Talk Box: Corporate Responsibility, Why H&M is Horrid & Miserly and Everybody loves a Baboon

It’s winter time in New York and a third of the city is poor. With that, the homeless are at risk of turning into human-shaped ice cubes. And meanwhile, you have fashion retailer H&M not only tossing unsold coats and other clothing items into the trash, but also destroying them before tossing them out so that they can’t be used by people who might go rummaging through the trash out of desperation for a few pieces of warm clothing? Found an article about this on the New York Times website. Jeebus.
Hey, H&M what do you stand for? Horrid & Miserly? Why do you hate the homeless and poor? Why can’t they wear your unsellable clothes? Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen have made fashion icons out of themselves by looking homeless! And you mass fashion retailers have made a fortune out of helping girls look like the Olsens (ie: homeless). So what’s the deal with your 34th street New York Store?

I must say, I’m a little shocked. You guys don’t come across as the evil sort. Everyone knows oil companies, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, any company that they work for are inherently evil. But a Swedish fashion-retail company? Aren’t you Swedes supposed to be perfect? Aren’t you one the world’s top 10 happiest countries? Aren’t you guys like a model “welfare state” and an excellent example of effective national taxes with universal tax-funded childcare, parental leave, health care, education (including university), retirement pensions and sick leave? Didn’t you give birth to IKEA? Man, i love IKEA. What’s that? You don’t see how this is all relevant to the overseas operations of one corporate entity that is NOT IKEA? Neither do I. Sometimes, I just like to rattle off things I know about a country. That’s why I have no friends. What’s that? It’s not Swedish HQ’s fault – blame the American branch? Oh, okay. Yeah, those Americans. We get it. They would slit their momma’s throats to prove that they ain’t goddamn socialists. I’m kidding. Don’t hate me. I love Americans. Until I meet one of them while on holiday. I’m kidding again. I wish I was American. America is awesome. Until I watch a Michael Moore documentary. But he’s a goddamn socialist in disguise. He should go live in Canada. We don’t want no goddamn socialist here in the U.S of A. And you know who else is a goddamn socialist? That Jamie Johnson brat, trying to be Michael Moore 2.0, while parading that wonderfully handsome face around and living off his band-aid and baby powder riches. (p.s. marry me Jamie Johnson?) Milton Friedman said so. Milton Friedman called Jamie Johnson a socialist and Mr. Friedman is all about the free-market. I don’t have any goddam idea what a free-market is but if it has “free” in it then it ain’t socialist or even worse, Moslem. Fuck yeah. But you know who’s an even bigger socialist? Obama! Yeah, that’s right, the President is socialist AND he’s got a Moslem middle name!! That’s what’s wrong with this country, man – the socialists and Moslems! I’m kidding. I’m not even American and I love America, truly. Also, if we didn’t love them, they might us bomb us back to the Stone Age. Oh, wait, those days are over aren’t they now that they have a socialist president with a Moslem middle name? Hey man, if I didn’t love America why else would I be reading the New York Times all the way from this side of the world? Anyway, back to the article. An excerpt about the good people of H&M:


H & M, which is based in Sweden, has an executive in charge of corporate responsibility who leads the company’s sustainability efforts. On its Web site, H&M reports that to save paper, it has shrunk its shipping labels.


Here is where I go on a bit of a rant on this term called “Corporate Responsibility” for it is a term, close to my heart pain in the butt KPI review heart.So every monkey in a business suit talks about corporate responsibility these days - Myself included, although as a monkey swinging on the lower branches of the corporate tree – I won’t always be found in a business suit (for such attire is ill suited to doing Senior Monkeyment’s dirty hands-on dirty hands-on work in the jungles of Borneo – look, we gave a few free toothbrushes to the rural folk – wooohoooo we’re responsible! But then, we profit off logging and supplying equipment to the oil palm plantation giants who have stolen much off your native land – but look, here’s a toothbrush! A toothbrush!! Boy, have I got a story for this one but I’m sort of under gag order from both my company and the NGO we helped out so maybe next time) So yes, I work in the corporate responsibility (CR) line but I’m parked in the Public Relations division (because Senior Monkeyment can’t wrap their ancient brains around the concept that CR is supposed to be a core business strategy/ wealth-creation process for all instead of an optional publicity stunt) You go into the job thinking that you’re going to do some good for society without having to settle for modest NGO pay, because for all your lofty humanitarian aspirations; you’re just a greedy ass clown who has watched too many emotional Anderson Cooper CNN news reports and you suffer from bourgeois guilt. Heck, if you can’t beat the Corporates, you join them because change comes from within, does it not? Sure, unless the company is structured less like a corporate entity and more like a feudal state (forgive me my kind Employer-Lords for saying so, it is only my humble employee-serf opinion). There isn’t room for reform in a feudal state man, only revolution. (And you know how messy those things can get) As a white-collar serf, I sometimes find myself, like alot of other serfs in my line of work, having to work along the myopic CSR strategies that Senior Monkeyment has set. Sometimes, these CR strategies aren’t so much short-sighted as they are conceived through friggin beer goggles. Still, I work in a region where CR is still in its infancy and we are constantly told at these stupid ass CR Conferences my boss makes me go to about how advance the Europeans are with this shit (whatever you say, I’m just here for the awesome and free buffet lunch. Ooh, are those mini chicken pies? Kuala Lumpur Convention Center makes the BEST grape smoothies by the way)

Anyway I just wanted to say bravo, H&M, bravo for shrinking-shipping-labels-to-save-em-costs-and-trees while destroying-these-obviously-hideous-coats-that-no-one-will-buy-so-the-homeless-cant-get-their-freezing-hands-on-it-and-we-can-send-more-shit-to-the-landfills. And getting blasted in the New York Times? CR Perspective – Fail. Public Relations Perspective – A Bit Fucked, eh? The article further states:

This week, a manager in the H & M store on 34th Street said inquiries about its disposal practices had to be made to its United States headquarters. However, various officials did not respond to 10 inquiries made Tuesday by phone and e-mail.


Directly around the corner from H & M is a big collection point for New York Cares, which conducts an annual coat drive for the homeless


And:


“How about all the solid waste generated by throwing away usable garments and plastic hangers?” Ms. Magnus asked in a letter to the executive, Ingrid Schullstrom. She volunteered to help H & M connect with a charity or agency in New York that could put the unsold items to better use than simply tossing them in the trash. So far, she said, she has gotten no response.

Oh H&M you have lots of explaining to do. Good luck! My boss once kept me up till 2am to finish a response to a UK-based “Human Rights” NGO to explain away our business dealings with the military junta in Myanmar/ Burma (the gist of it went like this: we do it for the everyday people of Myanmar; the Burmese people need jobs damn it and we’re paying them heck of a lot of money; what’s freedom of speech when you’re hungry? Let’s see you talk when you’re hungry!) And that was just some twatty NGO people whose website no one reads.

In other news, The Daily Express of the UK reports that the baboons in Knowsley Safari Park, Merseyside, are being given hot baked potatoes to keep warm during winter. The article states:

“Keepers braved the freezing conditions to check on the welfare of the animals throughout the park, many of which are more suited to balmy weather”.

Man, come winter time, it would seem that even the baboons in England are having it easier than the homeless and poor of New York City. God Bless.

*** a day after the NYT article was published, an H&M spokeswoman said, “It will not happen again. We are committed 100 percent to make sure this practice is not happening anywhere else, as it is not our standard practice.” Translation? Fuck, fuck, fuck, hey Sven, where’s that calendar; you know the one with the monthly meaningless damage control phrases for PR dummies? Yeah, let’s go with December. December’s good. What? Who has used it to explain away kids in sweatshops? What about September? What does September say? “I did not have sex with that woman? Awh damn, let’s just do December. I don’t think they’ll notice.

***I’m serious, Jamie Johnson, you might be an arrogant little poser Trustafarian with a pseudo-conscience but marry me anyway. I did ask Anderson Cooper but he said no. For obvious reasons. And then he stared intensely at me with his blue, blue eyes and made a sad face. And I forgave him and continued to watch CNN long after news and journalistic integrity has lost its meaning.