The Great 2012 CSR Revolution
January 27, 2012
So let’s do another little survey here. Hands up anyone who’s crossed Gypsy Rose’s palm with silver in the hope of having their fortune told? No-one? Oh, maybe one person at the back. Well, it doesn’t surprise me, we’re not really into such superstitious claptrap these days.
Nevertheless, every year every CSR practitioner seems to feel they too can be Gypsy Rose. Crystal balls get polished and predictions made. If you’re lucky, there may even be a waft of incense in the air .. or is that just over-ripe pot-pourri?
Myself, I try desperately to eschew this tradition but every year someone says something in their own crystal ball gazing which needs a response. This year is no different.
But first….
Mandatory CSR reporting will happen
CSR will be regulated in 2012. Read more
New CSR Regulation Coming Your Way
January 18, 2012
As has been stated many times, I’m a firm believer that the EU will introduce mandatory CSR regulation in the very near future.
This is not an article of faith (or want), simply a fact which springs from what the EU has said that it’s going to do. In the timetable for implementing on the Single Market Act (PDF), passed in late 2011, the EU said the Single Market would include a “legislative proposal on the transparency of the social and environmental information provided by businesses”.
You can’t really get much clearer than that, can you? Read more
Authenticity and Audience – Being Human: interview with Mallen Baker
January 10, 2012
It seems obvious that not all your stakeholders are the same, with the same needs; yet for many companies it would seem that one size fits all when it comes to corporate responsibility reporting and communication. Simply producing a CR report isn’t enough to communicate with all of your audiences; and not all of them want all the information there is in your report.
Paul (Corporate Eye CEO) talked to Mallen Baker about the importance of identifying the different audiences for your corporate responsibility communications: about providing them with the information that interests them; about creating the opportunity to engage with them and to discuss the issues that matter.
I’ve broken the interview down into smaller pieces, so that you can quickly find particular points you’d like to hear about. I’ve also included the whole interview and a transcript.
Part 1: Tailoring content and conveying authenticity
Key topics:
- understanding the different audiences
- tailoring content for those audiences
- conveying authenticity and generating trust
Soundbites:
“The key distinguishing features between a good report online and a mediocre one are a couple of things. First of all is that the company is clear about who its audience or audiences are… and the second part is the integrity of information and the authenticity of the voice that you’re hearing.”
“If you care about your audiences, you use a medium and an approach that they will relate to as your starting point.”
“Consumers see through the fluff very quickly. And all of the polls show that they’re becoming more and more cynical about the claims that companies make in the environmental and ethical space.
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Length: 8:40
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 1
Part 2: Communicating commitment
Key topics:
- the Centrica report interviews
- CEO commitment; embedding sustainability in the business
- discussing issues that are in the public domain
Soundbites:
“[they] had the courage to step up and say ‘We are prepared to be placed in an area that’s just slightly outside of the comfort zone’ ”
“Whenever there’s a controversy in the press relating to a company the first thing that I will do is go to their website and see what they say about it… the mind boggles just how often the answer to that question is ‘Nothing’”
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Length: 4:13
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 2
Part 3: Authenticity and audit
Key topics
- third party commentary
- collaborating with the audience to solve a problem
- using neutral spaces to exchange ideas and information
Soundbites:
“Having trusted third parties who have had the time – and the incentive presumably – to look carefully at what the company’s doing and to talk to them, and then to give their own reflections, good and bad… that generally plays pretty well”
“The other thing that provides authenticity is when people not only are admitting that something has gone the wrong way this year but actually seek to engage their audiences with problems that they face that they haven’t yet worked out how to solve”
“It’s shifted the focus a little bit from ‘the company is the star, the company is the centre of the universe’ and puts it into a position where there are sustainability issues and the company is one of the actors… one of the creators of environmental consequences alongside the rest of society”
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Length: 7:15
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 3
Part 4: Audience and integrated reporting
Key topics:
- integrated reporting
- importance of the audience
- interim sustainability reporting
Soundbites:
“integrated reporting could be … a very positive thing, and potentially a dangerous thing in equal measure.”
“The encouraging thing is that… it will lead you to be clear about the communication that you send to one of your key audiences… the danger, the downside, is if you begin to believe that that integrated report is whyat you produce for all of your stakeholder audiences.”
“Many of your direct stakeholders do not get their information from reports.”
“Where you are engaging your customers or your supply chain or your employees with what you are doing and what’s happened, then the more up-to-date and current that is, and preferably more of a discussion and two-way flow that is, then the more likely you’re going to succeed.”
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Length: 6:47
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 4
Part 5: Social media and CSR
Key topics:
- the right social media mindset
- going to where the audience is
- expanding the audience for CSR
Soundbites:
“You can’t have a discussion with a corporate entity. You can only have a discussion with a human being or a highly trained parrot.”
“One of the big challenges for the companies who are used to corporate communications and to being faceless – except for maybe the CEO in certain contexts – is that they find it very difficult to shift to a medium where it’s personal.”
“If you really want to engage the people who are your stakeholders… you need to go to where they naturally gather. And social media potentially creates tools that enable you to do that.”
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Length: 9:13
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 5
Part 6: Trends in CSR communication
Key topics:
- conflicting trends in CSR communication
- legislation and innovation
- the human element; stories
Soundbites:
“The evolution of corporate responsibility reporting or sustainability reporting to date is completely unsustainable in itslef, ironically, because… the current state of the art doesn’t connect with audiences.”
“The trend has been more and more GRI reports, more and more standardisation. And I start to see a counter trend now, which is from the leading companies [who are starting to say] “We’re going to find ways that actually communicate better with some of our key audiences… we’re interested in finding the way that works.”
“It’s the human element, the story. … and it is the most elusive element because it requires you to be prepared to corporately communicate on a human level. That will always be a minority sport. But I think there can be some very, very good rewards for those who will pick up the intelligence about how it’s done well and give it a go.”
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Length: 7:32
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 6
Here’s the whole interview, in case you’d rather listen to it end-to-end; and the transcript, for those who prefer to read.
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Length: 43.43
Download: Mallen Baker interview (whole interview)
Download: Transcript
Many thanks to Mallen for taking the time to talk to Paul.
Who were we speaking to?
Mallen Baker is a writer, speaker and strategic advisor on corporate social responsibility and Founding Director of Business Respect. He is responsible for the Business Respect email newsletter on CSR, which is the longest running CSR internet newsletter in the world.
He is a regular columnist and contributing editor with Ethical Corporation.
Mallen was formerly the development director with Business in the Community, where he was responsible for developing BITC’s approach to marketplace issues, which includes how companies manage issues that arise around their core products and services. He produced the Marketplace Responsibility Principles working with a leadership team of CEOs from major companies headquartered in the UK.
He initiated the Business Impact Review Group – the group of 20 companies who developed a common approach to CSR reporting, and was responsible for the work of the Business Impact Taskforce which produced the landmark “Winning with Integrity” report.
Mallen chaired Kingfisher plc’s Stakeholder Advisory Panel 2007-2010, and was a board member of CSR Europe 2006 – 2008.
Collaborating with Activists: Catalyst for Change
December 1, 2011
The Corporate Responsibility and Reporting conference wound up with a session from a panel of activism experts talking about how companies should respond to defuse a potential crisis before it blows up.
The description of the activist strategy was fascinating. Having identified a potential issue, and done their research to establish the scale and detail of the problem, they will target brands that they see as a catalyst for change: either the market leader, where potentially the most publicity is available, or the laggards, where potentially the most change is possible.
The first approach will be a fishing letter raising the problem; the purpose of this is to establish what your likely response will be – will you call in the legal team, pass the letter to PR, or hide the letter at the bottom of your inbox?
If a respected organisation such as Greenpeace have sent you a letter like this, it is because there is a problem… hiding won’t help, and may trigger an active campaign.
The activists advise:
- don’t ignore the letter
- do acknowledge receipt
- do investigate the claim
- and call them to organise a meeting with as senior a member of management as possible.
Interestingly, they say:
- talk directly to the activists
- don’t send a lawyer or your PR company, as doing this is likely to confirm to the activist group that there is indeed a serious problem and that you have something to hide.
Better by far is to work with the activist group, visiting the field with them to see the problem. Then establish an action plan and communicate your progress against these targets. Not only to the activist group, but also – to aid transparency – publicly.
Best of all would be to have established a good working relationship with the activist organisation in advance – and if CSR is ‘in the DNA’ of the organisation, then they would have such relationships in place.
Transparency about the challenges an organisation or industry faces would deflate any potential campaign in the future; and, just as in the case of blogger outreach, relationships with respected organisations might mean they come to your support if you are criticised unfairly by other – perhaps less respectable – activist organisations in the future.
Chicken suits, chameleons and the one true way
November 25, 2011
Were you at Ethical Corporation’s Corporate Responsibility Reporting and Communications conference last week? If you weren’t, you missed a treat.
1 word
The word of the conference, had we been asked to choose one, would have been:
Humility
The number of times people urged that companies should display some humility in their corporate social responsibility reporting was striking…
1 central theme
Whether talking about reports, communications, stakeholder groups or engagement approaches, the clear message from many of the discussions was that there is not One True Way of ‘doing’ CSR, of reporting on it or of talking about it.
One size does not fit all
There were, though, lots of examples of different ways that companies had found that worked for them, and so might work as part of someone else’s toolset. It helps to be a chameleon, using different language and information for different groups.
4 quotes
There were many tweet-worthy snippets that came out of the discussion. Here are 4 that I noted down:
Corporate responsibility reporting is not PR jazz hands
The corporate responsibility report is not for communication: no-one reads it for fun
Stop communicating and start talking
A CR report, then, is both more and less than people might think. It isn’t – or shouldn’t be! – spin; it isn’t – or shouldn’t be – about sitting in a bathtub of baked beans; it does matter to the business and it is necessary but not sufficient to explain your approach to responsibility to your various audiences.
6 topics
It wasn’t physically possible to attend all the sessions without a time-turner, so this is my pick of the themes I identified; it would be interesting to see someone else’s selection.
My six:
- Driving performance: integrated reporting and Board conviction
- Different stakeholders; different stories
- Global-local, sector storytelling and authenticity
- Collaborating with activists
- Stakeholder outreach
- The investor view of your CSR work
I hope to look at some of these topics in more detail over the next couple of weeks; I’ll add links in this post as I get to them. Or, of course you could subscribe to our RSS feed.
If you’re intrigued, make sure you get to the next conference; this is my pick, and I’m quite sure others will have gone home with a different set of ideas.
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