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A Quibble of Acronyms

It’s an odd existence to follow. First everyone says “Eh? What’s that then?” Then they fall in love with you and can’t get enough.

two people discussing terminologyLater there’s the inevitable falling out, typified by arguments over what it was all about to start with. Lastly, the final stage is a grudging acceptance that no matter what, this is how things are set to remain for evermore.

Yep, life as a TLA* is tough. Only the most successful reach the heights of HTTP, the JK Rowling of acronym-land, used and translated the world over.

Most of the others fall by the wayside, the discarded betamaxes of their generation.
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The Global Reporting Initiative — A Brief Overview

It’s the marketing men’s idea of a near perfect viral product. The work of a 25 person secretariat living on grants and donations has swept around the world with barely a penny spent on advertising.

Global Reporting Initiative G3 FrontpageGRI G3 Frontpage

Now hailed as the defacto standard and on its third generation of guidelines, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) dominates the world of environmental reporting.

Even those outside the CSR profession prick up their ears when they hear the acronym. It means something: it has respect and gravitas. If you comply with GRI you must be one of the Good Guys.

But what actually is it, and what makes it so popular?

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Drilling For Mud

Imagine 30,000 Amazonian tribesmen carousing along the street, waving their spears and whooping at the top of their voices in celebration.

They’d taken the petrochemical company Chevron to court and won huge and unprecedented damages.

For over twenty years Texaco, now a Chevron subsidiary, had dumped hazardous waste from its oil drilling enterprise into open lakes of effluent.

Toxins seeped into the groundwater and poisoned over 1,500 square miles used to live and farm by local indians and settlers. Now they’d got payback.
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Standards Schemes and Certificates

confused manJohn Comana sat at his desk, headache pumping and a queasy feeling in his stomach. “I’ll take responsibility!” he’d volunteered. Now it didn’t seem such a smart move.

He, like many other corporate officers, has discovered that there are many different facets to environmental and social responsibility and although John Comana may be fictional, the headache is a very real one for many businesses.

No firm guidance exists on what corporate responsibility is, which activities should be measured or how data should be presented.

Instead there is the simple regulatory requirement that there must be analysis of “environmental … social and community issues”, including an appropriate measure of the company’s performance.
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Are you blanking your customers?

Is it difficult for customers to understand what you’re trying to communicate on your website? Are you showing them a blank screen, or hiding key sections of your site from them? It can happen to the best of companies without them realising …

lack of communicationI can think of a couple of reasons why you might decline somebody’s custom: but only people that you no longer wanted to have as customers. You surely wouldn’t refuse to serve those people you do want to retain or exclude them from your corporate communications.
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How not to market CSR content

Often it takes something quite awful to highlight how important it is to do things properly. Clashing colours in an outfit, for instance, or the hamfisted throwing together of herbs and spices in a recipe.

French Connection CSRFrench Connection

So it is with French Connection’s CSR content.

Social Responsibility is all about showing a company is accountable and conscientious in its pursuit of business. This must shine through if the CSR information is to play an effective part in the company’s marketing strategy.

French Connection’s CSR content stands as a useful example of how to do this … by doing the exact opposite.
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