CorporateResponsibility.Net

Eradicating poverty is the first UN Millennium Development Goal and an increasingly pressing global issue. Halving the amount of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 (in relation to 1990) is a daunting challenge and needs the collaboration and effort of many different entities – business corporations included.

Several CSR Europe members have incorporated poverty eradication in their CSR endeavours, targeting different aspects of the issue and producing vital opportunities for people living in poverty around the world.

Read the complete article here:

http://www.csreurope.org/news.php?type=&action=show_news&news_id=2872

Nearly two-thirds of informed publics (62%) trust corporations less than they did a year ago, according to the 10th Edelman Trust Barometer. When respondents in the United States were asked about trust in business in general, only 38% said they trust business to do what is right – a 20 percent plunge since last year – and only 17% said they trust information from a company’s CEO. Both are lower levels of trust than those Edelman measured in the wakes of Enron, the dot-com bust, and Sept.11.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) said they refused to buy products or services from a company they distrusted – the first time the survey explored people’s direct actions toward trusted and distrusted companies. Seventy-two percent (72%) criticized a distrusted company to a friend or colleague. Read more

Source: Edelman

Corporate Knights, the Canadian CSR magazine, has published its 2009 list of the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world.

The Global 100 is a list of publicly-traded, MSCI World-listed companies that are best equipped to manage the environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities, based on research and analysis by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors. The Innovest methodology compares companies to their sector peers on a best-in-class basis.

CSR Europe members on the list include Accor, BASF, Coca-Cola Company, Groupe Danone, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, L’Oréal, Novo Nordisk, Panasonic, Procter & Gamble, SAP, State Street, Toyota Motor and Unilever. See the full list

Source: CSR Europe

Corporations are making cutbacks across the board— except with their sustainability programs.

A survey recently published by Panel Intelligence, LLC, shows that 80 percent of North American corporate sustainability executives plan to maintain or increase “green” spending in 2009 despite the recent economic downturn.

The survey also reports that corporate clean technology spending will increase by 73 percent through 2010. Over two thirds of survey respondents believe energy efficiency is the most important area to invest in.  Read more

Source: GreenBiz

Five leading U.S. corporations launched an initiative this week calling for strong U.S. climate and energy legislation in early 2009.

The founding members of Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) are Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems and The Timberland Company.

These companies are joined by Ceres–a coalition of investors, environmental groups and other public interest groups. Read more

Source: Sustainable Business

The majority of Fortune 50 corporations use the Internet to disclose some information on their environmental performance but most are missing opportunities to involve stakeholders, tap the interactive potential of the web, and provide transparency in their reporting, new research suggests.

Researchers at Brigham Young University and KDPaine and Partners set out to test a new model for transparency,  a hot topic in the field of corporate communications. After studying environmental information reported in the websites of F50 copanies, researchers found that a minority allow for any two-way interaction with stakeholders, which could inform and enhance the type of information they report. Read more

Source: Green Biz

by Robert Barnard-Weston, 2008

So, once again, we’re in an economic downturn. After almost twenty years in Corporate  Responsibility (CR), I’ve seen several of these already and they always seem to trigger the same response among corporate leaders. Those who are not doing anything decisive in CR tend to defer any plans they may have had while they wait for the economic climate to improve. Those who are already doing something have a habit of curtailing their CR activities or cancelling them altogether.

What this clearly demonstrates is that CR is seen by most as a luxury, a ‘nice to have’ element of their corporate tactics. It is a cost that cannot be justified when the economic going gets tough, since it doesn’t yield a worthwhile return on investment (ROI).

There are two very important issues here that corporate leaders ignore at their peril:

1. Under company law in most industrialised countries, a prime requirement of senior executives is that they provide maximum returns for their investors. Therefore, those who have been operating CR programmes while knowing ROI was shaky or non-existent have been breaking the law.

2. CR programmes, appropriately designed, implemented and managed, can be extremely powerful and reliable profit and shareholder value boosters. Astonishingly, very few business leaders seem to realise this.

So, the conclusions from these facts, particularly in an economic downturn, are clear: if your CR programme is not commercially successful, end it now or make changes so that it becomes commercially successful. If you don’t have a CR programme, now is a very good time to launch one if it can add profits and shareholder value.

There are three essential, inter-related disciplines required to make CR improve your financial numbers:

a. appropriate CR strategy

b. integrated communication

c. dedicated measurement systems

An Appropriate CR Strategy is one that is aligned completely with the overarching  corporate strategy. It does not require (indeed, it should avoid) trite vision statements and homilies from the Chairman at the front of the Annual Report. It requires a clear understanding of precisely what the organisation exists to achieve and careful articulation for all stakeholders of what CR can contribute to that achievement.

Integrated CR Communication differs from most communication programmes that we have seen in that it combines several core characteristics:

· It brings to bear both interpersonal and artefact-based communications

· It makes full use of both internal and external communications

· It is dialogue-based, not monologue-based

· It is iterative – building over time to achieve metamorphic performances

All four of these criteria must be met for integrated CR communications systems to deliver their benefits. When they do, the results can be staggering in their potency.

A Dedicated CR Measurement System provides a means of bringing together tangible and intangible benefits, quantitative and qualitative analysis, into a cohesive, easily understood picture which shows clearly the financial benefits that a CR programme has activated.

For the system to deliver optimal results, all three of the above disciplines need to be deployed simultaneously in a ‘tuned whole’. CR strategy alone tends to be seen as empty promises, lacking substance; CR communications without strategy and measurement is meaningless; and the best measurement systems are of no use if there’s nothing to measure.

The ‘tuned whole’ that results from appropriate design and delivery of an integrated CR strategy, communication and measurement system can be likened to a highly trained athlete. The athlete needs to be laser-focused on the goal in mind: no amount of fitness wins the gold medal if you veer away from the racetrack. All the body’s organs need to be in the best of health – if any one of them fails, the whole system goes down – and dialogue between the heart, the lungs and the other organs needs to fast, accurate and complete. Finally, we need to know when we’ve achieved our goals – for every event, there’s a finishing line at a carefully measured distance from the starting blocks.

Pass that finishing line first and you win gold for everyone concerned.

The author, Robert Weston lives with in Bath, England. He has been a CSR consultant, writer, speaker and facilitator for fifteen years. He holds degrees in Philosophy and in Responsibility and Business Practice; he has also co-launched the UK farmers’ markets movement, Bath’s first eco-hotel and five children. His clients include a wide range of high-profile corporations, along with numerous NGOs, government departments, national governments and supragovernmental organisations.
You can e-mail him at: robert@organismics.org or call him on +44 7074 661166
You can write to him at the following address:
Bloomfield House,
146, Bloomfield Road,
Bath. BA2 2AS, UK

An analysis of the social responsibility reporting efforts of California’s largest corporations finds that some, like Chevron, Hewlett-Packard and Walt Disney, publicized their sustainability on their Web sites, while others, like eBay, Google and Apple, rarely mentioned the subject, if at all.

The 132-page report, “Analysis of Sustainability Reporting of Fortune Companies in California” (PDF), produced by the Roberts Environmental Center of Claremont McKenna College, contains a compilation of Pacific Sustainability Index scores evaluating the environmental and social reporting of all California companies on the 2006 Fortune 1000 list. It scores companies based on the reporting, intent and performance of environmental and social sustainability efforts and is the center’s the first geographically based analysis of corporate reporting. Read more

Source: Environmental Leader

Richard Branson is planning to start a new carbon neutral project called Virgin Green Owls.

The aim is to advise governments and corporations on the delivery of carbon neutral projects and the start is planned for this August.

Some other news on this topic:
On Environmental Leader: Green consultancy
On business Green: Branson

There is a definite dichotomy in consumers’ minds between current leaders in environmental protection and who should be leading. According to Natural Marketing Institute’s 2007 LOHAS Consumer Trends Database, the largest gaps between perceived and expected performance are seen with the U.S. government and corporations.

Also noteworthy is that consumers believe that the U.S. Government is currently doing more to protect the environment than corporations. Clearly, consumers expect both constituencies to “step up” to the challenge due to their ability to enact change at a more efficient and far reaching level than individual consumers.

Source: EnvironmentalLeader.com