Woodseer Management Consulting www.woodseer.com Jean-Michel Piedagnel - Principal consultant
CSR in two words Corporate Social Responsibility is a model to do business. At present, it is selfregulatory. An ISO norm is being worked on to help businesses comply with what is essentially seen by more and more people, as a new responsibility in an area of “new capitalism”. CSR is a business model in which businesses manage the impact of their activities on many aspect of life such as the environment, employment, ethical standard and even human rights. The argument is that companies will benefit from CSR through competitive advantages such as, for example risk management, staff retention or better brand image. The emphasize of most CSR policies is on the accountability to stakeholders such as customers and investors of course but also staff, society, interest groups, our planet, others. To cut a long story short, philanthropy or charity work was about what a company does with its profits, whereas CSR should be about how you make those profits in the first place. That’s the theory. Many activists and interest groups are strongly pushing the CSR agenda due to the impact of businesses, and certainly multinationals, on society as a whole and of course due to the long debated consequences it has on the decline of states and governments. Although there is a general agreement on what CSR is, there is little standard for CSR especially when it comes to the elaboration, implementation, auditing and reporting on CSR policies. This is a fundamental flaw since CSR is very much about accountability to stakeholders. This vacuum can explain why the debate on implementation is often influenced by the “anglo-saxon” development principles such as “do no harms”, community-based or sustainability. CSR tend to be reduced to implementing, with the blessing of development NGOs, development programs in the poorest country within the same development paradigm as before CSR. What is new with CSR? Is CSR just a new branding tool for NGOs and companies alike?
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Friday, August 14, 2009
Woodseer Management Consulting www.woodseer.com Jean-Michel Piedagnel - Principal consultant
Indeed, critics argue that CSR is about reputation management, public relation, and of course corporate hypocrisy. There are a large number of examples of companies in the oil, food or tobacco industry with great CSR policies despite negative impacts on many stakeholders’ life. Implementing a CSR policy can be tricky for a company as it can be dragged into costly consultancy fees or theoretical questions, which it might not be prepared to face, thus creating a reputation risk from a good intention. Caution dictate to start with simple things and learn as you do as CSR is not a definitive science.
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Friday, August 14, 2009