Case Study: Exploratory Assessment of Sustainability Capability of Textile and Apparel Corporations in China
This study explores the highly polluting and resource and labor-intensive features of the textile and apparel industry. It reveals four key areas or goals in corporate sustainability: environmental protection, labor relations, operation improvement, and public welfare involvement. Only 22% of Chinese textile and apparel corporations can be considered "Truly Sustainable Corporations", leaving ample opportunity for improvement.
What moral responsibility do corporations have when producing goods? What factors determine the degree to which a corporation takes on social and environmental responsibilities? What factors would account for lack of consistent, long-term commitment to sustainability by a company?
Results
Corporate sustainability goals and structures to achieve them
Of the 66 "perfect duty" companies, only 23 (34.8%) expressed clear sustainability goals in their reports, thus most (65.2%) did not. When examining whether "perfect duty" companies provided clear evidence of the firms having well-defined structures to achieve the sustainability goals, the researcher found that only 20 (30.3%) out of 66 did so, thus most (69.7%) did not. These results indicate a huge gap of numbers between companies viewing sustainability as a perfect duty and those having clear goals and structures toward it. For "imperfect duty" companies, all 11 companies expressed their goals and structures in at least one area.