Stirling Smith

Stirling Smith is Director of Projects at Just Solutions.  Stirling worked in trade union education in the UK before moving to India where he lived for several years.  He was a Chief Technical Advisor for the International Labour Organisation on safety and health in South Asia, a region in which he continues to take a special interest.

Since returning to the UK in the mid-1990s, he has worked as a freelance consultant with the Ethical Trading Initiative, with the ILO, trade unions, and global corporations (including Nike, H&M, Levis, Marshalls, and the Co-operative Group).  He has also consulted with NGOs, written training manuals, delivered many training courses, and assisted in developing policy and designing and evaluating projects.  He has worked in more than 30 countries.  His training manuals have been translated into more than twenty languages.

In 2008, Stirling wrote a biography of Robert Owen, the father of corporate social responsibility, who introduced humane conditions in his factory in New Lanark, Scotland more than 200 years ago.

Stirling’s areas of expertise include: child labour, the impact of HIV/AIDS in the workplace, social dialogue and industrial relations, corporate social responsibility, health and safety at work.  He also has a special interest and expertise in the development and successful operation of co-operatives in which he has extensive experience in a variety of different economic settings.

In recent years he has led a multi-stakeholder project on CSR in Bulgaria, worked with trade unions in Nepal to stop human trafficking, and evaluated rural workers’ organisations in Bangladesh. He has researched the role of migrant labour in the stone industry in India and has designed and headed a long-term training program to promote social dialogue in Bangladesh.