Paul Lister
Director of legal services and company secretary
Associated British Foods
How difficult was it to adjust to a corporate responsibility role, even if it looks like compliance?
Very. The legal team’s values are rigour and integrity, and we decided early on they should be the values of the ethics and CR teams. It is very different but it does mean that when you do it, you’re doing it properly and when you say something, you really mean it. If you’re saying you’re not sourcing cotton from Uzbekistan, you need to make sure you’re not.
It must have been a steep learning curve?
You learn a huge amount over the years. One recent issue has been Syrian refugees landing into Turkey and working in Turkish factories. Is that something that you would necessarily see as legal? Not necessarily, but you recognise you need to look after people in the supply chain. It may not be a legal issue, but if you do it with rigour and integrity you’re applying the same value set to ethics as you are to law and so it’s relatively transferable. Yes, there’s a host of new issues, but as lawyers we’re used to new issues.
We’ve seen a few GCs taking on head of sustainability roles and similar, do you expect that to continue?
Everyone’s got a different view on sustainability. If I go back to social sustainability and making sure you’ve got a code of conduct you comply with, a GC can do that. If it’s environmental sustainability – don’t pollute the air, don’t pollute water and don’t put horrible stuff on your clothes – that’s a sort of compliance thing too. When you move across and down the line to ‘should I sell sustainable cotton in my stores?’ That’s less compliance and more commercial. But you only get the licence to sell sustainable cotton if you’ve done the first bit. My issue in that particular field is when it says sustainable, is it sustainable and what do we mean by that? That would be the same as if the labelling requirements of food are correct. Compliance naturally fits.
How difficult was it to adjust to a corporate responsibility role, even if it looks like compliance?
Very. The legal team’s values are rigour and integrity, and we decided early on they should be the values of the ethics and CR teams. It is very different but it does mean that when you do it, you’re doing it properly and when you say something, you really mean it. If you’re saying you’re not sourcing cotton from Uzbekistan, you need to make sure you’re not.
It must have been a steep learning curve?
You learn a huge amount over the years. One recent issue has been Syrian refugees landing into Turkey and working in Turkish factories. Is that something that you would necessarily see as legal? Not necessarily, but you recognise you need to look after people in the supply chain. It may not be a legal issue, but if you do it with rigour and integrity you’re applying the same value set to ethics as you are to law and so it’s relatively transferable. Yes, there’s a host of new issues, but as lawyers we’re used to new issues.
We’ve seen a few GCs taking on head of sustainability roles and similar, do you expect that to continue?
Everyone’s got a different view on sustainability. If I go back to social sustainability and making sure you’ve got a code of conduct you comply with, a GC can do that. If it’s environmental sustainability – don’t pollute the air, don’t pollute water and don’t put horrible stuff on your clothes – that’s a sort of compliance thing too. When you move across and down the line to ‘should I sell sustainable cotton in my stores?’ That’s less compliance and more commercial. But you only get the licence to sell sustainable cotton if you’ve done the first bit. My issue in that particular field is when it says sustainable, is it sustainable and what do we mean by that? That would be the same as if the labelling requirements of food are correct. Compliance naturally fits.