Biodiversity monitoring for a just planetary future.

Data that influence policy and major investment decisions risk entrenching social and political inequities.

Factory benefits to paying workers more: The critical role of compensation systems in apparel manufacturing.

While many stakeholders believe worker wages in global supply chains are too low, there is disagreement about what, if anything, can be done to raise wages. Through a two-year quasi-experiment in an operating apparel factory, we assess the effects on productivity and profits of raising worker wages with a re-designed compensation system. We show that, even within current factory margins and constraints, important wage gains (4.2-9.7%) are possible and profitable. Productivity increased 8-10%-points while turnover decreased markedly. Workers were motivated by the potential for increased wages from an accelerating group rate as well as increased engagement and sense of fair compensation. Workers focused their increased effort on reducing quality defects and tardiness, two behaviors which individual workers largely control. Additional productivity-increasing behaviors were constrained by skill, position, and conflicts arising from free riders. Advanced apparel manufacturing demands a more engaged workforce; this research provides early evidence that compensation systems can be a critical tool to meet multiple needs.

Lean manufacturing comes to China: a case study of its impact on workplace health and safety.

Lean manufacturing, which establishes small production "cells," or teams of workers, who complete an entire product from raw material processing through final assembly and shipment, increases health and safety hazards by mixing previously separated exposures to various chemicals (with possible additive and cumulative effects) and noise. The intensification of work leads to greater ergonomic and stress-related adverse health effects, as well as increased safety hazards. The standard industrial hygiene approach of anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and hazard control is applicable to lean operations. A focus on worker participation in identifying and solving problems is critical for reducing negative impacts. A key to worker safety in lean production operations is the development of informed, empowered, and active workers with the knowledge, skills, and opportunity to act in the workplace to eliminate or reduce hazards.

Experiments in transforming the global workplace: incentives for and impediments to improving workplace conditions in China.

This article highlights current economic conditions in China and analyzes existing obstacles to improving workplace conditions and labor practices. There are significant disincentives to strengthening workplace protections, and downward pressures are currently worsening conditions in a number of economic sectors. However, there are also potential strategies for motivating multinational corporations (MNCs) and Chinese government agencies to improve workplace conditions and to implement international and national laws and corporate codes of conduct. Four key principles are discussed that hold promise for creating incentives and sustainable mechanisms to improve factory conditions: transparency, verification, and accountability for MNCs and Chinese government agencies, and greatly strengthening worker participation.

Developing an action-based health and safety training project in southern China.

A project brought together international footwear manufacturers, labor rights groups, local contract factories, and occupational health professionals to strengthen factory health and safety programs in southern China. Steps involved in the two-year project, including needs assessment, interviews and focus groups with workers and supervisors; design and development of a participatory workshop; development of plant-wide health and safety committees in three footwear factories; and evaluation project impact, are discussed. The project significantly increased occupational safety and health knowledge, and hazards in the factories were identified and corrected. Successes and challenges faced by three functioning worker-management health and safety committees are discussed. Key elements to create effective programs with meaningful participation by workers include: 1) developing clear guidelines that enable multi-stakeholder groups to collaborate; 2) obtaining top-level management support; 3) building workers' knowledge and capacity to fully participate; 4) involving local labor rights groups and occupational professionals in support and technical assistance; and 5) connecting project goals to larger issues within a country and the global economy.

The science of sustainable supply chains.

Recent advances in the science and technology of global supply chain management offer near-real-time demand-response systems for decision-makers across production networks. Technology is helping propel "fast fashion" and "lean manufacturing," so that companies are better able to deliver products consumers want most. Yet companies know much less about the environmental and social impacts of their production networks. The failure to measure and manage these impacts can be explained in part by limitations in the science of sustainability measurement, as well as by weaknesses in systems to translate data into information that can be used by decision-makers inside corporations and government agencies. There also remain continued disincentives for firms to measure and pay the full costs of their supply chain impacts. I discuss the current state of monitoring, measuring, and analyzing information related to supply chain sustainability, as well as progress that has been made in translating this information into systems to advance more sustainable practices by corporations and consumers. Better data, decision-support tools, and incentives will be needed to move from simply managing supply chains for costs, compliance, and risk reduction to predicting and preventing unsustainable practices.