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The Responsible Supply Chain Show is a must-hear podcast for insights and strategies on building ethics and sustainability into global supply chains. Each episode delves into the challenges and opportunities businesses face as they strive to create more responsible, transparent, and environmentally friendly supply chains. From innovative sourcing and trade disruptions to reducing carbon footprints and combating modern slavery, we explore the critical issues that define the future of global commerce.
Welcome to the responsible supply chain show where we explore the world of responsible sourcing and resilient supply chains. I'm your host, Justin Dillon. And in each episode, we'll dive into real stories from some of the world's best business government and thought leaders protecting people, planet, and profits. Let's get it. Today, we speak with Sarah Dadash about how to craft better supplier contracts.
Justin:Sarah teaches contract law at Rutgers Law School. She co responsible contract project and was just recognized by Vogue magazine as a Vogue 100 innovators class of 02/2025, an annual list of individuals Vogue business editors believe have the potential to change the luxury industry for better. Well, that's it. That's a list I I wanna be on. Okay.
Justin:I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking. I know I'm you know that I'm I'm I'm tempting you. I'm pulling you in with Vogue business, but I'm gonna trick you by talking about contracts. Oh my god.
Justin:Put me to sleep. Trust me. This is the most dynamic and compelling edge of your seat conversation about contracts you are going to have this year, maybe maybe this decade. Seriously, now I found, Sarah to be, well, I'm just gonna be straight. She taught me something.
Justin:She taught me a lot about contracts, and there's a lot to teach me about contracts. My team, would tell you in an unguarded and, let's be honest, anonymous moment that I can be somewhat aloof of details like contract provisions. And look. They would not be wrong. It's really about where I choose to spend my time and, let's be honest, my skills.
Justin:But I do love words, and that's all contracts are, is words constructed to mean something. And that's what I walked away with from this conversation. She is gonna be teaching us how contracts truly have the power to change the way the world works, and I'm here for it. So without much further ado, here's my conversation with Sarah. Sarah, good to meet you.
Justin:Thank you so much for coming on the Responsible Supply Chain Show.
Sarah:My pleasure. Lovely to meet you.
Justin:All right. So where where are we catching you? Where where in the world are you today?
Sarah:I'm in Brooklyn, New York. Yes. And this is my I teach at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey.
Justin:If I was going to college, what class would you suggest I take of yours?
Sarah:Of mine? Well, so teach contract law to all first year law students, and I also teach corporate social responsibilitybusiness and human rights. And the project that we're going to be talking about today, the responsible contracting project marries both of those. So if you were one of my students, I would say take both.
Justin:Let's just bust right into it. You don't have to be teaching at Rutgers to to know the supply chains are complex, volatile environment that we're currently living in. What are the biggest risks companies need to be aware of right now when it comes to their supply chains?
Sarah:Well, you know, what we look at with the responsible contracting project is we're really looking at risks related to people and planet. So workers' rights in particular, and environmental impacts that adversely impact on workers and their communities' human rights. I think companies are already paying more attention to today, especially actually in contexts that we might not associate with elevated human rights and environmental risks, like, for example, tariffs, which are things that we think about just happening economically, but actually they have a massive impact on the human rights and environmental performance of the supply chain all the way through.
Justin:Say more about that.
Sarah:We learned about this with COVID initially. When you either dramatically increase or dramatically decrease your orders from manufacturers, that has a knock on effect on working conditions and even access to employment. So for example, if you are massively decreasing your order from a factory because for instance, it is located in a country that is now going to be hit by way higher tariffs, that can foreseeably lead to the dismissal of many workers, right? Or it can lead to workers being terminated or not paid for work that they have already done because there isn't new money coming in to pay their wages.
Justin:Conversely,
Sarah:if you massively increase your requirements from a particular manufacturer because they are located in a country that has lower tariffs, then you run the risk of encouraging the manufacturer to work their workers excessive hours, not give them appropriate breaks, not ensure the adequacy of safe and healthy working conditions. You might even be contributing to a situation where the supplier is having to hire, you know, recruited labor that where they're paying fees that are in excess of what the buyer actually would allow. So there are all these knock on effects where that result from things that just seem like they're about money or they're just economic in nature, and you make a decision by a company that might seem very sensible, oh, higher tariffs, I'm gonna go to a different production country with lower tariffs. That way I take less of a hit and I don't have to pass on as much of the hit to consumers. Actually, there's this whole other area of risk that is operating beneath that economic decision that is really important for people and
Justin:Okay. So what you're saying is, trade volatility is bad for people and planet?
Sarah:Can be. Yeah.
Justin:Can be bad.
Sarah:It isn't managed appropriately. A lot of companies, brands used clauses in their contracts that are called force majeure clauses, which are basically like act of God clauses to cancel orders, to justify the cancellation of orders overnight, sometimes for orders that the manufacturer had already started working on, sometimes for orders that the manufacturer had already completed, sometimes even for orders that the manufacturer had completed and shipped to the brand's country. And these types of cancellations without considering, okay, well, what is the impact gonna be of that on workers are really dangerous because it pushes the supplier into this very difficult commercial situation where they may not be able to pay the workers for work that they have done because they were waiting to get paid by the buyer to then pay the workers. Or you just have to shut down your doors because you can't continue as a working economically sustainable company, and that leads to unemployment. So these are the types of things that we saw happen with COVID that we're seeing again happen now with the tariffs, where companies are just shifting operations or trying as much as possible to pass the heightened costs resulting from the tariffs onto suppliers.
Justin:It yeah. I I think that I think it's fair to say that chaos is is is the new black and the new normal when it comes to supply chains. We're recording this a week after the United Nations General Assembly speeches last week, where in one speech, president Trump gave a very passionate get out of climate related issues speech. And then within a surprising turn of events, Xi Jinping, China comes in and says, Actually, we're going to double down and focus on this. I mean, the level of whiplash that sustainability professionals must be feeling right now when it comes to where is the world going?
Justin:You know, we're still fresh off this. I think a lot of people are still trying to read the tea leaves. Everything that I've heard about China's I think they're talking about reducing emissions by seven to 10% over a relatively short timeframe. Everything that I've heard is that that is a floor, not a ceiling. What can come with all of that and with all of the tariff related events that have happened since those were your speeches, what guidance can you give supply chain professionals and procurement professionals that are having to manage their priorities?
Sarah:Yeah. That's a good and rich question. I think, you know, the chaos is the new black. I really like it and it's useful. I think that the part that is really relevant of that for me is that it's the new black.
Sarah:So we're operating in a context of tremendous uncertainty. We're operating in a context of great instability and volatility, as you say. So then what can we do as sustainability minded people in and outside of corporations to help inject a modicum of stability into this very unstable situation. And I think there is a fair amount that companies can be doing if in particular, if they focus on, you know, we're not going to wait for the chips to land, we're just going to start taking measures now to create as much stability as we can with our suppliers in cooperation with the companies that we are working with across our supply chain. So rather than the wait and see, take proactive measures now to introduce as much stability as possible.
Sarah:So, you know, and I'm
Justin:starting to responsive take a more responsive approach than reactive.
Sarah:Proactive. Proactive. Yeah. Exactly. And I'm not saying it's easy, but there are certain techniques that we've already heard of companies using to do that.
Sarah:And I can talk a little bit about those, but I just want to say that I think one lens through which companies seem to be finding it helpful to analyze risk through and manage risk through is the idea of supply chain resiliency. What do
Justin:you mean? That's a big word.
Sarah:So I think of it as, again, like coming back to COVID. A lot of companies, a lot of brands essentially severed their relationships with suppliers, while the lockdowns were going on, and then a lot of them also did things like, okay, we're going to stay with you. We're going to keep, we're going to pay you for this order, but we're going to ask for a 60% discount, you know, something like this, these sort of backward looking changes to the terms that are actually very harmful for the suppliers. And, you know, one of the things that we say at the responsible contracting project try to highlight for companies is that the company's practices, including how you set and change commercial terms, has a huge effect on how the supplier themselves can protect their workers. There's a correlation between the buyer's purchasing practices and the ability of the supplier to uphold the buyer's own human rights standards.
Sarah:Interesting.
Justin:Yeah. Tell me more.
Sarah:Well, so just on the on the stability thing, I'm not I'm certainly not saying it's it's easy, but, you know, one thing that companies can do thinking proactively, for example, is to say, okay, we don't know exactly where things are gonna land, but we can anticipate that it's gonna fall, like the increased tariff costs are gonna fall somewhere between here and here. We can come up with a model to share that loss with you, supplier. Maybe we take 80% of the hit, you take 20% of the hit. In exchange for you taking 20% of the hit, we agree to keep the price stable through the end of the year, regardless of where the tariffs land, for instance, just as an example, or regardless where the ultimate losses land, we keep to our formula and we have that allows us to have some visibility into the future that we can orient all our other stuff around production schedules, how much worker capacity we reserve to deliver on this order, make other adjustments. Maybe you go while we're in this locked price system, you go, you find other suppliers, I go, I go find other buyers, you know, there's it gives us some wiggle room that allows us to maintain, to continue doing business without just this sort of chaos totally taking over and or decisions being made at the very last minute that are really destructive.
Sarah:And what we learned about, sorry, just coming back to this, what we learned about supply chain resiliency with COVID is that with these last minute cancellations or overnight, I should say, cancellations or term modifications, the relationships between buyers and suppliers were really damaged. I mean, some suppliers went under because of many, in fact, had to close their doors. And then when the economy picks up again, you don't have the supply chain to come back to. That's what I mean with resiliency.
Justin:Yeah, I mean, I think that the challenges that our listeners face are they deserve more than buzzwords. And when I think about resiliency as much, and I love words, I love words so much, but they don't hold anything unless they mean something and what I'm hearing you say is that resiliency is a bit of a mindset. You're thinking long term, being proactive, making decisions that are going to help not just this quarter but next year. Am I on the right track?
Sarah:Yes, yes, yes. And it's relational. I think that's a really
Justin:I think relational. Yeah. Also, it's hard not to be transactional when the sky is falling. There is this axiom that in chaos there is opportunity and that is a mindset. It's not just a that's not a playbook.
Justin:It's a mindset going chaos is the new black. There's opportunity to be able to build a better business inside of this. And that sounds like that's how you're guiding companies around resilience is thinking long term, build bigger relationship or better relationships. Is that correct?
Sarah:Yes. Yes. And I think there's all the stuff that we care about at the responsible contracting project, which is more about fairness and equity and shared responsibility for the ethical human rights and environmental non financial aspects of corporate performance.
Justin:Yeah. I want to push into that. So your background is law teaching international development. Contracts. That's an interesting space to focus on.
Justin:In a world now where we have our contracts read with AI and probably sometimes admittedly built in AI, this is an interesting space. What is the definition of a contract?
Sarah:I mean, why don't we talk about how contracts are used?
Justin:Okay, take it.
Sarah:Because that'll help, I think, gel the thing. So contracts are used typically to advance a joint endeavor, right? Stuff that is going to happen in the future often needs to be spelled out in a contract, especially if it's like a complex transaction or some kind of a relationship that is anticipated to go for more than a week, let's say, we need to understand what are our respective obligations as part of this joint enterprise. What are you going to have to do? What am I going to have to do?
Sarah:When am I going to have to do it? How am I going to have to do it? What are the standards that you want me to do it under? Right? So all of these things get spelled out in a contract.
Sarah:We think about the contract as having multiple functions. So one is a legal function in the sense that, you know, whatever you put in a contract in principle is legally enforceable. It's a binding obligation. Whatever you say you're going to do, once you put it in a contract, you have to do it. And if you don't do it, that means you're in breach, and I can sue you for breach of contract.
Sarah:That's the legal aspect. Importantly, what comes under the legal aspect is that we know many, many companies use their contracts as a way to make their own human rights and environmental policies and standards apply across the supply chain. So we have rules here in The US about labor rights, for example, but those rules don't cross borders. What makes them cross borders is the contracts. The contracts are a way to take your own standards, your own policies, norms around labor, and make them binding across borders, something that US law can't do on its own.
Sarah:Does that make sense?
Justin:It does.
Sarah:So sorry. That's just the legal bit, but yes, go ahead.
Justin:No. Mean, to me, obviously, are so important, but they also just seem like table stakes, and it's just like, it's what I need to get through to get to the thing that I wanna do. Right. And I think it's such an interesting turn to, like, go back and go, no. No.
Justin:No. This this is this is how this is the fulcrum with which we flourish, is a contract. Flourish as partners, but it sounds like flourish as people, as as a planet. You're obviously onto something. I love when people say something, forgive me for saying this, something so boring, contract.
Sarah:It's totally fair.
Justin:And like dive into it and like, well, let's be fair. Supply chain contracts, procurement couldn't be more boring than that.
Sarah:I know, we're trying to make them exciting. Yeah.
Justin:Well, while we're here.
Sarah:What we're
Justin:trying to do here, you know? And you're obviously onto something. Know, your Vogue business named your company as 100 Top Innovators. Done on that. So you're innovating in a space that is arguably quite boring and it sounds like one of your leading principles is shared responsibility, which I'm really interested in hearing more about how the responsible sourcing How
Sarah:people have?
Justin:Could sorry. I have a lot of responsible stuff in my head. Me more about how you're helping companies with shared responsibility. That's also a big term.
Sarah:Sure. So one just small correction is that we are not a business. We're a nonprofit initiative that lives inside my law school, Rutgers Law School.
Justin:Perfect.
Sarah:And so part of why that's important is because our mission is to drive improved outcomes for people on the planet through better, more responsible contracts. And one of the ways that we do that is we develop tools like model contract clauses, codes of conduct, guidance on sector specific and pan industry responsible contracting, and we make all these tools available open access. So on our website, responsiblecontracting.org, you can see our whole toolkit and that's, you know, that's our contribution as a nonprofit into this space.
Justin:Very cool.
Sarah:And as you say, it feels quite niche, like the contracts, not very sexy, but actually we have found that across the board, especially the larger companies do use contracts to implement their human rights and environmental standards across their supply chains, because as we were saying, contracts are kind of, you can think of them as the legal links of the supply chain. We have other links, but the contracts are the ones that sort of make the obligations binding across borders. So contracts can be drafted in a way that promotes transparency, trust, collaboration between the parties, but they can also be drafted in a way that promotes adversariality, transactionalism and opportunism and in fact deception between the parties where you're setting them against each other in some way. And what we really want to put forward with the responsible contracting project tools is a model of contracting that promotes the first kind of relationship,
Justin:a
Sarah:trusting, collaborative, transparent, mutually respectful and beneficial relationship. And most contracts, unfortunately, are drafted more along the second model of adversariality.
Justin:I've seen some of those. I've seen some But of I like this idea of shared responsibility as a guiding principle. Resilience is a big word. Responsibility is a big word as well. It's kind of a buzzy word.
Justin:And, you know, to borrow a President Reagan trope, know, we have to trust but verify. It sounds like the contracts are the first part of that. We have to have some type of agreement that we are going to trust each other across and believe that you're going to bring the quality, the why what, when where how of contract on both sides. Increasingly, companies are needing, putting burdens on suppliers that they need to be responsible for things that is getting further and further out of their control, like their sub suppliers, right? We're seeing more and more regulations saying you need to understand your supply chain and all the rest of it.
Justin:How does that shared responsibility spread throughout the supply chain? And when you only have a contract with your tier one, you don't have a contract with your tier two. How do you guide companies with those challenges?
Sarah:Yeah. Thank you. Just at the tier one level, what we see very often when it comes to human rights and environmental obligations, because that's our focus, right? Is that the contract will be set up in a way where the buyer essentially puts all the requirements, all the obligations relating to human rights and the environment onto the supplier and makes the supplier often solely responsible for covering the costs associated with upholding human rights and environmental standards. So you'll often see at the top of the contract, the section of it that talks about environmental and social E and S matters, that supplier guarantees that it is in full compliance with our supplier code of conduct.
Sarah:And supplier understands that if there is any non compliance with our supplier code of conduct, that constitutes a material breach of the contract that gives us the right to immediately cancel orders, suspend payments, and even terminate the entire contractual relationship. That type of provision, which we see, I mean, so often, whenever I talk to companies and I show them an example close like this, and I say, does this look familiar? Everybody's like, yep, that's what we have. That type of where you're expecting perfection and full compliance. Now before, always into the future, there is no child labor, there is no forced labor, all the workers are paid a living wage, a minimum wage if not a living wage, conditions are self safe and healthy, there's no gender discrimination, there's no just go through all this and the supplier guarantees, that is the contractual obligation, Full compliance with this.
Sarah:This type of setup actually is really ineffective. I mean, it seems sensible. You're like, oh, well, the supplier is closer to the problem, so I'm just gonna make them take the responsibility for for all of this. It seems sensible, but it's actually really ineffective because if you are a supplier and you have this kind of a clause in your contract, and you know that at the slightest deviation from the code, you are in material breach and something bad happens, are you gonna tell your buyer?
Justin:Of course not. Of course not. So that's not an optimal way to share responsibility.
Sarah:Sharing at all. It's shifting. It's putting it all on them in a way that is actually encouraging them to hide problems.
Justin:Yeah. We always say, you know, ask a dumb question and you're gonna get a dumb answer. And that's where honestly, the reliance on supplier self disclose questionnaires and in many cases, site audits, that we've over indexed and over relied on these being sources of truths, which I understand it's all we had for a while. But the problems and the expectations on companies to address these issues has far extended the benefit that a self disclosed questionnaire, especially when it's full of inane questions like, do you use child labor? Yes.
Justin:I mean, the only way to read that question, yes, is if you didn't read it in the language that you're I mean, yeah.
Sarah:Or you really don't want the contract with this. Yeah.
Justin:Exactly. Yeah. It's just it amazes me that those quest like, honestly, for anyone listening, if your company has that, just quit. Just leave the company. You've you've you've clearly are asleep at the wheel when you're asking suppliers that question.
Justin:It drives me crazy. And I think that the shared responsibility, when people hear that, when buyers hear that, they think the shared responsibility is going that way. I believe, the way I interpret what you're doing is, it's a two way street. You as a buyer have to share some of the responsibility that's in the supplier's supply chain and be willing to work with them on that because it's not going to happen any other way, especially when margins are so limited. Tell me if I'm wrong.
Sarah:No, that's exactly right. I think one thing that I'm becoming clearer on as I do this work is that this expectation of perfection is something that we really need to move away from in the contract, but also as a society, you know, that as a global society, that perfection is it's just unrealistic, especially we're talking about human rights in the environment. There's always gonna be problems. Here, there are problems. You know, we have seasonal workers, there are problems with that.
Sarah:You have a gender pay gap, that's a human rights issue. Of course, we have that rampantly here. You have all kinds of discrimination here. So we know even from here that perfection is not a realistic expectation. Why are we putting it in our contracts?
Sarah:Why are we putting this expectation on suppliers operating that in have even less infrastructure than we do? It just isn't, it doesn't make sense. And I feel like companies that we pay attention to here, American companies or companies that are incorporated overseas, but sell a lot of stuff here, they are constantly telling us, we can't be perfect. We can't be perfect. And yet they expect.
Justin:Well, and that's why so many of these supply chain due diligence laws are getting redrafted and reshuffled because of the time that we're living in. And I happen to agree. The absurdity of the expectations of some of these laws that are put on companies, this idea and and I have a I'm a big I have a real issue with the concept that we can mandate morality. I just think that is a because the height of elitism, we can make people treat people better. You can't I just don't believe that.
Justin:What I like about what you're doing is we cannot do that and we're coming to the realization that we can't, but we can make better agreements.
Sarah:Yes, we can make better agreements. And as you say, I think your intuitive interpretation of shared responsibility is exactly right. That rather than shifting all the risk, passing it down, that you have a commitment in the contract by both parties to work together to uphold human rights and environmental standards. And what that means is we will work together to prevent bad things from happening the outset, brings in the buyer's own purchasing practices. How do we set prices?
Sarah:How do we set delivery timelines? Are they realistic? Is there a chance that they could contribute to adverse impacts? And then also, how do we work together when bad things do happen? We should prioritize remediation, taking measures so that any victims are seeing their grievances but also take measures to avoid this from happening again in the context of a relationship that we are cultivating together.
Sarah:One thing I will take issue with though, Justin
Justin:Let's go.
Sarah:Is how how you described the due diligence legislation. Really appreciate and value and sort of celebrate about the EU corporate sustainability due diligence directive, the CS triple d, is that it is actually not about perfection. It is not about strict liability, it is about process. So it does not say, you cannot have anything bad happen in your supply chain, if you do, you will be liable. It does not say that.
Sarah:Instead, what it says is you have to show us that you are taking appropriate measures to identify adverse impacts in your supply chain, potential and actual meaning risks and materialized harms. You have to show us that you have taken measures to identify these adverse impacts in your supply chain. Basically show us that you have done your homework. That's really what it is. And then you have to show us that based on your homework, are taking appropriate measures to prevent these risks from graduating or escalating into harm.
Justin:Yes.
Sarah:And if you have found a harm, an actual adverse impact, then you have to show us that you are or have taken appropriate measures to address that harm, contain it, provide remedies to the victims. And only if at each step you have failed, you didn't make any effort to do your homework, or you really did your homework very poorly, we all could have known that it was a poor effort at doing your homework or you really based on the information that you had or should have had did not take appropriate measures to prevent And even when bad things happened, you also didn't take appropriate measures to remedy or address, contain the effects of this adverse impact. Only then will there be a question about liability. So you really have to fail. You have many chances, in other words, let me put
Justin:it in Many chances to fail. Yep. You
Sarah:have many chances to avoid failure. You have many chances to avoid liability. It's really only as a very last, like, my god, were you utterly asleep at the wheel.
Justin:Yes. And I agree with you. I I I think good regulation forces progress, an iterative progress. And I think the through line from CS triple D, whatever it ends up becoming and the others, they point to that. But I think that the mindset that has been built in corporate social responsibility, sustainability is a perfection mindset, not a progress mindset.
Justin:And so is some of the ways in which companies have built their contracts and have built their processes are built on perfection and obfuscating or shifting responsibility, not sharing it. But my hope is that these laws create, kind of normalise, that supply chains get more transparent, more shared responsibility, greater collaboration over time. And one of the things that we have to do as a company every day is try to be a procurement whisperer and say, You're not perfect. You never will be. Your supply chain will always have challenges on any given day and none of that is your complete responsibility.
Justin:Your responsibility, according to the law, is to get better. And our job, sounds like your job as well, is to help you do that. Give me one clause that you wish every company had in their contracts.
Sarah:So we have three sort of principles that we ask companies to really check alignment of their contracts with. The first is that rather than having one-sided obligations that put all the responsibility onto the supplier, you have a commitment by both parties to work together to carry out ongoing human rights and environmental due diligence, right? Identify, prevent, address and remedy adverse impacts. The second principle which we think is also very critical is that the buyer commits to engage in responsible purchasing practices, to review their own purchasing practices, to ensure that how they're setting prices, timelines, forecasting, all of this does not contribute to adverse impacts down the line. The more commercial pressure you create on the supplier, the more likely the pressure will be passed on to workers and the planet.
Sarah:And the third core principle is to place remediation of human rights and environmental impacts ahead of traditional contract remedies, like suspending payments, canceling orders, terminating the contract. And if you realize that you do need to exit the relationship, it should be only as a last resort, because you've realized this is just a bad supplier. I cannot remediate anything, we're not gonna fix these problems, this is just, you know, it's just sticking around is making me complicit in human rights abuses. That case, so exit should be a last resort, but even then it should be pursued in a responsible way. Meaning you give notice, you take measures to assess what are the impacts gonna be of my exit and take measures to the extent possible to mitigate those impacts.
Justin:Agreed. Yep. Brilliant. What a wealth of information you are. I know that our listeners are going to want to hear more.
Justin:Where do they go? Where do they find you?
Sarah:Our website, responsiblecontracting.org.
Justin:Perfect. I would love to go and learn under you,
Sarah:but I feel like
Justin:I already have. So for coming on, Sarah. I appreciate your time.
Sarah:My huge pleasure. Thank you.
Justin:This is the one thing, the part of our show where we dig into one idea from our conversation. Sarah and I talked ad nauseam about progress over perfection in supply regulations and contracts. The truth is this kind of incongruent thinking with reality is not relegated to procurement or business for that matter. The willful self delusion is everywhere in our lives. We promote the perfect careers on LinkedIn even though most of us are scared of what will happen in the economy and how it will impact our families.
Justin:We promote the perfect personal lives on social media and everyone has signed up for that charade. I believe the reason we promote perfection over the hard reality of progress is because there's no accountability to something that's imagined. Progress is slow, iterative, and at times ugly. And who would want to expose themselves to being less than perfect? The first piece of tech I helped create to drive transparency in supply chains was a letter writing app where consumers could connect with their favorite brands and ask them directly what they were doing around human rights and their supply chains.
Justin:It was obviously a bit of a punk move, but I was raised on punk so it fit. When we were beta testing the app, one of the team members suggested we try sending an email to Steve Jobs. I mean, why not? Also a punk move. In the email, we asked Steve if he knew about how raw materials like cobalt and tantalum in the iPhone were possibly mined with child labor and what he might do about it.
Justin:We sent off the email and forgot about it within five minutes. A few hours later, we got a response. I had no idea. I'll look into it. Steve sent from my iPhone, which we thought was funny.
Justin:Steve and his predecessors did look into it and have made recognizable and real progress, but they are not perfect and would never call themselves that. There is not and never will be a perfect supply chain. Your business will never be completely responsible, ethical, sustainable, circular, or any other beautiful and good laudable image of the world. It can be better quarter over quarter, year over year. So let's get off of our addiction to perfection and get on to progress.
Justin:Apple got better and continues to get better, and they didn't pretend to be perfect. You can too. Thank you for listening. Please be sure to hit subscribe. We'd really appreciate it so we can let you know when the next episode comes out.