Gender and corporate social responsibility: beyond compliance in global value chains

Gender has long been overlooked in CSR, but there is now a growing awareness of gender in both the corporate sphere and the academic literature. This chapter focuses on the application of CSR by multinational companies and retailers to protect the rights of workers in their global value chains. It examines the evolution of CSR from a corporate ‘top-down’ social compliance approach, to greater cooperation with wider stakeholders. More recently some multinational companies are adopting a business and human rights (BHR) perspective involving states’ duty to protect and companies’ duty to respect and remedy for human rights abuses. The chapter asks: Is a voluntary approach to CSR sufficient to address gender discrimination in GVCs; and could a business and human rights perspective promote gender equality more effectively? It draws on examples of gender initiatives at higher value chain tiers by UK retailers and lower value chain tiers by multinational chocolate companies. It argues voluntary initiatives are often partial and fragmented, but can be more substantive where aligned with business benefits. BHR has only recently incorporated gender, but has potential for addressing systemic discrimination and promoting gender rights in global value chains.