Business and society - The biggest contract

Very good article from May 2005 'Economist' giving a good perspective on CSR.
http://aiesec.net/members/clubs/globallearningnetworks/lncorporateresponsibilityig/file-storage/file?file_id=31873985

Mike

The cooperation of CR development between Corporate and Media

A recent conference held in Santiago becomes a debate between the corporate and Media -- Corporates complaining Media only focus on the bad news of companies but no focus on their work and effort put, whereas Media saying corporates only allow one-way dialogue, too much PR focused, only protect their own companies interest...

All these results in a very negative view and reluctant to cooperate in terms of CR development.

To solve the situation requires big paradigm shift plus change in attitude from both sides.

Corporates need to further demonstrate their intergrity by providing accurate and a whole picture of information, including the goods and bads - on the development in their workspace. They should aware of the idea that it will be the best to protect their companies' interest only by revealing the whole story to stakeholders. No fear to face the press in terms of avoiding criticism -- a strategic communications approach - in terms of how to deal with

At the same time, Press needs to forgo their usual view of corporates using PR approach, take the initiatives to explore the implications underlying in the issues reported which reflect the CSR development.

If you are interested in the relationship between Corporates and Media, I really suggest you can go to this blog
ethicalcorp.blogspot.com

This is a blog from the Editor of a leading CR magazine, Ethical Corporation, with his unique view towards this topic.

Stakeholders engagement

Today’s organisational challenges and routes to building value make clear the need to engage with previously ignored stakeholders and with acknowledged stakeholders on new topics and in new ways. AccountAbility believes that effective stakeholder engagement advances organizational performance aligned to sustainable development by increasing legitimacy, learning and the collaborative creation of value. It introduced a standard that will help to identify green wash and real stakeholder engagement. The AA1000 Stakeholder Engagement Standard (AA1000SES) is a generally applicable, open-source framework for improving the quality of the design, implementation, assessment, communication and assurance of stakeholder engagement. For more details, click http://www.accountability.org.uk/aa1000/default.asp?pageid=234

Future of CSR

After a decade of evolution, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is at a crossroads. During IC we were discussing the future successful company. Business for Social Responsibility presents 3 future scenarios of CSR and the companies’ approach and the implications they may hold for business. "Exploring possible futures yields insight into where we find ourselves today and provides guidance about where we would like to be and how to get there," writes BSR expert. Have a look at his scenarios http://www.bsr.org/CSRResources/ResourcesDocs/BSR_200508_Allen-White_Fade-Transform.pdf

Corporate Ethics

Hey Guys!

A few examples of recent attention to ethics.
At Goldman Sachs, CEO Hank Paulson will moderate 20 forums this year on ethics, for the bank’s entire staff of managing directors.
Citigroup is adding annual ethics training for all 300,000 employees, and The New York Times Co. is doing likewise.

The Accountability Rating 2005

Accountability Results of Corporate Responsibility Survey
The Accountability Rating--compiled by the London think tank AccountAbility and the consultancy CSRnetwork--scores companies on how seriously their future decisions will consider nonfinancial matters. Topping the survey is BP, followed by Royal Dutch Shell Group (2); Vodafone (3); HSBC Holdings (4); Carrefour (5); Ford Motor (6); Tokyo Electric Power (7); Electricite de France (8);Peugeot (9); and Chevron (10). The Accountability Rating is not an index of how much good the company does or how loud its critics are. It doesn't seek to label the good or bad but rather to identify the smart, it's a business, not a moral, rating. It looks at the world's biggest corporations and asks, Do they understand how to create and exploit effective business opportunities by addressing the needs of the poor? Do they understand how to make money by investing in environmentally sound business practices? Are they, in short, prepared to maximize the opportunities for our changing world?Many of the existing measures of corporate responsibility are focused on short-term issues, they make a narrow assessment of how thorough a company's social reporting is. Or they attempt to name and shame by exposing negative social and economic impact. They do not offer clear insight into where a company wants to go and how smart it is in converting society's changing expectations into marketable products and services. The fact that oil and chemical companies have high ratings simply indicates that these companies face the biggest hurdles and are taking corporate responsibility seriously.
More details about the report see http://www.csrwire.com/article.cgi/4457.html
or Accountability Rating http://www.accountabilityrating.com/
The survey and related stories appear at www.fortune.com.

First CSR Report from BBC

Have you ever thought of how a Media company can work on the development of CR?

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has published its first CSR report, naming " Living Public Value" for the year 2003/2004. It is indeed a very interesting CSR report in terms of revealing how a broadcasting corporate will work on spreading and educating the community, and how the corporate itself works internally in a sustainable, accountable and responsible manner.

The full BBC CSR report can be downloaded from here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/csr/pdfs/CSR_report_full.pdf

Just share your ideas in here after reading!!

Great perspective on CSR from McKinsey&Co

I highly recommend you to take a look at it.
The summary of the article:

By recastying the long-running argument about role of business in society, companies can dislodge a debate that's now wedged between two seemingly incompatible points of view.

The relationship between big business and society can be viewed as an implicit social contract, with obligations, opportunities and mutual advantages.

Large companies must take the lead in explaining their contriution to society. They should define their ultimate purpose in a way that is more subtle than "the business of business in business" and less defensive than most current approaches to CSR.

It is time for big business to recapture the intellectual and moral high gorund from its critics and to build social issues into strategy in a way that reflects their actual importance to companies.

The article can be found on CR LN community:
http://aiesec.net/members/clubs/globallearningnetworks/lncorporateresponsibilityig/file-storage/file?file_id=31510183

Take care

Mike

http://aiesec.net/members/clubs/globallearningnetworks/lncorporateresponsibilityig/file-storage/file?file_id=31510183