Last week we at Common Soles learned that we have been accepted as an official green business by Green America! This means that the Common Soles product, business practices, and processes we employ have been audited by the Green America research team to ensure they meet the established criteria to deem us a green business!
The auditing/screening process checks that we:
We have seen and written about numerous examples of businesses that leverage their influence on the public for the benefit of a social cause. One business which has always stood out from the crowd is The Body Shop. Founded in 1976 by Dame Anita Roddick in England, The Body Shop has always stood for ethical business and been a model organization for giving back and supporting causes which help make the world a better place.
Common Soles is fully in support of The Body Shop's latest initiaitve in aiding ECPAT USA and the Somaly Mam Foundation in an effort to stop the sex trafficking of children and young people.
The 210 Footwear Foundation is all about "shoepeople helping shoepeople". We're down with that! Nice letter from 210 President Peggy Meill.
We get lots of questions on how we maintain and ensure that our footwear factory overseas is providing a quality work environment for all employees. It’s a great question and we’ve written about such related practices previously here in the Sole Blog. But when trolling through some of these earlier posts I realized that we have not specifically laid out our criteria, findings, and notes in one clear and concise post. So here it is!
- Worker pay. The workers at Sarada Indistries, the factory we employ in Vijayawada, India, pays a fair wage to all workers well above the country base line for pay in this industry which I have to tell you is scary low. Unfortunately we do not have direct control over this as we do not own the factory. We have spent significant time there though, and in speaking with workers directly have learned that they are paid well and often it is the best paying job in the area for them!
- Worker conditions. After having spent significant time on the factory floor Rao and I can comfortably describe the factory as: Highly Functional. Much like you would expect a Toyota auto factory except WAY smaller and less high-tech. Everything and everybody has a specific purpose and process they follow. Defining functional means that adequate lighting and safety precautions are in place, each worker has a comfortable space to work within, a breeze and fresh air comes through large open windows, and ceiling fans provide a nice cooling effect in the warm South Indian climate. Hazardous materials are not used in the production of Common Soles footwear, in fact, our products are so simple that most materials and tools used to assemble them can be found in the typical homeowner's garage throughout the US.
Lisa and I were recently traveling the South Island of New Zealand for two glorious weeks. It was absolutely amazing – New Zealand is indeed adventure-land. On several occasions when chatting with folks in NZ we found ourselves telling the tale of what Common Soles is up to. For the most part, everyone responds quite well to our story (or at least we tend to meet very nice people!). They can get into the Common Soles story quite easily, as most everyone appreciates businesses that take on a social bent.
What’s interesting though is where the conversation typically goes after the initial back-and-forth on what Common Soles is and what we are up to. 9 times out of 10 we hear stories of other small social ventures the individual knows of, either through a personal connection, or something they heard about via the media that resonated with them. Folks get incredibly excited to share the stories of these socially responsible organizations. It’s really neat experiencing the energy that is generated during conversations on social ventures. People get really excited about them regardless of their association with the organization, and regardless of whether or not they have even conducted a transaction with that organization!
The Fair Labor Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending sweatshop conditions. We fully support this cause and organization. Being a supporter is one thing, truly understanding he benchmarks they have outlined that constitute good working conditions is slightly more complex. The FLA has assembled a 28 page document that outlines the benchmarks used to determine if a factory is providing good working conditions for their employees. Here’s a link to that .pdf
These benchmarks cover all the basic elements such as wages, child labor restrictions, sanitary conditions, etc. What they do not cover are environmental practices in operations. We have discussed our efforts in that area in previous blog posts and will have even more on that topic in the future as it is a concern we also strongly believe in.
Creating Community Through Food - right on Bi-Rite! We spotted this while in San Francisco. Bi-Rite is an institution in the city and I sure have eaten my fair share of ice-cream from them! While enjoying my latest cone in the corner of the busy shop I flipped through the Bi-Rite brochure. On the back page was one of the best statements of how an organization views it's business ecosystem. Here it is, enjoy!
Those of you who have been with us since the beginning (spring ‘09) know that we’ve been building Common Soles in real time and in an open and public manner. We’ve solicited you via Twitter, Facebook, this blog, email, grabbing random people on the sidewalk, etc. to garner feedback on everything from colors for our website, to the placement of the arch support in our flip-flops. We appreciate the time and effort you have given us and the candid (very in some cases) responses you shared. So thank you!
Common Soles is a brand for you. Our tag line after all is Common Soles for the Common Good. Or is it… Many of you have said you preferred our new one: Look Good + Do Good more so. Either way, we’re building this organization in real time, with you, our fans and customers involved in the dialogue at every step of the way.
I love learning. I didn't until I graduated from college, I then realized how wonderful the gift of education is. How could I appreciate it? I didn't know any other life until then. So when I decided to go back to grad school in 2006 it was with great respect for the educational system, and drive to once again - learn.
One of the greatest things I took away from business school was a deeper understanding of organizations role in society. Recently, Leonard Schlesinger, Babson's new President articulated this learning I took away very succinctly in the school's new strategy.