Michelle Long, Transparency Center

Michelle Long recently cofounded the Transparency Center, a nonprofit organization focused on facilitating transparent, stakeholder-inclusive models of trade.

Good morning. Today I'm up early writing this diary, as I have a 7:30 a.m. meeting with a former business associate. He is both a smart person who always has great advice and a potential investor/donor to the Transparency Center. (An aside: As my organization is new and my former organization was a for-profit corporation, I still struggle a bit with the term "donation." Our organization has adopted the language of the Fourth Sector Alliance in calling ourselves "For Benefit" as opposed to nonprofit. As a 501c3, we still care about working toward a self-sustaining model; it's just that our end goal is maximizing social benefit rather than profits. Our investors are investing for social returns.)

When I left off yesterday, I said the Internet and global communications allow us to mobilize and transparently share the information we need to make more informed and responsible decisions as citizen consumers. Our work at the Transparency Center is focused on this issue.

The president of Consumer Reports, Rhoda Karpatkin, asked last year:

Can a corporation prosper if it's seen by the public as threatening health, safety, or environmental values? ... The Internet may be stimulating more responsible corporate behavior. Witness the incredible speed with which citizen viewpoints can traverse the globe, sharing information, connecting critics to each other, and transforming the magnitude and intensity of civil society's impact on business conduct.

Anyone who has participated in one of the university student campaigns against sweatshops has certainly seen this power firsthand. The number of emails flowing from Singapore to Canada to France to Taiwan to the U.S. on the campaign lists is immense. Without the filter of a media or editorial body, people are able to communicate their perceptions and photos in real time! The World Resources Institute's global forest watch program website is another great example. Here, using a unique combination of satellite imagery, geographic information systems, mapping software, and on-the-ground observation, accurate information about the world's forests is available to citizen consumers. This information could potentially enable one to make different decisions with regards to wood use or purchase.

In my own experience introducing artisan and farm products to retailers in the U.S., we introduced the voice of the product creators to consumers -- a connection that led to more informed purchasing decisions. We created elaborate "digital stories" that were meant to be shown at the point of sale -- on an in-store monitor, or on a website for an e-commerce purchase. These stories transparently showed the potential product buyer how and where the products were made, who made the products, the artisans' opinions on their work, the perspectives of others involved in the supply chain, and the indicators and progress toward sustainability by which the production process was measured.

But for a large corporation to try to communicate transparently with consumers, there is a credibility challenge. With so much hype and gimmickry these days, it's hard for people to really know what to believe. There are some very interesting corporate initiatives going on that -- if we could truly separate them from advertising -- could and should be rewarded. For instance, B&Q (sort of the Home Depot of the U.K.) has been a real innovator. The company decided to look at all its supply chains, start with some of the most egregious problems, and work its way through fixing the list. Obviously, the huge selection of products it carries meant an almost insurmountable effort. But, as the saying goes, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

One problem B&Q tackled early was with the Chinese factory making its brass door hinges. B&Q found the working conditions to be so horrible that people regularly missed work due to injury! But B&Q worked with all the stakeholders in that supply chain -- the workers who had many thoughts on safety and sustainability improvements, the factory managers and owners, other stakeholders, and eventually the Chinese government. End result -- changes and morale improvements were so significant that the factory became a role model. The Chinese government gave it an award, and now other factories are competing to try to get that award. Imagine if consumers could contribute further to the improvement of this situation by rewarding the output of this factory versus its competitors. Imagine that race to the top!

There are two primary challenges in making all this information transparently available to citizen consumers. One -- making it quickly understandable for even the busiest people. And two, making sure this information is absolutely credible and inclusive of all relevant stakeholder positions in a supply chain. As soon as one organization owns the information, suspicion can be raised as to its accuracy and the incentives for presenting certain viewpoints. Who can own the truth?

This dilemma has led us at the Transparency Center to explore the concept of facilitating the creation of an owner-member organization of participants drawn together by shared principles and a desire to find solutions to problems bigger than any one organization. My partner, Alistair Jackson, most recently spent seven years as the director of values and vision for the Body Shop, and has been quite involved in various top-down supply chain monitoring and certification efforts. Alistair introduced me to the Chaordic Commons, where we've found solutions to many problems. I'll talk more about this tomorrow. Enjoy your day.

GNP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
-- Robert Kennedy