The management systems community
6th Jul 2009 by Richard Gunawan
After years of debate, the plastic bag levy finally will be introduced to Hong Kong on July 7th, 2009. Consumers will have to fork out HK$0.50 (or US$0.07) per plastic bag. Some consumers and retailers are concerned with the levy, as they will have to pay more.
18th Mar 2009 by Alex Briggs
In this BBC online article, China’s top climate change negotiator, Li Gao, said his country should not pay for cutting emissions caused by the high demands of other countries.
9th Feb 2009
One of the main conclusions from the report suggests that the disaster impact could have been reduced through resilient building design and the deployment of an early warning system complemented with good community preparedness.
27th Oct 2008
According to Forbes Calamity Prevention “the business impact of planning to mitigate, respond to and recover from earthquakes will be significant all over Asia, even if no more earthquakes occur for many years.”
Recent earthquakes around the Pacific Rim in the last four months have registered 6.0 or higher on the Richter scale, the magnitude at which earthquakes are generally considered destructive.
14th Oct 2008 by Alex Briggs
This New York Times Media Group article raises the question “Is there more tainted food out there?”
The melamine scandal has heightened fears that the food business is racing ahead of the ability of governments to detect health-threatening contamination, whether accidental or deliberate.
3rd Oct 2008
As the contamination of Chinese milk sends ripples through the global food industry, Eversheds lawyers Richard Matthews and Elizabeth Hyde lay out the due diligence procedures that food companies must go through when sourcing from outside the EU
3rd Oct 2008
Set up by experts from the Oregon state department of agriculture, the China-US Peace Food Inspection Centre will offer third party sampling, testing and certification of agricultural and fishery products so that they meet standards required by the US Food and Drug Administration.
19th Sep 2008 by Alex Briggs
The tightening of visa restrictions around the recent Olympic Games in Beijing has had unintended consequences on the Quality Assurance industry, according to this Ethical Corp article.
Global brands producing in China have been unable to secure the auditors needed at Chinese factories to ensure that the quality of their products is right. A major fall out will be that people who have talked about moving production to other countries for some time are now actually having to do it to meet deadlines.
Even if (and there are no guarantees) things return to normal in September, it will be too late for these firms who need to get gear on boats in October for the holidays.
Now many are scrambling to find capacity in Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc., while any number of Chinese garment manufacturers (two thirds of whom operate on margins of less than 1.5% already) will go under.
A number of companies with production runs already underway are having to stall or delay work as they cannot get visas for their Quality Assurance (QA) staff to enter China.
17th Sep 2008 by Alex Briggs
Two workers rights experts have held an insightful debate into Supply Chain standards and human rights for workers. Jeff Ballinger, academic, former union and NGO activist is clearly against standards as the end all solution for factory abuses, while Doug Cahn, consultant and formerly of Reebok, is in favour of standards and audits in bringing about change in supply chain factories around the globe.
This Ethical Corporation article features the full debate.
2nd Jul 2008
Carbon Trust to open office in Beijing as UK government steps up plans to address supply chain emissions.
LRQA’s Business Assurance helps you manage your systems and risks to improve and protect the current and future performance of your organisation.
The Business Assurance approach uses a consistent methodology for providing business driven assessments based around the organisation’s most significant risks.
Choose your preferred method below. You can unsubscribe at any time.