While this publication has always argued against comparing apples with oranges, recent announcements from different UK companies about how they work with suppliers at least says something about how they think about sustainability.

According to the Financial Times in November 2008: "Tesco, the largest supermarket chain, last month doubled the time it would take to pay some suppliers from 30 to 60 days. Alliance Boots, the pharmaceutical retailer, increased its payment terms earlier this year from 30 to 75 days."

Also recently, the FT has reported that: "Paul Lester, chief executive of UK defence company VT Group, said he had told his top 100 suppliers that they should come to him for financial help. “If you get into financial difficulties don’t delay, but come and talk to us. You are probably better talking to us than banks because banks aren’t really doing their jobs right now and we can help,” he said."

What do these two quotes tell us about how responsible business is seen at Tesco, Alliance Boots and VT Group?

VT Group is a defence industry firm. Tesco is the UK's biggest retailer, and Alliance Boots runs Boot's the Chemist, one of the nation's best trusted brands.

Surely this behaviour on behalf of the retailers is just plain wrong?

VT Group clearly sees its supply chain as important. Given the long relationships common in the defence business this makes good sense. And in retail, of course, relations with suppliers are more transitory, deals are often more about this season's price than about even the medium term. Not always, but often.

These quotes from FT do show that retail firms are far more reactive to market changes than some other sectors. And not in a good way.

If small companies, such as this publisher, can afford to pay suppliers on 30 days still, then surely Tesco and Boots can?

Of course they can, they just want to push pressure they are feeling down the supply chain as quickly as possible, to share the burden.

Boot's too, despite its past much better reputation on ethics than Tesco, has gone even further, to 75 days. This is both irresponsible and unethical.

Driving suppliers to the wall is not the answer.

If you can't pay people on time, you shouldn't be in business. That's the bottom line here.

That's my personal view. But we will be a taking a no-doubt more measured approach on a forthcoming in-depth article in our print magazine (which will also be published on this site) in January.

Anyone interested in posting a comment on this, please do so below.

And anyone interested in a half price print subscription, click here