Website review: Eurocommerce’s CSR bridge

EuroCommerce, a trade association for European businesses, has launched a platform for European companies to gather virtually, learn best CSR practices, and advance the state of CSR. The effort is designed to further connect companies to their stakeholders, critics and thought leaders to advance CSR in Europe. And, most importantly, the website is to showcase successful CSR activity in an effort to preempt regulation that makes CSR activity mandatory.

This website does serve more than an innocuous, CSR promoting purpose; it was made to show European regulators how good businesses are at regulating themselves, and to inform them of the scope of initiatives voluntarily in place. Indeed, a EuroCommission press release calls on EU legislators to “safeguard voluntary nature of CSR initiatives”. So, the website is political –to keep legislators from forcing businesses into compliance- but that’s fine. A recent study showed that risk officers most fear the risk posed by the regulatory environment; CSR plays an important role in staving off regulation, to the extent that it can.

The EuroCommission’s website notes that it wants to show “tangible results” of the success of CSR initiatives in Europe. This website seems to be the first effort to do so. Unfortunately, it also cites the EuroCommissions’ most recent achievements as being in 2006, suggesting that European CSR is not as lively as the EuroCommission would like its website’s visitors to believe.

Nonetheless, the website is potentially an excellent repository for CSR data and information. It’s not there yet- but the framework indicates that it could be. The site offers brief case studies in CSR strategy, white papers and research, and pages that appear to be created by companies. These sections need to be bulked up and enhanced to include multinational players. Although the site purports to facilitate communication between firms and their stakeholders, there is not chat or forum functionality yet. So- how are they to communicate?

EuroCommission’s intention with the website is clear, and the strategy is generally admirable, but the execution is incomplete. The website would benefit from more information about CSR, as well as more deeper case briefs- real proof that CSR is working in Europe. A means of creating profiles would also help the EuroCommision site to actually become a hub for CSR information and collaboration, as would adding chat functions. In short- it will take functionality enhancement to get turn the EuroCommission CSR website into the CSR thought-emporium it aspires to be.

Author: Amelia Timbers

Anti CSR: Oh Goldman; Sweet, Goldman

How can we escape discussing Goldman Sachs’ swift share price collapse this week in the context of CSR? The federal civil claim plus a potential criminal claim indicate the beginning of the pain for Goldman; European governments are reportedly considering similar legal action, China has taken a stance against them, and they will face private actions. GoldmanSachs joins Toyota, Enron, WR Grace, 2005 GlaxoSmithKline, Merrill Lynch to some extent, Worldcom, Pfizer, Monsanto and other companies whose reprehensible actions landed them in the corporate social responsibility hall of infamy. We have something to learn from these firms.

Americans, even in the lat twenty five years, have seen these patterns play out enough times to be familiar with them. Fraud and cover-ups come in recognizable cycles:

• Big growth of a promising, innovative company. Ivy league management, lots of press.
• Steady business for a period of time.
• Bigger growth! Records break, more press, more money.
• Grumblings from consumer protection groups.
• An initial scandal, well managed, diffused, tucked away.
• Followed by a disastarous scandal that affects and harms many.
• Government rebuke, congressional hearings, apologies, tears, etc.
• Regulation.
• Business adapts and evolves; new company, big growth…

The companies that end up involved in national and international fraud scandals typically share similar traits: unchecked focus on short-term gain, a complete disregard for whom they may harm, and leadership that nurtures both qualities. Most importantly, all companies involved in major fraud in the last 100 years failed their customers. In a chicken-egg problem, do fraudulent companies stop serving customers because they are fraudulent, or is it this failure of core business that leads to the fraud? Had any of these companies continued to delivering on their mission statements and provide valuable products that benefited their customers lives, they would never have gotten into the positions they are in.

Consumer harm is always paired with companies that disregarded their own customers. Sometimes, this disregard is precipitated by great success; when companies have vast cash reserves, there is less hunger to please the customer, the entrepreneurial spirit dies. Successful businesses come to see their customers as inputs, receivables, tools. The dehumanizing effect growth has on customers when companies grow rapidly is well understood; this is why people typically expect a drop in quality once a firm goes national, when bands sign with a major label, etc. However, if firms could just focus on the customer, be obsessed with the customer’s happiness despite their size, they would already be well on their way to social responsibility.

Profit is alluring; however, business does not exist for profit. Business, as a societal function, exists for people, to benefit people, to meet needs. As soon as a business starts meeting its own needs ahead of its customers’, the fraud, in a small way, begins.

Branching out

Now that I have covered all of the major 2010 CSR rankings currently on my radar, I could certainly sit back and wait for the next crop to come out. Newsweek has still to present its 2010 edition, and a number of lists I haven’t yet explored have yet to publish as well (the Covalence and Access to Medicine Index are among those I am looking forward to).

In the meantime, I have started taking a slightly different approach, comparing basic CSR lists to a variety of other types of rankings. Doing so offers some interesting insights. For example, juxtaposing the Best Places to Work ranking with other CSR rankings offers the insight that a good CSR program may not be as central to satisfying to employees as CSR practitioners like to suggest, since only twenty percent of companies on the list appeared in even one of the CSR rankings I studied. By contrast, comparing Fortune Magazine’s “World’s Most Admired Companies” (which, by the way, is disconcertingly heavy on U.S. companies) with the rankings suggests that CSR recognition and general reputation may go hand-in-hand. Thirty-eight of the fifty companies selected by Fortune made it onto at least one of the five CSR lists I examined, indicating a reasonably strong relationship (N.B. that I am not making any assertions about causality!).

More to come, and as usual, please pass on your suggestions for additional CSR rankings to explore.

Upcoming CSR posts

It has been a lot of fun keeping up with your questions! In March, my blog on Justmeans covered a wide range of topics, with posts covering sustainability indices, CSR rankings, games companies play in reporting on their greenhouse gas emissions, a conference on ethical sourcing, a new book on CSR, and a database of information that will freak you out. If this kind of stuff excites you, stay tuned for April, which should offer a rich array of new topics.

While I don’t plan out my posts for the month too far in advance, I thought I would offer a preview of two of the key areas I plan to cover in April. First, I have received some questions about how the approaches of different CSR rankings and sustainability indices compare to one another, so plan to spend some time delving into methodologies. Second, some people have asked me questions as of late about standards for measuring greenhouse gas emissions, so expect to do at least one piece on measurement and reporting frameworks. Finally, on a related note, it seems appropriate to spend some time talking about carbon markets and how they relate to CSR.

What else? That’s somewhat up to you, so please send me emails through Justmeans if you have special requests for CSR-related topics you’d like to see me cover in my blog.

Financial reform bill suggest CSR failures

If CSR is about self-regulation, then industries that face regulation should view government regulation as a function of their own failure to preempt laws with socially responsible market behavior. After all, if corporations were considering the public interest, if they were acting responsibly, there wouldn’t be a need for consumer protection laws at all. However, there was (and still is) insufficient consideration of corporate responsibility as it relates to financial transactions in financial sector operations. The financial sector must move from “Greed is good” to “Serving customers is good”, and perhaps then to “Acting responsibly towards the economy is good”.

Financial sector must focus on adding value

The financial sector’s problem began when finance stopped being about providing a product to customers. Instead, finance became about figuring out ways to make the most money possible as quickly as possible. The maximum profit goal is only occasionally related to the need to serve customers. In fact, based on the data, customers of active managers may end up losing money when the money manager doesn’t make enough gains to cancel out inflation and the fees they deduct from client funds.

The data also indicates that, on the whole, investors will do just as well by investing in passive funds, like ETFs, that just let money grow with the market naturally. Indeed, statistics show that even top managers only “win” in the market around 50% of the time; that is to say, managers whose investment decisions are 50/50 are prized. Most investors can make financial choices that benefit them 50% of the time; one does not need a financial professional to do that. The value of money managers – to society- is thus debatable.

Financial sector should bear higher fiduciary duties

The financial crisis showed that the souring of risky investment choices for firms, often with their own money, had a serious ripple effect of detriment on the entire economy, and on a national and international scale. In this way, participants in the financial sector must realize that they not only bear the burden of adding value to customers’ portfolios, but they also are each playing a role in safeguarding the entire economy. In the same way that a careless foodworker can poison and kill hundreds of people, a careless financier can do as much damage to life savings, retirement, college funds, etc.

Further, disturbances in the economy has a much stronger tendency to continue to ripple- to continue to cause more and more effects. So where a foodworker’s negligence may lead to harm, etc, those deaths won’t (usually) cause more harm. Whereas in the financial sector, one harmful event triggers a chain of harm.

No lessons learned- firms that caused crises fighting reforms

Thus although the very financial firms that caused (and profited from) the financial crisis are now fighting reform, there is no alternative when firms so obviously lack the discipline to be socially responsible on their own. One day, perhaps we will have a financial sector that again serves and facilitates the economy rather than manipulating it.

Banks Initiate Green CSR Campaigns

No sooner had I reported on Wells Fargo’s green financing track record than I stumbled over an article in American Banker describing the impressive sustainability activity of four other banks. These inspiring actions show the many ways in which banks of varying asset size can be sustainable and good for society.

Citigroup

Despite Citi’s ‘on the edge’ status in terms of whether it will fail or not, the bank has been able to do a lot of excellent work in sustainability. Citi’s size allows it to make infrastructure investments in cleantech in ways smaller banks can’t, as well as to finance larger scale green projects. One area Citi has focused on is “sustainable IT”, where it has made changes to procedure and to equipment to better manage its firm’s enormous energy use. Citi has worked with the EPA to transition to CPUs that are ultra-energy efficient. They have also changed the company’s email procedure in a program called “Lighten the Load”, which serves to cut down on the volume of email workers spend computer energy managing each day. These initiatives will cut down on Citi’s total carbon output by 3%.

Their IT initiative is only one of a swatch of initiatives you can read about on their website. Others include green building, Haiti recovery, technology recycling and more. Despite the craven behavior of many financial firms, Citi stands out as an ethical firm in an industry that too often rewards amoral behavior.

Bank of America Looks to Green Energy

BOA has pledged $20 billion in investments in sustainability, and they’ve applied it pragmatically, with a focus on efficiency. BOA now runs one Southern California office with fuel cells, following in the footsteps of First Bank of Omaha, which was the first bank to operate off of fuel cells. BOA has also invested heavily in green building. Their green building initiatives have included HVAC upgrades and putting computers to sleep at night, yielding significant energy and cost savings. BOA is off to a good start; with their newfound size and market power, these investments should only be the beginning since they can afford to do so much.

The Johnson Financial Group ($6B in assets) has taken very similar steps as BOA, but on a smaller scale. They also adopted the same software that BOA uses to put its computers to sleep (called Nightwatchman) and built a green facility. Like BOA, despite up front investment, Johnson Financial is seeing savings from reduced energy demand.

Third Federal gets creative with tele-business

Third Federal, a smaller national bank ($750M in assets), has cut down its energy, paper and C02 through reducing the travel of its employees. By instituting new internal policy that embraces broad IT networks, the increasingly popular paperless-billing option and new green building initiatives. Although Third Federal doesn’t have BOA’s cash reserves, they serve to show that banks of all sizes can make common sense changes and investments to reduce their environmental impact.

Overall, it’s just great to hear positive things about the financial sector, and to see that some banks do care about customers beyond their account size.

Accenture Provides Roadmap for Consulting CSR

By advising the world’s most powerful firms in business practices, consultants have great opportunities to use their power for CSR-good. Although many consulting firms have not taken an introspective look at their own businesses’ CSR, Accenture’s 2008-2009 Corporate Citizenship report shows that the consulting industry has many chances to help propagate CSR practices. Their report provides a plethora of examples of ways a consulting firm can be socially responsible and set an example for their clients.

First steps towards sustainability

In its sustainability report, Accenture evaluates its own business and looks at how its advice influences its clients’ sustainability. Accenture’s own sustainability steps aer in their early stages, and involve a lot of promises about the future. They both reported its carbon footprint, and set targets to meet on carbon reduction. Of course, Accenture’s most important sustainability steps- meeting their targets- lie in the future.

CSR Strength in Numbers

Accenture, as is its business model, has surrounded itself with smart people. In 2008, it joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and formed an environmental steering group. Relatedly, it also joined the U.N.’s Business Call to Action. Accenture also committed to the United Nations Global Compact, which describes ten basic principles supporting business’ obligation to protect global human rights. Joining coalitions of larger movements can be useful in encouraging companies to engage with CSR programs, and seems to have been a successful mode for Accenture.

Ethical rigor at the forefront

Accenture appears to be very strict on employee ethics. It is important that a firm with such a trusted role advising other large companies be ethically fastidious themselves. In 2009, they joined a global Anti-Corruption effort, but they also administer a rigorous compliance regime at the firm level, where most employees complete ethics training. Accenture emphasizes and frequently communicates its ethical code to employees, and fires on the first compliance offense as part of its zero-tolerance policy.

Two unique CSR programs

Two particularly cool aspects of Accenture’s program stand out. First, they adopted an offical Pro-Bono policy. Pro-bono work is a relatively untapped way that consultants can be socially responsible in measurable ways. Then, perhaps as part of the pro-bono effort, Accenture has launched a program called Skills to Succeed. Skills to Succeed lends out Accenture’s consultants to solve problems in microfinance, abroad, and in underserved communities domestically. Working together, these two programs have enormous power to help solve business problems in the interest of sustainability.

In total, Accenture’s sustainability report describes a large and established consultancy intent on doing good, and taking the first steps on a CSR journey.

CSR Rankings Smackdown

March has been a busy month for CSR rankings. CRO and Ethisphere both published their latest editions, joining RiskMetrics Group and Corporate Knights in offering their perspectives on the best of 2010. In my blog on Justmeans, I have posted comparisons of each of these four rankings to the others and plan to continue to research new rankings to bring into the mix.

I encourage those reading my posts to also check out recent articles in the Christian Science Monitor blog (“Are Corporate Social Responsibility Rankings Irresponsible?” by Christine Arena) and Slate (“It’s All Good: Beware of corporate consulting firms offering awards for corporate ethics”, by Will Evans), each raising questions about the integrity of these rankings. Of interest is how rankings tie into the larger business models of the companies that publish them. The Christian Science Monitor article questions the transparency of the rankings while the Slate piece discusses conflict of interests within the Ethisphere rankings.

So are such lists worth discussing at all? The consensus seems to be that regardless of the credibility of indices, lists are a good foundation for discussion. With this in mind, this week, I will be discussing sustainability indices, specifically the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, which gets a lot of attention and seems to avoid some of the scrutiny accorded to its brethren rankings. Stay tuned and please weigh in with your comments and observations.

CSR around the World

One of the most satisfying aspects of blogging is when a post generates good conversation. This was the case with my February 3rd “Frontier CSR” post on Justmeans, which focused on the state of corporate social responsibility in Central and Eastern Europe.

I particularly enjoyed a comments by Marisha S., who shared the following observation:

“CSR is evolving in CEE, the Caucasus and in Russia. The pace of acceptance is fueled due to the inate 'social conciousness' that is part of the busines landscape inherited from the past. Consider that during the Soviet period, state enterprises in Eastern bloc and CCCP were responsible for most of the social care of their employees. Employees could access to medical care, holiday homes, food from farms falling within the network. From the late 1980s when the first COOPs appeared, to the early 1990s when the first small enterprises emerged, well-being of employees was a key factor in business models.”

The writer of this comment makes a valuable point about the unique flavor that CSR takes on in different parts of the world. Indeed, I wish that every post would result in such interesting comments from readers.

Today I posted a short piece on how economics have solved many of the problems in Chinese factories that CSR practitioners and vendor compliance officers have struggled for years to address. I only hope that it will generate similar insight from any readers who have experience trying to address labor issues in Chinese factories.

Luxurious CSR

One ongoing theme I have covered in my blog on Justmeans is the role of CSR in fashion and luxury goods. In the piece that initiated the series, I wrote about my discovery that luxury department stores are--- at least publicly--- doing close to nothing in the way of CSR and sustainability. Apparently, there is a consensus among these stores that the responsibility for social and environmental issues rests primarily with the suppliers.

In short, these stores have the luxury of being fickle, if necessary distancing themselves with any brand too deeply entrenched in controversy. Not surprisingly, luxury brands themselves seem to take CSR more seriously than their buyers. Reputation-wise, each individual brand has a lot of eggs in one basket, so when controversy hits, it hits them hard.

But CSR and sustainability don’t have to be entirely about managing the risk of controversy. Sustainable products can be a good thing. In theory, consumers should be willing to shell out more for a responsible product. The data says so. Right?

Wrong. In fact, I have not yet stumbled across substantive data to support this claim. It makes some sense that consumers are willing to spend a bit more on lightbulbs or windows that will save them money over a reasonably short time horizon. Unfortunately, at least in the case of the luxury apparel industry, few garments are likely to save customers money. This is why we see relatively few sustainable brands being marketed by major department stores.

So I end this post with a call to action. If you have good data on demand for luxury goods, please send it to me or include it in a comment on one of my Justmeans posts on the subject. Good information on this topic has the potential to shape how wealthier consumers interface with sustainability issues.

CSR Rankings

It’s been interesting to note that CSR rankings have been among the most popular topics I have touched upon in my blog on Justmeans. My two posts on CSR rankings seem to be the most tweeted topics I have covered, and I have received some interesting feedback from Justmeans community members about the differences between methodologies.

If you stumble on one of my posts about the subject, I’d encourage you to jump into the conversation and also to let me know if there are other rankings that you’d like to see me cover. So far, I have examined the CRO Best Corporate Citizens, Ethisphere Institute’s Most Ethical Companies, Newsweek Green Rankings, and Corporate Knights Global 100, with RiskMetrics Group’s Global ESG 100 soon to follow. It would be interesting to hear feedback about any lists I haven’t mentioned yet, particularly those developed by organizations based outside of the U.S.

Also, stay tuned for the answer to the riddle I posed in my most recent post. My research revealed that there is only one single company that makes all five lists I have examined so far. Stay tuned to the Justmeans CSR page to find out what it is.

Good Company Update

If you haven’t visited the Justmeans CSR editorial page yet, please do! January was a busy month. Over the past few of weeks, I introduced the Good Company series, published posts on CSR in Haiti and the SEC’s new climate change announcement, and explored the state of sustainability programs in luxury department stores (hint: they don’t exist!). Please visit and comment. I would welcome your thoughts on anything discussed so far.

For those of you wondering what’s next for Good Company, stay tuned. I will be conducting a series of interviews in the next week or two with sustainability officers from two companies on the list I published a couple of weeks ago. I look forward to sharing my findings with you.

Finally, a call to action for readers of the blog. Please be sure not only to comment whenever possible but to give me feedback about what Fortune 500 companies you’d like to see me cover in the series. I want to make sure that my CSR posts respond to your needs and interests.

Copenhagen: A Private Sector Affair?

October has arrived and you can begin to feel the pace beginning to quicken as the impending UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen becomes more tangible, urgent and political every day. The inevitable media melee around the conference will act as a lens to sharpen all of the world’s attention on a small group of people, the latest evidence on climate change understanding and the scale of any commitments that they eventually agree upon. To watch such environmental responsibility rest on the shoulders of such a tiny number of those representing the entire global community is to me unnerving in the extreme, especially now.

Politics aside, the private sector has been preparing for their role with such initiatives as the Copenhagen Communiqué backed by HRH Prince Charles, which has already been signed by more than 670 business signatories from across the globe after its launch just over a week ago. UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-Moon was handed the Communiqué by a signatory CEO from each global region at last week’s UN Summit on Climate Change in New York. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the World Energy Council (WDC) also recently called on government leaders to reach climate change agreement in Copenhagen from the World Climate Conference in Geneva. Global business leaders from more than 150 countries asked for an agreement on ‘a post 2012 framework to provide business with a clear, predictable framework to stimulate investment in technologies that will enable a transition to a low carbon economy.’ Juan Gonzalez-Valero, Head of Corporate Responsibility at Syngenta, stated: “Better climate information helps business to focus our research and make the right long-term investments.” He added: “If you think growing enough crops to feed the world won't be impacted by climate, you're dreaming.”

At multinational scales politics and Corporate Social Responsibility issues often overlap. As the USA debates the Boxer-Kerry bill, Nike is rumoured to be the latest big name to take a timely stand against the US Chamber of Commerce’s climate change statements They are expected to resign their position on the Chamber board following pressure from socially responsible investment groups.

Whilst the economic trials and tribulations may still be hogging the immediate centre stage, the timing of the conference should serve us well by getting businesses to lift their heads away from hopes of economic recovery and pushing planning horizons much further forward beyond this financial year, the next or even decade to come. Climate change is everybody’s environmental responsibility. Any negotiations In Copenhagen cannot be left solely in the hands of those playing any type of short term Machiavellian vote winning tactics. Boards and CEO’s are being tasked with demonstrating longer term strategic considerations and so should elected officials. Businesses need to ensure their voices are heard. Delay is not an option. The planet cares not for politics.

Mobile Communications, CSR and Climate Change

What benefits can mobile communication technologies offer in the quest for environmental responsibility? IT is near the front of the crowd in the firing line for the impact of its carbon emissions. It is also near the front of a separate crowd with impressive potential to reduce emissions. There have been many voices in favour of the ‘technology will save us’ camp but counter-balanced by an equal number of detractors, regularly citing the whole-life carbon cost of creating such technology. There can be little argument that the most effective way of reducing our carbon dependence is by wholesale change of socially responsible individual behaviour, regardless of the technology based tools already present or on the horizon. Technology, none the less, will play a crucial role in the overall campaign to minimise climate change. Particular areas deserving increased attention are the roles of communication technologies such as wireless broadband, RFID, smart grids and mobile telephony.

Vodafone and Accenture, in an entrepreneurial use of a Corporate Social Responsibility approach similar to GE’s Ecomagination programme, recently published a report into the potential carbon savings of such technologies. The report showed that have identified 13 specific opportunities, that by 2020 and supported by mobile services could save 2.4% of expected EU emissions – 113 million tonnes of CO2e, equivalent to saving 18% of UK emissions in 2008. This would save €43 billion in energy costs alone and would require a billion mobile connections, 87% of which are machine-to-machine (M2M), connecting one piece of equipment wirelessly with another.

The practical benefits being touted include reduction in the need to physically travel because of improvements to virtual communication spaces for meetings, remote office facilities, smart logistics through monitoring and tracking of vehicles, smart grids & meters providing operational efficiencies and smart cities to improve traffic and utilities management. If implemented on the massive scale suggested it is easy to see how just such tools could better assist society manage its environmental responsibility.

For these uses of information communications technology to be truly accepted and maximise the inherent potential, many obstacles need to be overcome such as capital investment required for infrastructure (especially in developing nations), interoperability, hardware reliability and of course political inertia. At the very least it is encouraging to see the private sector using Corporate Social Responsibility as inspiration for commercial innovation.

Socially Responsible Retailer Tackles Human Trafficking

The Body Shop, the pioneering socially responsible retailer, has unveiled a new approach to addressing the global issue of child sex trafficking at the Clinton Global Initiative this week. Human trafficking is the third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world and the Body Shop has thrown the weight of its 2500 global stores behind this campaign.

With such high ethical credentials from the outset under Anita Roddick’s original masterful stewardship, the Body Shop has always held its head proudly above the parapet. They have always had a reputation for pushing way beyond the traditional corporate social responsibility definition and the latest campaign is no different. The initiative called the ‘Progress Card System’ scores countries on the depth of their governments efforts to stop sex trafficking. The next three years will see the partnership with EPCAT International raise awareness, generate funds and encourage active supporters to demand change.

Since the acquisition by the L’Oréal Group back in 2006 there have been questions over the implications over the Body Shop’s ability to adhere to its original strong ethical values, as the new parent does have one or two skeletons in their own ethics wardrobe. As yet there are no definitive signs of any reduction in their corporate social responsibility commitment but one particular blogger wasn’t too happy when a Body Shop assistant warned that she wasn’t allowed take photographs of the store, even from the street (quoting orders from management) when viewing the new campaign poster. What would Anita have said about that? Mrs. Roddick believed that selling The Body Shop to L’Oréal was the best way to guarantee the company values into the future.

She said, “I have not worked all these years to be satisfied to have pioneered a new way of doing business that nobody else ever tries. I want to make things happen, to spread human values wider in business if I possibly can. And this sale gives us the chance to do so.”

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then the Body Shop will forever have a smile. It helped change the way many people think about their purchasing power, where products came from, how they were made, and is undoubtedly still at the vanguard of socially and environmentally responsible business. There may be more questions yet to come about the integration into the L’Oreal Group but the Body Shop continues to keep the ethical bar beyond where most retailers dare to consider.

New Age Corporate Social Responsibility

The concept of new age CSR is changing. Corporations have never been more interested in supporting their communities. With open source marketing and successful collaborations, this seems to be a promising era for corporate social responsibility. Based on a survey by LGB Research Institute (a non-profit organization), business organizations are using untapped non-cash resources for initiating good work.

It was great to learn that companies are not only getting involved in providing in-kind donations but new sustainable products are also being introduced to the consumers. The emphasis is on establishing partnership with non-profit enterprises, taking non-profit accountability and measurability into serious consideration.

The new age concept of corporate social responsibility goes beyond just writing checks. Collaboration with social enterprises is being done to generate impactful programs. In order to gain strong brand recognition, several new age firms are integrating corporate social responsibility initiatives to their capabilities. From orphanage construction and promoting health camps to conducting rehabilitation camps, corporations are making significant contributions to the society.

I recently read about Entergy Charitable Foundation’s contribution of 355,000 dollars to the Teach For America movement. With this effort, the foundation’s total investment in this cause has reached 1.3 million dollars since 2002. I feel that the involvement of corporations in developing communities should be CEO driven. Only when the top management shows optimum commitment towards good work, societal and environmental interests can be achieved.