the responses from Google and HRW. Our contact details are on the article, and mine is on the website here (sfrost@csr-asia.com).

BTW: Rob is my former PhD student, and submitted his thesis last week. It is on CSR, human rights and corruption in China, Thailand and Cambodia. I hope that it's published soon because it's a fantastic piece of work!

Update (23 April): See updated story and links here.