Word: swartz
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...acknowledged smuggling money and supplies to an al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan, among other things. Now Faris' attorney and dozens of other lawyers involved in some major terrorism cases are planning to file court challenges to see where the information on their clients came from. Miami attorney Kenneth Swartz represents Adham Amin Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian who lived in Broward County, Fla., and has been charged, along with Padilla, in an alleged conspiracy to commit terrorist acts abroad. Swartz says if any of the wiretaps used to build a case against his client were done "without legal authority...
...challenges posed by the drive to do good can spark innovation. A champion of corporate social activism, Swartz became concerned five years ago about toxic organic compounds in the cements used to bind different materials in shoes. The volatile chemicals are poisonous to laborers and bad for the environment. So he asked Timberland researchers to find a less toxic alternative to those adhesives. As it turned out, Nike, far along on its own journey to environmental responsibility (one that has made it the largest retail consumer of organic cotton), was way ahead in developing viable water-based cements...
...Timberland's engineers cut the volume of the adhesive required to manufacture the boots enough to break even. "I can now make the fact-based case to the hardest-nosed engineer in the world that we've eliminated the volume of volatile organic compounds" without increasing costs, says Swartz. "That's not limousine liberal, not self-indulgent. It is hard-nosed business. That is the innovation we seek." When foreign vendors complain that water-based adhesives are too expensive, Swartz says, Timberland invites their engineers to its plant in the Dominican Republic and shows them how to cut costs...
...Swartz would have pressed on even if he had failed to bring costs down. Why? Because the green glues added value to a brand worn by environmentally conscious outdoor enthusiasts. But there's another reason: the effect Swartz believes such socially responsible initiatives have on the rank and file of his company. That also accounts, in part, for why he has installed stringent fair-labor policies at Timberland's factories and those of its vendors in Asia, Eastern Europe and North Africa. Timberland does not allow workers to put in more than 60 hours a week--a rule that...
Those practices--arguably a drag on productivity--could all be construed as detrimental to shareholder interests. But Swartz sees in them a huge return on investment. That return is employee satisfaction--assuming that people like to work for companies that do good, a belief notoriously difficult to prove. (Citing internal surveys, Swartz says his employees identify strongly with the company's human-rights positions.) That reasoning also supports Timberland's current drive with actor Don Cheadle to raise awareness about the genocide raging in Darfur, Sudan. Although it doesn't cost the company much, the campaign could be dismissed...