China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC) Liang Xiaohui: Industrial Transfer and Social Responsibility

An orderly and healthy industrial transfer means that while enterprises reasonably utilize the competitive advantages of the central and western regions, they must fully pay attention to their responsibilities to employees, local communities and the environment, and avoid the responsibility gap before and after the transfer and the responsibility deficit in local operations.

Liang Xiaohui, Chief Researcher, Office of Social Responsibility, China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC)

Since the beginning of this century, China's manufacturing industry has begun to shift on a large scale from the southeast coastal areas to the central and western inland areas, and has become a remarkable economic phenomenon in recent years. The textile and apparel industry is the pioneer and backbone of this industrial transfer. It should be noted that an orderly and healthy industrial transfer means that while enterprises reasonably utilize the competitive advantages of the central and western regions, they must fully focus on their responsibilities to employees, local communities and the environment, and avoid the responsibility gap before and after the transfer and the responsibility deficit in local operations.

Attach Importance to Social Responsibility in Policy

The government's guidance on social responsibility factors in industrial transfer mainly focuses on environmental protection, resource conservation and other issues. Most local policies (especially in the receiving areas) clearly require industrial transfer to consider energy conservation, emission reduction and environmental protection. However, some lower-level localities face great challenges in implementing this policy. Some economically underdeveloped regions tend to choose "subsistence" over "environmental protection".

Other core elements of corporate social responsibility, including protecting employees' rights and interests, fair competition and community participation, are either rarely mentioned in these local special policies or, more seriously, become policy sacrifices to stimulate industrial transfer.

These all reflect that the current policy guidance pays more attention to the relationship between the government and the transferring enterprises, while ignoring the impact on other stakeholders, which also makes enterprises more inclined to short-term utilization or evasion of government policies in the process of industrial transfer, while neglecting the long-term construction of participation and communication mechanisms related to social responsibility with various stakeholders.

In terms of the implementation of industrial transfer policies, the impact of industrial transfer policies on corporate social responsibility can be summarized into two scenarios: challenges in inter-regional coordination and lack of implementation guarantee measures within regions. The lack of inter-regional coordination has caused huge structural waste of resources on the one hand, and led to "race to the bottom" in the threshold of undertaking in the field of social responsibility for competing for transfer projects on the other hand.

The lack of policy implementation guarantees in the receiving areas is reflected in: the lack of scientific screening of the technical level and added value of the transferred projects, the management level of the transferred enterprises, and social and environmental impacts when implementing policies; the implementation of policies in the factor field often faces the risk of negative environmental and social impacts; other "policy chains" closely related to industrial transfer are often difficult to link; and policy commitments are often difficult to be fulfilled in a timely and sufficient manner. These will generate structural social responsibility risks.

Implement Social Responsibility in Practice

With the popularization of social responsibility in China in recent years, especially the government's guidance and promotion of enterprises to fulfill social responsibility, and the social attention and supervision of corporate practices, the difference in the awareness and cognition of social responsibility between enterprises in the receiving areas and the transferring areas is narrowing. However, the response capacity, management level and driving mechanism of enterprises in the receiving areas in terms of social responsibility are quite different from those in the transferring areas. The defects in the driving mechanism may be related to some structural characteristics of industrial transfer (such as focusing on intermediate products such as weaving, and terminal products mainly supplying the domestic market), but the lack of corporate social responsibility management capabilities and mechanisms is more due to internal corporate reasons.

Affected by the difficulty in recruiting workers in recent years, creating a safe and healthy working environment for employees has become the basic work of enterprises. Therefore, both enterprises in the transferring and receiving areas attach great importance to the safety and health of employees. However, in the receiving areas, since most employees are closer to their families and community environments, it is easier to meet their spiritual needs compared with migrant workers, so the demand for cultural and entertainment facilities in the receiving areas is not as urgent as in coastal areas.

Like in the transferring areas, employees in the receiving areas are no less active in reflecting opinions, suggestions and complaints. However, since most employees of enterprises in the receiving areas are local people, family and social relations have played a certain role in preventing and resolving labor disputes.

For the environmental protection issue that both the government and society are very concerned about, it is a relatively complex problem in the actual implementation level of the receiving areas. First of all, the textile and apparel industry transferred to the central and western regions is mainly dominated by weaving and clothing manufacturing, which are two relatively clean industries, while the printing and dyeing link between weaving and clothing is rarely transferred. This "intermediate outside" situation protects the environment of the receiving areas while limiting the construction of a complete textile and apparel industry chain locally, making it difficult for raw material resources to achieve higher added value. Therefore, whether to introduce the printing and dyeing industry is a question discussed in many places in the central and western regions. In addition, although the environmental protection facilities of enterprises in the receiving areas are relatively good, the real problem of enterprises in the receiving areas in environmental protection is the relatively backward level of environmental protection management.

Fulfilling Social Responsibility Concerns All Parties

The ongoing industrial transfer still faces many problems and challenges in the field of social responsibility and sustainable development. The solution to these problems and challenges requires all stakeholders to conduct dialogue, participation and cooperation on the basis of earnestly fulfilling their own responsibilities.

In terms of the government, local governments, especially those in the receiving areas, must balance economic goals and responsibility goals when formulating policies to encourage and undertake industrial transfer, and must elevate the concept of sustainable development and social responsibility construction to the height of development strategy; from the perspective of the direct connection between economic policies and social responsibility, local governments must also comprehensively measure the impact of economic content in industrial transfer policies on various fields of social responsibility, especially structural and systemic adverse impacts; governments at all levels, especially those in the receiving areas, must pay more attention to the implementation methods of industrial transfer policies to prevent possible adverse environmental and social impacts caused by the implementation of relevant policies in the factor field.

In terms of transferring enterprises, both转出 and转入 enterprises must change their development concepts and opportunistic tendencies in the transfer, and fully realize that the industrial development model with resources, labor and ecological environment as competitive advantages will be unsustainable;转入 enterprises should pay more attention to the introduction and transfer of social responsibility practices and actions.

In terms of brands and purchasers, international brands and purchasers should invest more social responsibility resources in relatively backward inland areas, and strengthen the management of the social responsibility performance of their secondary suppliers after transferring to the central and western regions; in terms of social responsibility, regardless of industrial transfer factors, the primary task of domestic brands is to establish and improve their supply chain social responsibility management mechanisms.

In terms of industry and social organizations, as opinion groups, industry organizations and social organizations can supervise, investigate and study social responsibility issues in industrial transfer, and put forward initiatives and solutions; as action groups, industry organizations and social organizations can provide training and consulting services in the field of social responsibility for the government and enterprises, participate in the formulation of regional and industry-specific social responsibility policies or action guidelines, and assist enterprises in fulfilling social responsibility.

Source: China Textile Economic Information Network