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October 19, 2006
(PRODUCT) RED Combats HIV/AIDS by Funneling Portions of Sales to the Global Fund
by Bill Baue
Gap Inc commits half of profits from its RED-branded product line to the Global Fund, exemplifying
this new business model for generating sustainable funds for addressing the AIDS pandemic.
SocialFunds.com --
The business community response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been largely philanthropic, or
individual companies such as Coca-Cola (ticker: KO) or Ford (F) addressing the issue as it
affects their own operations. Now comes the (PRODUCT) RED campaign, the brainchild of U2 singer and activist Bono and Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa (DATA) Chair Bobby Shriver, which applies a strong
business model to help solve HIV/AIDS with a focus on Africa. Six companies--including Gap (GPS), Motorola (MOT), Apple (AAPL), and American
Express (AXP)--have signed on to create
RED-branded products with significant portions of profits going to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
"(PRODUCT) RED is unique in the world of what they
call 'cause-related marketing,'" said Dan Rosan, program director for public health at the
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors with
over $100 billion in assets. "It's always important to be skeptical of any sort of social
marketing or cause-related marketing."
"The key aspect of cause-related marketing is not
some nebulous goal such as raising awareness--the key is the money," Mr. Rosan told
SocialFunds.com. "The very important thing about (PRODUCT) RED is that the money is
substantial--it will probably end up being in the hundreds of millions of dollars over many years,
and the money goes to a very important place," namely the Global Fund.
While some
cause-related marketing schemes allocate pittances to worthy causes, (PRODUCT) RED participants are
putting their money where their mouth is. For example, the Gap has created a special line of
(PRODUCT) RED clothes with half of profits going to the Global Fund. In addition to this direct
support for HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation, the Gap's (PRODUCT) RED line also addresses the
issue through economic development in the affected regions.
"We viewed this as a perfect
extension to work we already had underway--we've been sourcing out of Africa for about a decade and
we have worked for years on the issue of HIV/AIDS in Africa," said Dan Henkle, senior vice
president for social responsibility at Gap Inc. "Our (PRODUCT) RED t-shirts are produced out of
Africa and are using 100 percent African cotton."
The Gap is producing these shirts out of
Lesotho in sub-Saharan Africa, a country where it is estimated that up to a third of factory
workers are HIV-positive.
"If you operate in an environment where very few people are
getting tested and treated, obviously if left untreated, you have a lot of illness, a lot of people
dying from this disease on a daily basis," Mr. Henkle told SocialFunds.com. "When factories are
trying to be as competitive and productive as possible, this is not only a humanitarian issue that
needs to be addressed, but it's also very vital to the economic development of countries dealing
with this problem."
Gap Inc. sources from 50 countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, a
region forecasted to experience the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic as severely as Africa now
experiences it. Mr. Henkle sees the model pioneered with (PRODUCT) RED as a kind of pilot for
addressing HIV/AIDS--as well as other critical issues specific to certain regions--throughout its
global supply chain.
"As we roll out these initiatives, we need to be taking the learnings
from them into other places we're operating," Mr. Henkle said, noting that the (PRODUCT) RED
initiative has shifted the Gap's focus beyond policing for labor and human rights violations. "You
can't just look at monitoring, you also have to look at what is going on in the communities where
you're sourcing production--in Africa, a very critical issue is HIV/AIDS infection, in other
countries it might be water."
The Global Fund, created in 2002 by the United Nations as a
public-private partnership, has created a particularly effective model of working with affecting
communities to address HIV infection as it impacts them locally.
"The Global Fund is
globally recognized as one of the most effective economic development and health development tools
that are out there," said Mr. Rosan. "It's different from the typical development agency because
NGOs and community-based organizations and people living with HIV have to be included in the
construction of its grants at the country level."
Countries applying for Global Fund
money must also prove the effectiveness of their programs in order to continue qualifying for grant
money by setting specific goals and then demonstrably meeting those goals.
"If you don't
meet your goals, then the Global Fund doesn't necessarily give you the rest of your money until you
prove you can meet your goal," explained Mr. Rosan. "The Global Fund rates all its grants
on a very simple scale--you get an A, B, or C, and if you get a C, your funding is not renewed--so
it's performance-based and it's effective."
Mr. Rosan notes that most of the Global Fund's
money comes from countries, but this stream has been diminishing. The United States has decreased
its contributions to the Global Fund, which is facing a budgetary shortfall for its 2007 fiscal
year. (PRODUCT) RED thus represents an important new flow of money into the Global Fund.
"The Gap is saying, we have faith in the Global Fund," said Mr. Rosan. "People who control the
real money, like George Bush and Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert, need to listen to what the Gap is
saying and step up to put their resources into the Global Fund."
"I hope that this Gap
announcement has that sort of catalytic effect," he concluded.
©
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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