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CSR meets Higher Education: part I

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How do you start ‘doing CSR’ at a university? Is there a need to have a clearly articulated CSR agenda and if so, how does it differ from the private sector?
Most corporations state that CSR is about having “a licence to operate”, it is about their “brand”, “reputation” and pushed forward by “stakeholder pressure”. While this may be true in the corporate sector, in the context of higher education this is not (yet!) the case.
On the contrary, one could argue that a university has positive CSR credentials by definition; an institution providing education, conducting valuable research,  promoting widening participation and life-long learning  can hardly be seen as a ‘bad guy’ who crudely aims to make profit whilst neglecting its stakeholders. Mitigating our negative environmental impact is far easier than that of for example an oil company. Moreover, most people don’t even perceive universities as corporations.
So why is it necessary to pursue and further develop a CSR programme? To start with, a university is a corporation in the sense that it does need to have a positive bottom line. It needs to be able to sell its product (education) to customers (students) and be competitive in the marketplace (other universities), attractive as a workplace to retain high quality staff (both support and academic) and, it has a significant role through its buying power (procurement). Academic excellence increasingly unites policy-makers, businesses and other organisations. At the end of the day, we either gain or lose in the global competition over high calibre students.
The way I see it, CSR has two main purposes in the university context. First, it enables the institution to develop a structured and economically viable approach on issues around social and environmental responsibility. Universities are intriguingly complex institutions with multiple organisational cultures within them. This means that there are often fairly autonomous pockets, such as schools (in our university there are seven schools), departments, committees, working groups…etcetera. It is, therefore, very important that there is an overarching institutional framework and a clear sense of direction of how to develop our role in the society as one entity.
Second, it is a commonly acknowledged issue that universities are good at drafting policies and committing themselves to them but when it comes to actions, it can suddenly get quiet.  Through CSR we can initiate a transformation process within the institution. CSR is actually a tool that allows us to reflect on our identity as an institution and what we aspire to be. In a constructive way, it makes us revisit our core purpose and our values and ensures that we walk our talk.
So what does developing CSR actually mean?
CSR is about taking actions. Building up a CSR programme is about implementation.  CSR is also about engaging people in the work/study place. In our university there are around 24 000 students and more than 2000 staff. I firmly believe that they want to identify with the organisation they work or study with and, they want to be proud of it. If an institution places any value on that, a holistic, action focused CSR programme is needed.
Anne Raudaskoski
The writer works with the University of Westminster as a CSR Research & Development Officer and is a member of The Sustainability Writers Network (TSWN).