Promoting business ethics and responsible
consumption by a qualitative societal dialogue:
setting up of test-structures regrouping stakeholders
Context
What to do in order that increasingly more
and more enterprises get involved in a way
of "good citizen company", what
to do in order that increasingly more consumers
become "responsible" and find on
the market the products of "clean"
consumption they are looking for?
In an apparently paradoxical way, the ethical
dynamics of business are still very often
the object of confrontations or polarizations
between the interested actors. Any person
involved in the fields linked to business
ethics knows that when companies edict conduct
codes in an independent way or get involved
in any citizens process in an isolated way,
they often cause the distrust of the NGO's
that suspect them of "window dressing",
of a marketing operation that is not followed
by real effects. And on their side, these
NGO's often appear exclusively critical with
regard to any initiative of the business world
in ethical matters, whatever sincere these
efforts sometimes are. These dissensions contribute
considerably to slow down the emergence of
more ethical ways of producing and disturb
the consumer who would wish to enter in a
more responsible consumption. To restore a
balance, it is now important and urgent to
encourage to the maximum consensual dynamics.
To do so, the careful observers agree on
the primordial importance of communication
between the stakeholders, that
means besides the companies, the trade unions,
the NGO's, the consumers organizations,
the representatives of the shareholding,
etc. Increasingly, in the specialized places,
the dialogue between stakeholders even appears
as the "last mode". At the same
time, the promoter of the present project
has participated for about fifteen years
in numerous events (conferences, workshops,
symposia.) linked to the ethics of business
and he had to note that when dialogue was
on the agenda, it was reduced in almost
all the cases to the fact that each one
successively exposes its position, then
listens politely to the other, but without
giving place to a true common construction.
There is therefore a need
to implement spaces that
enable a real dialogue
between stakeholders, a societal dialogue
from where it would emerge:
-
positions
that satisfy the totality of the stakeholders
and that each will be able to support
during the continuation of the process;
-
realistic
and desirable objectives for business
that wish to enter into a dynamics of
solidarity or sustainable development
-
a unified
communication toward consumers
-
examples of
"best practices" to spread
-
last but not
least, a methodology of societal dialogue
that will be reproducible
A pilot
project
The present project wishes to be a pilot project
in this sense.
Its final objective is the development of
a responsible production and consumption.
The means will be the setting up of "groups
of dialogue-tests" that will enable to
identify the optimal working conditions of
future "multistakeholders" structures.
The added value of the project would, in fine,
be materialized in the publication
of a booklet that will serve as a
guide in this field and be communicated to
numerous initiatives linked to this field.
Test -Structures
At the beginning and according to our experience,
we estimate that the best dynamics will
be those that will be built:
-
following
a non confronting dialogue,
-
on precise
topics,
-
in a small
group of experts (a dozen of women and
men),
-
where time
is sufficiently broad to truly listen
to the others and then, build together
on a maximum consensual basis
-
and this,
thanks to the support of a professional
of mediation. (intervening softly and
only when needed).
These are some elements that lead to a
brief model but that seems to us as a qualitative
break with all that is done currently. An
objective is also that, following the experimentations
of the test-phase, one can identify the
values necessary to a common working process
and, starting out, to write a sort of working
charter.
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