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Corporate social responsibility

Ten Principles for a New Economy 1/3

One of the wonderful things about the new networked globalised economy is how you suddenly discover the links which exist between one business and another.  This can have both productive and detrimental effects on a business, depending upon your point of view.

For example, take Apple’s highly publicised involvement with Foxconn.  The good side is that Foxconn allows Apple (and other tech manufacturers) to access the cheap Chinese technology manufacturing market.  The bad side is that there has been a spate of suicides by Foxconn workers which, whether relevant or not, will stick to Apple as a negative influence upon their brand.

Another “wonderful thing” is finding out the different aspects of a corporation when you’ve only known one. Take, for example, the New Economy Network (NEN).

NEN was founded by the Tellus Institute in 2010.  It comes from the same stable as the Global Reporting Institute (GRI), which is now a de facto sustainability reporting tool amongst businesses.

However, whilst many companies may support the GRI reporting regime I suspect few would put their wholehearted weight behind NEN’s Principles for a New Economy (PDF).  Why?  Because, like any Tellus Institute initiative they cut against the establishment’s grain.  To understand this more fully, let’s look at the principles in more detail:

[Read more…] about Ten Principles for a New Economy 1/3

Three core items for responsible media engagement

Often the greatest advances can be made by a single individual or by micro organisations who, while not necessarily radical, grasp the essence of an issue where larger corporations faff with trying to meet the needs of their share- and stake- holders.

This is why I spend a lot of my time looking at minor players in the CSR world.  Sometimes such SMEs provide radical thinking, but more often than not they provide clear thinking, unrestrained by the social, political or economic factors which so often constrain larger corporations.

One such organisation is the Ibero-American Forum on Social Responsibility, hosted and organised by Perla Puterman.  A hint of what this collective is about can be seen straightaway in the group’s name.  It doesn’t limit itself to just Latin America  nor does it definitively align itself with North, Central or South American countries.

Instead it looks to build bridges between Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries, whether they are in the Americas or the Iberian peninsula.  When you add to the mix the rise of countries like Brazil and Venezuela in the global economy and the growing need for the improvement in responsible trading relations between European and South America, then you start to see the sense of an Ibero-American Forum. [Read more…] about Three core items for responsible media engagement

BOOK REVIEW: The Green Executive | Business leadership in a low carbon economy

Normally you would expect a book review to come at or around the time of a book’s publication.  That was my most sincere intention when The Green Executive’s author, Gareth Kane of Terra Infirma, sent me a pre publication PDF back in May 2011.

Crumbs, was it really May?  How time has marched on since then!

To try and make up for the terrible slip in the space-time continuum I will quite honestly put the one word out there which deserves to describe The Green Executive: fantastic! [Read more…] about BOOK REVIEW: The Green Executive | Business leadership in a low carbon economy

Real CSR progress on Slavery & Human Rights

Most people know the London railway station Fenchurch Street because it was once important enough to be included on a Monopoly board.  Today, and quite bizarrely, it’s the only railway terminus in Central London which isn’t directly connected to The Tube.

Fenchurch, for those who are not Douglas Adams fans, is also the name of the lady who “finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place” but was sadly blown up (along with the Earth) to make room for an interspace bypass before she could tell anyone.

I have a certain sympathy with Fenchurch the lady.  I know how CSR can be used to make the world a better and happier place, but my solution has nothing to do with profits or the creation of wealth.

Thankfully I’ve not yet been blown up to make way for a bypass, but the way business continues to ignore human rights (as opposed to social engagement) is self defeating, This is why a new law in California, the eighth largest economy in the world, makes such a huge difference. [Read more…] about Real CSR progress on Slavery & Human Rights

The Great 2012 CSR Revolution

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…] about The Great 2012 CSR Revolution

New CSR Regulation Coming Your Way

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…] about New CSR Regulation Coming Your Way