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"This title addresses the challenges modern day supply chain managers face. Today the global supply chain is undergoing significant changes and dislocations due to a multitude of world events and industry trends"--
This book argues that larger flaws in the global supply chain must first be addressed to change the way business is conducted to prevent factory owners from taking deadly risks to meet clients’ demands in the garment industry in Bangladesh. Using the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster as a departure point, and to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future, this book presents an interdisciplinary analysis to address the disaster which resulted in a radical change in the functioning of the garment industry. The chapters present innovative ways of thinking about solutions that go beyond third-party monitoring. They open up possibilities for a renewed engagement of international brands and buyers within the garment sector, a focus on direct worker empowerment using technology, the role of community-based movements, developing a model of change through enforceable contracts combined with workers movements, and a more productive and influential role for both factory owners and the government. This book makes key interventions and rethinks the approaches that have been taken until now and proposes suggestions for the way forward. It engages with international brands, the private sector, and civil society to strategize about the future of the industry and for those who depend on it for their livelihood. A much-needed review and evaluation of the many initiatives that have been set up in Bangladesh in the wake of Rana Plaza, this book is a valuable addition to academics in the fields of development studies, gender and women’s studies, human rights, poverty and practice, political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, and South Asian studies.
The book that inspired the movie Collapse. The world is running short of energy-especially cheap, easy-to-find oil. Shortages, along with resulting price increases, threaten industrialized civilization, the global economy, and our entire way of life. In Confronting Collapse, author Michael C. Ruppert, a former LAPD narcotics officer turned investigative journalist, details the intricate connections between money and energy, including the ways in which oil shortages and price spikes triggered the economic crash that began in September 2008. Given the 96 percent correlation between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions and the unlikelihood of economic growth without a spike in energy use, Ruppert argues that we are not, in fact, on the verge of economic recovery, but on the verge of complete collapse. Ruppert's truth is not merely inconvenient. It is utterly devastating. But there is still hope. Ruppert outlines a 25-point plan of action, including the creation of a second strategic petroleum reserve for the use of state and local governments, the immediate implementation of a national Feed-in Tariff mandating that electric utilities pay 3 percent above market rates for all surplus electricity generated from renewable sources, a thorough assessment of soil conditions nationwide, and an emergency action plan for soil restoration and sustainable agriculture.
What if our civilization were to collapse? Not many centuries into the future, but in our own lifetimes? Most people recognize that we face huge challenges today, from climate change and its potentially catastrophic consequences to a plethora of socio-political problems, but we find it hard to face up to the very real possibility that these crises could produce a collapse of our entire civilization. Yet we now have a great deal of evidence to suggest that we are up against growing systemic instabilities that pose a serious threat to the capacity of human populations to maintain themselves in a sustainable environment. In this important book, Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens confront these issues head-on. They examine the scientific evidence and show how its findings, often presented in a detached and abstract way, are connected to people’s ordinary experiences – joining the dots, as it were, between the Anthropocene and our everyday lives. In so doing they provide a valuable guide that will help everyone make sense of the new and potentially catastrophic situation in which we now find ourselves. Today, utopia has changed sides: it is the utopians who believe that everything can continue as before, while realists put their energy into making a transition and building local resilience. Collapse is the horizon of our generation. But collapse is not the end – it’s the beginning of our future. We will reinvent new ways of living in the world and being attentive to ourselves, to other human beings and to all our fellow creatures.
Global supply chains have become a dominant business model that has generated millions of jobs in developing and emerging economies. At the same time, we do not know what is behind this rise, as well as the effects that purchasing practices between buyers and suppliers have on wages and working conditions. This book is the first to address the root causes of poor working conditions within global supply chains themselves, in terms of living wages, working hours, types of work contract, and health and safety, not only in the garment sector, but also in other sectors, such as food, electronics and furniture. From a unique survey among nearly 2,000 suppliers all over the world, this volume also presents fresh evidence on purchasing practices and identifies their impact on wages and working conditions. It is essential reading for all interested in promoting social sustainability, and reveals the modus operandi behind the rise of global supply chains, as well as providing evidence on both effects and root causes. The book will also help to close the circle by identifying changes in policies and practices that could lead to more decent wages and working conditions along more sustainable global supply chains.
Introduction : injustice in a disorienting world -- Neoliberal theory as a source of orientation -- Seeing (like) supply chain managers -- The outer limit of freedom -- Ugly progress and unhopeful hope -- The significance of solidarity -- Why sovereignty is not a solution -- Conclusion : freedom and resentment amid neoliberalism.
The global financial crisis of 2008/9 is the Great Depression of the 21st century. For many though, the similarities stop at the Wall Street Crash as the current generation of policymakers have acted quickly to avoid the mistakes of the past. Yet the global crisis has made room for mistakes all of its own. While governments have apparently kept to their word on refraining from protectionist measures in the style of 1930s tariffs, there has been a disturbing rise in "murky protectionism." Seemingly benign, these crisis-linked policies are twisted to favour domestic firms, workers and investors. This book, first published as an eBook on VoxEU.org in March 2009, brings together leading trade policy practitioners and experts - including Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo. Initially its aim was to advise policymakers heading in to the G20 meeting in London, but since the threat of murky protectionism persists, so too do their warnings.
Even as the evidence of global warming mounts, the international response to this serious threat is coming unraveled. The United States has formally withdrawn from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; other key nations are facing difficulty in meeting their Kyoto commitments; and developing countries face no limit on their emissions of the gases that cause global warming. In this clear and cogent book-reissued in paperback with an afterword that comments on recent events--David Victor explains why the Kyoto Protocol was never likely to become an effective legal instrument. He explores how its collapse offers opportunities to establish a more realistic alternative. Global warming continues to dominate environmental news as legislatures worldwide grapple with the process of ratification of the December 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The collapse of the November 2000 conference at the Hague showed clearly how difficult it will be to bring the Kyoto treaty into force. Yet most politicians, policymakers, and analysts hailed it as a vital first step in slowing greenhouse warming. David Victor was not among them. Kyoto's fatal flaw, Victor argues, is that it can work only if emissions trading works. The Protocol requires industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases to specific targets. Crucially, the Protocol also provides for so-called "emissions trading," whereby nations could offset the need for rapid cuts in their own emissions by buying emissions credits from other countries. But starting this trading system would require creating emission permits worth two trillion dollars--the largest single invention of assets by voluntary international treaty in world history. Even if it were politically possible to distribute such astronomical sums, the Protocol does not provide for adequate monitoring and enforcement of these new property rights. Nor does it offer an achievable plan for allocating new permits, which would be essential if the system were expanded to include developing countries. The collapse of the Kyoto Protocol--which Victor views as inevitable--will provide the political space to rethink strategy. Better alternatives would focus on policies that control emissions, such as emission taxes. Though economically sensible, however, a pure tax approach is impossible to monitor in practice. Thus, the author proposes a hybrid in which governments set targets for both emission quantities and tax levels. This offers the important advantages of both emission trading and taxes without the debilitating drawbacks of each. Individuals at all levels of environmental science, economics, public policy, and politics-from students to professionals--and anyone else hoping to participate in the debate over how to slow global warming will want to read this book.