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In Good Company: Singh on CSR

~ Connecting the dots between Business, Society & the Environment

Tag Archives: Edelman

Hardcore lessons of sustainability – ’10 Words or Less’

17 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, Stakeholder Engagement, Sustainability

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aman singh, barkha dutt, carol sanford, CSR, CSRwire, Edelman, henk campher, india, journalism, nick aster, parenting, Social Media, solutions journalism, Sustainability, triplepundit


I recently participated in “10 Words or Less,” a popular video series hosted by former journalist Michael Prager who writes on sustainable lifestyles and food. Prager reached out to me via Twitter, thanks to a recommendation from Asheen.

As we got started, he reminded me that “10 Words” is an ethic, not a limit. The conversation, despite a couple of technical hiccups – I’m still not sold on Google hangouts – was interesting and covered good ground.

Excerpts:

Name Aman Singh
Born when, where New Delhi, India, Sept. 15.
The year? “Earlier in the decade of the gas leak in Bhopal.”
Anything notable about the circumstances? “At that time, parents did not find out the sex of their child. My parents wanted a boy, had a boy’s name picked out, but they had a girl and stuck with the name.”
How’s that working for you? “I think it empowered me. My name in Punjabi, which is my native language, means peace. I’m quite the contrarian, but they had the right thought in mind.”
Where do you live? “New Jersey.”
Family circumstance “I’m happily married to a car geek, also from my hometown Delhi, and we have a 14-month-old son.”
When did you move to the US?

Grab the rest on MichaelPrager.com.

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Careers in CSR: Networking Your Way To Success

17 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, Guest Author, HR

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alex daprato, aman singh, careers in CSR, community development, corporate social responsibility, CSR, CSR jobs, Edelman, HR, james temple, jerilynn daniels, Job search, Jobs in CSR, jobs in CSR, klaudia olejnik, Leadership, networking, paul klein, PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada Foundation, pwc, Stakeholder Engagement, Sustainability, sustainability, Work culture


I met PwC Canada’s James Temple at a roundtable of CSR and sustainability leaders brought together by Edelman in Minneapolis in 2011 to discuss how they planned on moving forward on their commitments and what roadblocks they saw ahead.

I was the chosen facilitator for the hour and luckily for me, I got to ask all the questions!

The conversation was busy, high level and revealed a lot about the challenges these practitioners were facing as they worked to change the systems within their multinational corporations. While the roundtable was operated under Chatham House rules, the relationships that were formed that day continue to flourish.

Longevity is a true asset in this sector – and James has continued to be a wonderful resource and a much-needed mentor for those looking to pursue a career in the CSR field – critical as generations turnover across our workforce and expectations and mindsets on corporate social responsibility shift globally. He recently also facilitated a webinar to explore some of the latest trends in building a career in CSR. I asked him to pen some highlights and top tips for readers and here’s what he had to say:


 

I recently hosted a webinar focused on exploring trends and insights about building a career in corporate responsibility as part of what’s become a semi-annual conversation between hundreds of prospective practitioners and sector trailblazers.

As practitioners in a field that continues to transform, the conversation was dominated by the importance of networking and how to best leverage relationships toward pursuing a meaningful career. Joining me for the discussion were Paul Klein, president and founder of Impakt; Jerilynn Daniels, senior manager of community investment and marketing at RBC; Alex Daprato, partnership marketing associate at TrojanOne; and PwC Canada’s Sustainability Manager Klaudia Olejnik.

After a quick review of the CSR industry, we switched to discussing our panelists’ respective careers. Specifically, how they got there, if they would recommend breaking into the field today or if integrating a CSR mindset into any role is the way to go – and what they felt some of the key capabilities were that would help set an emerging leader up for success.

We also ran a live Twitter stream to help with on-the-spot responses from across the globe. Most of the questions focused on how to transcend the passion behind the industry to a sustainable career focused on embedding and implementing a complex change management strategy.

And how do we do this in a way that facilitates breaking into an increasingly complex field?

What struck me most was a single word: enough.

Too many times we focus on trying to be everything to everyone, but how can we understand corporate cultures in a way that doesn’t become overwhelming and can be communicated effectively? Could this be a building block to create the foundation for a career in CSR?

The panelists suggested that when thinking about who to talk to and what to ask, great networkers should remember that the CSR field is broad and diverse, and that practitioner experiences will be dependent on a variety of factors, including age, maturity of the organization that they are working for, geographic location, cultural norms and industry, just to name just a few. And framing good questions will be key to helping uncover the right information to inform decisions about a career in CSR and the tools needed to succeed.

From the hour-long conversation that featured numerous questions from an active audience, here are three recommendations to help enhance the networking experience:

  1. Brainstorm CSR related scenarios through open-ended questions

Great networkers focus on asking strong, open-ended questions during an informational interview and look for ways to create a knowledge exchange that’s mutually beneficial. When meeting with established CSR professionals, panelists recommended spending time working through scenarios or situational examples to compare diverse perspectives and ideas.

  1. Build a rapport that highlights genuine authenticity

Use networking time to build a rapport. Try to highlight a deep understanding about social issues, examples of continuous adaptation, or the ability to synthesize complex information in a way that can be re-communicated across diverse arrays of stakeholder groups.

  1. Use a shared language and keep the conversation focused around value creation for both people

In CSR, business language can be technical and complex.

Get back to basics, keep things clear and concise and remember to talk within the confines of a person’s role. Don’t overwhelm your mentor with general questions about how to change the world – they probably don’t know how (none of us do)! Instead, share complementary ideas that allow you to learn from each other.

Remember that curiosity is the name of the game, and you’ve got to check your ego at the door: CSR is a profession, not a persona. Let good communication skills guide your networking conversations, don’t let your passion to be a change-maker get in the way, and follow-up with those you’ve met to thank them for their time.

Combined, this might sound pretty basic but it’s the art of synthesizing complexity that will set you apart – and will make sure people remember you for your tact and talent.

About James Temple:

James Temple is the Director of Corporate Responsibility for PwC Canada and has a dual role leading the PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada Foundation. In this capacity, James provides oversight to the Canadian Firm’s internal Corporate Responsibility strategy, representing the ways PwC integrates good social, environmental and economic values into its business operations.

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People Get Sustainability, Business (and Marketers) Don’t: 20 Minutes with the CEO of Unilever

11 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in Capitalism 2.0, CSR, CSRwire

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Accountability, aman singh, Brand Management, Business, Capitalism 2.0, cause marketing, CEO Network, climate change, consumer behavior, Consumerism, CSR, CSRwire, Edelman, Innovation, integrated reporting, keith weed, Leadership, leadership, marketing, Marketing, millennials, milton friedman, palm oil, paul polman, politics, rainforest alliance, Social Enterprise, Stakeholder Engagement, supply chain, Supply chain management, Sustainability, sustainability, tensie whelan, the rainforest alliance, unilever, unilever ceo, Work culture


Last month, Unilever CEO Paul Polman was in town – New York – to receive the Lifetime Achievement award from the Rainforest Alliance. As Rainforest Alliance President Tensie Whelan put it, “Paul has made several lifetimes of difference by leading Unilever to become a game changer.”

The company’s work with the Rainforest Alliance is well-known – by setting targets like sourcing 100 percent of its palm oil sustainably, Unilever has made it easier for other companies to follow suit and helped complex supply chains become comfortable with change and collaboration.

And, the company hasn’t stopped at palm oil.

Today, roughly 50 percent of the company’s tea originates on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms as it works toward sourcing 100 percent of its raw agricultural materials from sustainable origins (that figure currently stands at 48 percent).

Having recently interviewed Unilever’s Marketing Chief Keith Weed on the company’s refreshed goals and commitments, the opportunity to discuss sustainable development from the vantage point of the outspoken CEO was tempting. We caught up over a quick phone call:

The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan:

“When we launched it we said we don’t have all the answers. One of the reasons why we are working so wellUnilever CEO Paul Polman with Rainforest Alliance is because we share common goals. Take tea for example: Standards are driving up fast in an industry that’s not easy to standardize. [This is where the] scale of Rainforest Alliance is significant – and essential for the USLP to come alive.

“[Its] only been a year since the Rana Plaza fire happened. Those 1,050 women worked in conditions that were little more than modern-day slavery. We’re determined not to let that happen in our supply chain. So we’ve put some goals to match our resolve. We’re going to help more women gain access to training and land rights. The transformation can be substantial.”

Pushing forward in the absence of political will/action:

“In the absence of politicians, we need to move faster. Climate change is a great opportunity for business. Report from the White House is an encouraging sign. Needle is starting to move in the U.S. The tornadoes and hurricanes are starting to drive the message home for people.

“Besides, this is probably the only opportunity we’ll have. The Millennium Development Goals, for instance, are due to be completed next year – the urgency cannot be watered down.”

The most critical challenge for business:

“The biggest challenge is [that] we cannot scale our ambitious goals alone. It’s a major challenge to create the right partnerships and increasingly difficult to get the political sector to participate. How do you create size and scale in a vacuum?”

The changing role of marketers:

“I always say, don’t blame the consumers. There are many examples where consumers are leading business, especially the young ones. They’re changing our lives and systems.

“Consumers are speaking out everyday but we don’t want to see it. Then we say the consumer doesn’t want to change. If we can tap into the enormous movements, we can create change much faster. That’s the job of the modern-day marketers. Their job has changed. It doesn’t work any more to push consumption. We need a new model and get companies to adjust their marketing strategies as well as their job roles.”

People get it, business doesn’t:

“I spend a lot of time on how to develop leaders who can lead us through partnerships, with purpose, can think long-term and beyond 2020. On my way back from Abu Dhabi last month, I was reading an article that reported university students rebelling against the way economics [is being taught]. If teachers are teaching Milton Freidman’s theories, who is going to change the economy? For my kids, sustainability is the new normal. They don’t want to watch TV or buy the newest gas-guzzling car. Their generation is already thinking differently. Yet, marketers keep saying consumers don’t want it.

“Our understanding of consumers [and consumption] is too narrow. We need to get much closer to consumers. If we go to any of the emerging markets – 81 percent of the world’s population lives outside the U.S. and Europe – most of the growth is occurring in climate stretched areas today. They might not understand Rio+20 or climate change language but they know that weather patterns are changing, water is decreasing, etc.”

From mindless to mindful consumption:

“Marketers should switch from asking whether consumers are willing to pay for something to which consumer doesn’t want less poverty, more education, a healthier world with cleaner air and better nutrition.

“We just need to be astute about solutions. Look at the Edelman survey – consumers expect more and more from business, and if business understands this, it is a wonderful time. Children die from diseases which we can solve with hand washing – new market – marketers should be very excited by this. But that connection is not there.”

Three actions to change the world:

“We must get out of short termism because lots of solutions are long-term [climate change, access to education, water shortage, etc.] – and we can only solve them if we invest over longer periods and evaluate the social and economic capital. Then business people can optimize these. For example, 40 of the top 100 companies are already pricing carbon internally. They’ve committed to stay within these limits. Business is leading because they see the cost of action vs. inaction. We have now 40 countries that are pricing carbon including China. We have 20 other countries that are putting a tax on carbon. The system is starting to move.

“We need to give politicians Unilever Sustainable Livingconfidence that this [focus on sustainable development and long termism] will not kill jobs or stifle growth. The exact opposite is in fact true but we need to provide the proof points.

“We need to get companies to adopt integrated reporting quickly as well as become comfortable with transparency. It’s going to take much more than a nine-to-five job to bring all of this together. We need leaders and we’re short on them.”

If this was his last interview as the CEO of Unilever:

“We can use our scale to transform systems and change. We need to create a better place than the one we were born in. Ninety-nine percent of people are not in a position to make a difference. We can. We need to force change – it’s our duty to leave the place in a better place. I hope this drives Unilever and everyone else.”

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on June 2, 2014.

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Fighting for the Sustainable Consumer: A Conversation on Branding, Economic Growth, Risk & Value Propositions

11 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSRwire

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advertising, Apple, books, brand management, Brand Management, brands with purpose, Business, consumer behavior, CSR, CSRwire, doshorts, Edelman, gap, henk campher, Innovation, Leadership, levis, marketing, Marketing, PR, seventh generation, social media, Sustainability, sustainability, sustainable consumption, tesla, toms shoes, transparency


Do consumers care about sustainability or the sustainable attributes of products and services? Would you book a “greener” hotel if the prices were comparative? Did you start paying more attention to labels after the Rana Plaza fire?

When the discussion turns to issues like purpose, risk and connecting consumers with sustainability, Henk Campher becomes fidgety. The Senior Vice President for Business + Social Purpose with Edelman has been at this for a while. Between working with brands like Starbucks, Levi’s, Best Buy, Abbott Labs and REI and leading the Oxfam International Coffee Campaign, Campher has built a reputation for challenging the status quo while operating within the trenches of corporate corridors.

Recently, he wrote a DoShorts book titled Creating a Sustainable Brand: A Guide to Growing the Sustainability Top Line [get 15% off by using Campher15 in the voucher section] to put some of his strategies and ideas on paper. We sat down for a conversation on the ideas he presents in the book, why he believes that consumers have bought into sustainability, where he sees the PR industry headed as well as his thoughts on separating the chaff from the substance of sustainability claims [Full disclosure: I was one of the reviewers of the book].

Henk_Campher Excerpts:

You write that the problem is not that consumers don’t want to purchase sustainable products, it’s that brands are unable to bring sustainability to life for consumers. Tips?

The most common mistake companies make is to lean too far to either the sustainability of the product or focus too much on how it comes to life for the consumer. The sustainability of a product is only one part of the story – the what part of a sustainable brand. To bring it to life for the consumer, you have to balance this with how this relates to them.

It is a delicate balance but extremely important. Think of the what part as showing the consumer the arms, legs, etc. of the product. It only tells them what it is but it doesn’t create a connection. To bring it to life we should show the personality and all the quirkiness of the brand – the how – to help them connect and care about the product.

Sustainable branding is very much like dating – you don’t go on a date because the other person breathes and resembles a human being. No, you go beyond that to try to make a connection with how that person relates to you and how you can build a relationship. It will be nothing more than a brief fling if you don’t have that connection.

The same for a product – you need to become a sustainable brand or else you will remain a cheap date and/or brief fling. The model described in the book is meant to be a guide on how to build this long-term relationship AND an insider’s guide on how to keep the relationship fresh.


 

Materiality matrices don’t matter to consumers but they’re proving important in helping companies focus. How can they use these to also engage their consumers?

Start balancing your materiality assessments a bit more. Too often the voices of stakeholders heard in materiality assessments are the loudest and not necessarily the most important voices. Activists, NGOs and sustainability influencers are the ones measured and engaged to inform the materiality assessment. But consumer and customer voices are almost completely absent.

Yet, they remain the most important stakeholder – they bring in the money and add to your business top line! Bringing in their voices will help you determine what areas are truly most material to your company and your most important stakeholders. It will tell you where your major threats and opportunities are as it relates to consumers.

Of course materiality assessments suffer from only focusing on the impact of the product on the supply chain. However, that is only part of the story.

As I argue in the book, you can create the most sustainable cigarette but it is still a cigarette. You have to give equal weight to the impact of the product itself. This will help you determine the weaknesses in how something is made as well as the actual impact of the product itself and help you dodge the dreaded claim of greenwashing.

But how sustainable the product itself is only tells you one side of the story.

It tells us what we should focus on when we engage the consumer but not how we should engage them. The next step will vary from brand to brand – determining how sustainability comes to life in the brand. What is the unique value proposition of sustainability in the brand? How deeply is sustainability embedded in the brand identity? How does it show itself to the consumer? Is it disruptive in engaging the consumer or more reserved?

That’s the model I develop in the book – merging the what and how to create a sustainable brand that resonates with the consumer.

Campher_tips

Getting used to failure is tough – you offer a healthy dose of how the best of brands have gone through it. Some tips for our risk-averse private sector?

Failure isn’t tough – it is part of being in business.

Companies who say they are risk averse are doomed to fail. They will still be making the same boring product that increasingly fewer people buy in the future. It was a risk to create the first iPod. It was a risk to create Tesla. It was a risk to create TOMS. It was a risk to take Dove to where it is today. Sustainability folks are risk averse because they are selling sustainability instead of selling a business opportunity.

And I don’t mean improving the bottom line. That has been done and there is no risk left there. Sustainability folks need to step out of their box and become part of business from a product and brand perspective and deliver against the consumer opportunity.

But it’s not just the sustainability people. It is also the communications and marketing people. They think throwing more money at advertising, PR, social media, etc. will create the breakthrough they need to survive. That isn’t risk. That is table stakes and nothing different from what your competitors are doing. At best you can hope for a better campaign.

We need these groups to understand how sustainability can add to the simple question people ask when they buy a product or service – why should I give a damn?

The answer is more complex than a pure sustainability story but sustainability is absolutely part of the answer. Communication and marketing people speak a different language than sustainability people and in the book I try to bridge that gap to get them to both speak “business.” And business is all about calculated risk taking.


 

“We’ve embedded sustainability into the very core of our business.” We’ve heard this classic line or a similar version of it a million times by now. It’s classic PR speak – but is there any organization out there that could truly say that and demonstrate it?

Lies, damn lies and sustainability PR.

My other favorite line is “sustainability is in our DNA.” No it is not. Making money is in your DNA.

Jokes aside, the simple answer is yes there are companies with sustainability at the core of their business. Method, Seventh Generation, Tesla, etc. were created with a specific sustainability goal in mind. They aren’t perfect but it is absolutely at the core of who they are. But a true answer is a bit more complex than that.

In the book I create a framework to show how sustainability can come to life in a brand. Sometimes it is truly at the core but in most cases it comes to life in very different ways. I identify eight ways in the framework– from ignored to designed. Method is an example of a brand that was designed with a sustainability goal in mind – absolutely at the core of their business. A brand like TOMS was inspired by a sustainability challenge while a brand like Dove aligned itself with a sustainability challenge.

In short, sustainability isn’t a simple black and white world and it constantly changes. And sustainability isn’t perfect.

The only cliché that might be right is the “journey” bit. But it is crucial that we acknowledge and show the different ways that sustainability is part of a brand, as it will direct the kind of engagement we should have with the consumer. You can’t just go out and hit the consumer (or anyone) over the head with a “sustainability is core to our business” baloney. No one will believe it. Know how it is part of you and then find a way to express it in a way that is relevant to both the consumer as well as the brand itself.

A few weeks ago, you participated in a Twitter chat we hosted on the confluence of business sustainability and economic growth. How would a “sustainable brand” approach the conundrum?

I think the “conundrum” is a bit of a red herring.

We can absolutely not consume the way we consume at the moment and we have to understand how to create sustainable economic growth. However, economic growth isn’t a problem when it comes to sustainability. The problem is that the way the economy is growing currently is unsustainable. For instance, in the U.S. you have an ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor. A more equal distribution of the wealth created by economic growth needs to happen.

It can be done – look at Germany, gap between CEO pay and average worker pay is much lower, they have a much higher minimum wage, outgrow the U.S. economy with higher taxes, more social benefits for the poor, a balance of trade in favor of them, etc. Everything that pundits say will undermine economic growth is flipped on its head in Germany – and it’s working.

It is only a “conundrum” because of a lack of political and economic will to address the unsustainable elements of the economy.

On the consumption side, the world will be fine if people consume more of the sustainable stuff. TOMS and Timberland instead of cheap knock-offs on the streets. Levi’s and GAP instead of fast fashion. Fresh fruit and vegetables locally grown instead of fast food. A Tesla or Leaf instead of a gas guzzler. Renewable energy instead of coal. Method or Seventh Generation instead of high pollutant chemicals.

There’s no problem if growth is based on more sustainable choices. How do we get consumers to do this? Well, like I say in the book… more sustainable brands that look at product and brand!

You’ve worked with numerous companies on brand development over the last two decades. What has shifted?

Firstly, social media and the connected world have redefined how brands interact with consumers. Twenty years ago, companies owned brands and sold that to the consumer. Today, they are merely custodians of the brand and consumers own it. The more agile businesses realize that the easier it will be for them to be trusted as the custodians of the brand – the more consumers will give them their loyalty.

Secondly, price Campher_LRand quality have become increasingly meaningless parts of a brand. Companies know that it is almost impossible to compete on price and have brand value. They would love to think that there is a huge quality difference between them and their major competitors but there isn’t. For instance, the difference between most cars in the same category is almost meaningless. So how do consumers make their choices? According to the value proposition offered by the brand.

Finally, the ways in which brand value proposition comes to life for the consumer has shifted. The days of the big advertising campaign is gone. Today they want you to not only be part of their lives but also do things that are unexpected and disruptive. Consumers are flooded with information and visual stimuli each day. How you break through all of that clutter is key. And that goes beyond simple shiny objects. You have to build it into your brand identity and value proposition – so it is as much strategic as tactical.


 

What remains as challenging?

The single biggest remaining challenge is how most companies remain paralyzed by fear without them even knowing it. Companies’ inability to think outside of their walls and being frozen inside those walls are their biggest failures. They are still navel gazing and seeing the world from only their perspective instead of truly understanding the world.

It comes back to the risk question you asked before – you won’t win if you don’t take risks. But so often companies will say they want to win but don’t really have the guts to do it. This is the difference between good brands and winning brands. Like an athlete – Dick Fosbury (go look it up!) changed the world of high jumping because he was willing to by-pass conventional thinking. Apple and TOMS did the same.

Yes you can point out all their faults but they kicked your backside because they weren’t afraid. Why? Because they didn’t look at what you were doing but rather looked at the problem and the consumer and created something to fill that void.

The other major challenge is how shareholders continue to drive company leaders instead of customers. This problem is too obvious to even state but they are so focused on the next quarter and shareholders that they forgot why they even exist. Imagine if they put as much attention to what their consumers truly want.

You work at the unique cusp between classic public relations and responsible brand development. Where do you see the PR sector headed in the next 20 years?

Sustainability will be like digital skills. It will be part of every single part of the PR sector. It won’t be a separate practice anymore but we are still a very long way from achieving that. Too many PR hacks think they can just make it up as they go. Create a cause here and a consumer campaign there. They will get burnt so many times until they move on and the industry really starts to up-skill all of their people.

Remember, agencies are as vulnerable as any of their clients. The hyper transparent world means that any consumer and activist can look at what agency is behind the greenwashing. No one expects perfection but they better start waking up before they are hit by their own BP-style disaster.

My biggest fear is that PR agencies don’t realize that their people are highly under skilled to handle the shifting world and impact of creating a sustainable brand. The industry will be caught out if they don’t start relooking at what they do and whether their people are geared towards the changing world.

And, of course, for them to be a sustainable PR brand, they will need to start asking what the impact of their service is. The model created in this book goes beyond products – it covers services, software, social media and everything else in between.

A main question remains – do you have a sustainable brand?

The answer for the PR sector is the same as with most other sectors – simply, no. But follow the model and you can start creating your sustainable brand. [Grab a copy of Creating a Sustainable Brand: A Guide to Growing the Sustainability Top Line – get 15% off by using Campher15 in the voucher section.]

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on May 8, 2014.

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Practicing CSR: Edelman’s 2012 Corporate Citizenship Report Reveals Tough Love

08 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSR reporting, CSRwire

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Brand Management, Business, CSR, CSR report, CSR reporting, CSRwire, disclosure, diversity, Edelman, human rights, iirc, john edelman, Leadership, marketing, PR, pro bono, supply chain, Sustainability, transparency, voluntary disclosure, volunteerism, work culture


When a PR and marketing firm publishes a corporate citizenship report, there’s a tendency to view the results – and the commitments – with a pinch of salt. After all, they’re traditional masters of spin. Right?

Wrong, says John Edelman, the namesake PR agency’s managing director for global engagement and corporate responsibility. Here’s how Edelman’s press release describes the firm’s commitment to corporate citizenship:

“Some call it corporate social responsibility. Others call it sustainability. For Edelman, global citizenship resonates most as a term describing the larger responsibility business has to society. The firm recognizes its place in the world as global citizens, local offices and individuals.”

“We’re incredibly pleased [that] we were able to provide over $5 million in cash, non-cash (volunteerism) and in-kind giving in FY12 to the communities in which we operate. Giving back has always been a big part of our agency’s heritage and helping our communities is just one of the ways in which we can be responsible global citizens,” John added in a recent conversation over email.

So what does the report detail beyond the private firm’s green commitments and philanthropic donations?

Human Rights & Supply Chain

Reminding me that citizenship at Edelman has only been a global function for two years, John pointed to two major accomplishments. Edelman_Facts“The introduction of our human rights policy and our supplier code of  conduct. When I started in this role, we began to see more and more client requests and requests for proposals (RFPs) in regard to our citizenship policies. Our development of these two policies in FY12 is directly related to stakeholder expectations of Edelman as a global company,” he wrote.

The firm also joined the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex), a web-based platform and registry where companies report on CSR-related initiatives around business and labor practices, health and safety and the environment.

For the past two years, the firm has used the GRI framework as a baseline for its CSR reporting. In 2011, the firm also became “one of 80 companies to join the International Integrated Reporting (IIRC) pilot program…as part of our commitment, our report reflects elements of the Integrated Reporting framework, such as identifying our capitals and transforming that capital to value.”

Challenges of Setting CSR Goals…

I have often said/written that the challenge of contextualizing what corporate social responsibility means for the service-based industries is uniquely harder than the consumer products sector. Not that the pressure is any less, as evidenced by the increasing numbers of CSR reports publishing in the last two years, but I do believe that B2B firms must dig deeper to identify – and fulfill – their responsibility to society, employees and the environment.

What’s been a unique CSR challenge for a firm that relies on its talent and has an immense global presence?

According to John, “the environmental initiatives and goals have been the most challenging.” He explained:

“The biggest contributor to our carbon footprint is business travel, which accounts for 73 percent of our emissions. Business travel for client-facing projects is a key part of what we do every day. Other industries and companies have more control over Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and can achieve reductions through direct actions. Given that we need to travel to service our clients, it’s harder for us to control our Scope 3 emissions. While we understand this challenge, we still need to work towards reducing our GHG emissions.”

“To that end, we are working individually with each hub office on setting a greenhouse gas reduction target and implementing practices such as increasing usage of video-conference facilities and purchasing 50 percent recycled paper.”

And it’s not just setting the goal that’s been hard.

…And Implementing CSR Programs

Implementing new programs across the firm’s markets has been a challenge as well, he said. “We Edelman's CSR Report 2012want to be a guiding force without being too prescriptive. We want to empower our employees around the world to implement and take part in citizenship initiatives with the understanding that they need to balance these with their regular workload,” he added.

John points out the inherent paradox that organizations like Edelman must tackle: how do you compel employees to volunteer and donate their time, money and skills while expecting them to manage a full workload and often, as is common in the PR world, 60-80 hour work weeks?

Ultimately it comes down to the committed few, driven by their passion and subjective understanding of their society and environment.

Disclosure: Led by Demand for Transparency

Since inception, Edelman has been a proudly private company. So why bother reporting on its non-financial goals? Especially when their service/product is often perceived in the market as spin?

It all comes down to being transparent, says the veteran marketing executive.

“Transparency has never been more important and we strongly believe that whether you’re a private or public company, you must be accountable for everything you do. Being transparent is part of how we operate and it’s necessary for us to report on the progress and challenges of our citizenship journey.”

As an example he pointed me to a section of the report, which highlights that the firm’s carbon footprint at “15,518 metric tons CO2e [had] actually increased since our last footprint period.” “We provide explanations for that increase, such as improved data-capture practices and control data quality, particularly on business air travel,” he said.

CSR: Business Opportunity?

© Copyright 2010 CorbisCorporationWhich leads to another question: As a PR agency, what was the motivation behind launching the Business + Social Purpose division – led by the legendary Carol Cone – beyond the obvious business  opportunity with companies evolving from cause marketing initiatives into more robust CSR strategies?

“It was clear that we wanted to ‘walk the talk.’ Working with clients on sustainability and citizenship is certainly a business opportunity, but beyond that, we needed to evolve and integrate our own practices. This is what we tell our clients: sustainability and citizenship should be integrated into the overall business,” he said.

Has the client-driven practice impacted cultural behavior and the firm’s organizational hierarchy?

“We have partnered with our Business + Social Purpose (B+SP) team members since we established Global Citizenship as a functional department. This partnership was important because citizenship was a new function, and we wanted to access the expertise of our people to evolve our own Global Citizenship capability.”

“As an example, we involved our B+SP team in our materiality analysis to prioritize our FY12 report topics. Through this analysis, we added an entire section on engaging with our clients, as a result of the dialogue with our B+SP members.”

Walking the talk? That at least is the objective, he said.

“We talk about the importance of the inside matching the outside, and the idea that your employees are your best ambassadors. Citizenship is an integrated part of our overall corporate strategy and having a unified message and integrated approach to it is imperative for effective impacts on our business and society, rather than having a siloed approach where citizenship sits on the periphery of the company’s strategy and operations.”

CSR Reporting: The Ultimate Reward

The ultimate reward of having a CSR strategy is when you can use the reporting function as a reflection on your organizational practices and improve them incrementally. As Edelman helps other organizations weave their way through and inculcate CSR into business strategy, it is important that the firm use the same philosophy internally.

“In the long-term, citizenship needs to be further integrated into our overall management systems. We Edelman Offices That Offer Culture and Work/Life Benefithave been making incremental progress year to year….During year one, we established a foundation; during year two, we have established some goals. In year three, we hope to develop metrics around CSR performance and eventually, we hope to create a citizenship scorecard that can be integrated into our management systems,” informed John.

How does the firm measure the impact it is driving with its clients?

“We believe it is important to measure impact of citizenship by looking at internal and external measurements. In addition to contributions to the bottom line, such as money saved by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and hours and value of volunteerism, it is important to measure employee engagement, such as employee recruitment and retention.”

“Now that we have established goals in some of these areas, we will next develop metrics to assess employee engagement and impact. In an effort to drive a deeper level of employee engagement, we created the Community Investment Grant program, which provides any full-time employee around the network with the opportunity to apply for funding to support a nonprofit organization where they volunteer or serve on the board.”

And let’s not forget the external piece, he reminded me.

“Any citizenship initiative must be tied to producing public engagement behavior outcomes which are at the core of Edelman’s business strategy such as building deeper communities, building trust, adding commercial value, and changing behavior.”

Holistic CSR goals, got it.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on September 21, 2012. 

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The Unruliness of Corporate Responsibility & Hyper Transparency: Quotable Quotes from Net Impact & BSR 2011

09 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSR reporting

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

aman singh, aman singh das, Autodesk, Bea Perez, brand management, Brian Dunn, BSR, BSR 2011, Business for Social Responsibility, Carol Cone, cause marketing, Chris Jochnick, corporate citizenship, corporate social responsibility, CSR, CSR reporting, Deloitte, Edelman, Events, Gregory Unruh, hyper trasnparency, integrated reporting, Jessica Fries, Kate Heiny, Leadership, LinkedIn, Lynelle Cameron, Management, Meg Garlinghouse, Net Impact, Occupy Wall Street, Ofra Strauss, Social Responsibility, Stakeholder Engagement, Sustainability, sustainability reporting


I spent the last two weeks attending and speaking at the Net Impact and BSR conferences. As is typical at both conferences there is always too much to choose from and a lot to absorb. Since I cannot offer you a summary of each and every panel I attended/spoke at, here are some of the top line quotes heard at the conferences:

CSR: Always a Difference in Opinions

“CSR used to be about doing the right thing. Now it’s all about how it makes business sense.” – Campbell Soup’s VP for CSR Dave Stangis

“I hate the term CSR. It has slowed the movement and in many ways ensured that it is not built into systems, accounting, etc. I prefer [the term] sustainability although that’s not a big favorite either.” – Lynelle Cameron, Director of Sustainability, Autodesk

“We think CSR is good business.” – Suzanne Keel-Eckmann, National Director for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, Deloitte

A bag of sweet potato fries at Burgerville in Portland, Oregon: Social messaging done right?

“CSR should be led by charity and employee engagement, not CSR departments.” – Meg Garlinghouse, Head of Employment Branding and Community, LinkedIn

“Our CEO still believes that he is the company’s chief sustainability officer. But he realized that we need to be more organized and structured in our efforts because there is a lot to be done.” – Bea Perez, Chief Sustainability Officer, Coca-Cola in response to Reverse Cause Marketing: Coca Cola’s Pursuits in the Middle East

The Role of Business in Social Enterprise

“We must see social problems as business opportunities.” – Carol Cone, EVP, Edelman

“I worked on Wall Street, driven by greed. Regardless of what anyone says, greed is not good. You get so immersed in the system you forget what all you can do with your life.” – Charles Kane, Former CEO and Board Member, One Laptop Per Child

“A lot of charities are beginning to worry that a lot of the problems they have been trying to solve are not going away. Business still tends to be more sustainable.” – Steve Andrews, CEO, SolarAid

“In the last few years, business has lost tremendous trust in the marketplace. That we are GOOD now rests on us.” – Ofra Strauss, Chairperson and former CEO, The Strauss Group 

Personal Responsibility

“When you know what you’re doing is helping thousands, the payback is so much more fulfilling than any number of stock options and bonuses.” – Charles Kane, Former CEO and Board Member, One Laptop Per Child

“We need to change without giving up who we are. There are no riots against business that are profitable. We need to talk with them, not talk to them.” – Ofra Strauss, Chairperson and former CEO, The Strauss Group

“The more you peel the onion, the more you realize there is to be done. You just need to be constantly excited about peeling the onion.” – Brian Dunn, CEO, Best Buy

The Role of an MBA

“No profession exists to make the practitioners rich. There is always a higher purpose.” – Gregory Unruh, Director, Lincoln Center for Ethics, Thunderbird School of Global Management

“I don’t know if its [The MBA Oath] is going to work. But it is in the right direction and symbolizes a complete shift in mentality.” – Max Anderson, President and Cofounder, The MBA Oath

“I’m waiting to see the day when a new employee tells me they attended a class in college called Change Agent 101.” – Anonymous 

Transparency

“We’re from the Midwest. We don’t advertise our initiatives. But lately there has been a shift in this thinking and our communication style. Transparency is a journey and we are in the early stages of that.” – Kate Heiny, Group Manager of Sustainability, Target

“The priority should always be why not disclose instead of why disclose.” – Chris Jochnick, Director, Oxfam America

“When you are increasingly naked, fitness is not optional.” – Quoted by yours truly during a BSR panel on hyper-transparency. Citation: Macrowikinomics

Integrated Reporting

“For us, integrated reporting starts with the thinking within the company on how they will sustain their value in the future. Integrated reporting starts with integrated thinking.” – Jessica Fries, Director, International Integrated Reporting Committee

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Revisiting the PR Take on CSR: “Corporate Responsibility is Not Public Relations”

30 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aman singh, aman singh das, Better Business Bureau, brand management, Brand Management, Business, Career advice, careers in CSR, cause marketing, consumer education, corporate citizenship, corporate social responsibility, corporate values, CSR, CSR blogger, CSR communications, CSR strategy, Edelman, employee engagement, Events, Green practices, Jobs in CSR, Leadership, leadership, management, Management, Michael Holland, philanthropy, PR, shared value, social responsibility, Social Responsibility, Stakeholder Engagement, sustainability, what is CSR?


Last year, the Better Business Bureau hosted an event titled Good Business 2010, where the day-long agenda was to analyze the increasing confluence of public relations (PR) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Here’s what I wrote then on Vault’s CSR blog:

A Belief System For Your Company

Edelman’s EVP for CSR-New York, Michael Holland while highlighting his firm’s approach, emphasized that corporate responsibility was emerging increasingly as an indelible part of brand management for companies, although North American companies, while initially slow to embrace it, were quickly getting on board.

Defining CR as “A belief system for a company” he broke its significance for companies into three segments: 1) the social and legal aspect; 2) its immersion into the operational model; and 3) how to leverage it for competitive share in the marketplace.

What is the ROI for corporate responsibility?

Citing a recent survey conducted by McKinsey, Holland said that the business case for corporate responsibility had never been clearer for companies. “Companies that paid attention to CSR in the last three years reported an increase in their share price of 43% against a 12% increase for those who didn’t.” At the same time, profits for the first segment of companies increased by 16% versus 7%. I’ve often noted that metrics and numbers speak louder than words. These then, need no further explanation. See more results from the McKinsey survey.

Noting that the pressure for accountability was no longer the voice of a few dedicated advocates and had shifted to mainstream demands from all stakeholders for a company, Holland stressed that the tipping point was already here: “CR cannot be ignored any longer. Shareholders, employees and clients are demanding it.”

What is corporate responsibility all about?

Holland, interestingly, chose to answer this by focusing on the key misconceptions about corporate responsibility. Funnily enough his counter-intuitive tactic worked, bringing up several questions from the audience. He put it like this:

CSR ≠ Green
CSR ≠ Strategic Philanthropy
CSR ≠ Public Relations

CSR isn’t PR, it’s About Your Business Strategy

I have discussed in the past the huge difference between conducting brand management and reputation-building and immersing CR as a culture of change into your company’s strategy. I asked Holland how he advises clients to walk that fine line.

“First of all, it needs to start from the top. Secondly, it needs to part of a company’s communication strategy. And finally you need to define what it means to track the progress of your corporate responsibility. The problem is that the marketplace believes that CSR is cause marketing and philanthropy. Our task is to overrule that and teach them that actually it’s about business strategy.”

——————————–

Now, with several communications firms announcing CSR practices, where are we headed with the confluence of PR, brand management and CSR? I turned to the latest entrant in the field, Ruder Finn. Take a read.

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Behind Every Responsible Company Is a PR Agency? A Closer Look @ Ruder Finn’s New CSR Practice

30 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

aman singh, aman singh das, brand management, Brand Management, Business, Career advice, careers in CSR, cause marketing, Cone, corporate social responsibility, CRO Magazine, CSR, CSR communications, CSR marketing, CSR programs, CSR strategy, Edelman, employee engagement, Ethics, Golin Harris, Jobs in CSR, jobs in CSR, ketchum, marketing, marketing careers, PR, PR careers, public relations, risk management, Ruder Finn, Sarah Coles, shared value, social responsibility, Social Responsibility, strategic marketing


They say, behind every successful brand, is a PR agency.

How about: Behind every responsible brand, is a PR agency?

Now, what is the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear that a public relations agency has decided to roll its “CSR experience” into a new division offering clients the opportunity to use their PR capabilities and budget more responsibly, more strategically?

  1. You condemn them as a reactionary, out-to-make-money business;
  2. You think: CSR is not PR, how many times do we have to say it?
  3. Wonder how long this will last.
  4. That’s interesting. Yet another way we can help businesses create shared value

That last statement was the main driver behind Ruder Finn’s new CSR practice, which officially launched two months ago, according to Senior Vice President Sarah Coles. “We had already been doing CSR work with clients like Novartis and Gerber. It felt like a natural next step [for the firm],” she says.

The communications industry is abuzz with the notion of creating shared value and the professional services sector especially, is in the center of all the activity.

Of course, Ruder Finn is not the first PR company to offer CSR strategy and solutions. Edelman has a robust CSR and sustainability solutions practice, as do Burson-Marsteller, Ketchum, Golin Harris, Cone, and many others.

http://www.ruderfinnasia.com/files/csr-index-fmcg-and-auto-in-china-appendix.pdf

In fact, a quick search revealed that CRO Magazine even released a Top 10 list of “Corporate Responsibility PR firms” back in 2008, that placed Ruder Finn at No. 5. But how do you decipher such a ranking? If Ruder Finn was already being lauded for “CSR PR (?)” in 2008, what propelled them to create a new division now three years later?

And the big question: What is the differentiator in this burgeoning industry? 

I turned to Coles who will be leading the new practice and has spent 13 years in PR with the last seven at Ruder Finn, for some answers.

Sarah Coles, SVP, Ruder Finn

“When I started working with clients on CSR strategy, it wasn’t called CSR. Many were doing this without realizing it was called CSR. For example, at Novartis, we didn’t see our work in malaria treatment as CSR per se. It was part of their core mission, part of everyday business.”

“My first contact with CSR was when I started working with Gerber on childhood nutrition and later with Novartis. In the five years that followed, I got the chance to really see the effects of giving back to your community. I got to meet some of the patients and really saw firsthand the challenges that we in the western world would otherwise never understand. The whole experience really changed my impression of what needs to get done.”

The Case For CSR: What were the main motivations behind setting up a new practice focusing on CSR?

“There is a demand today to put together more strategic CSR programs; programs that are distinguished, unique to the company, and meaningful.”

“Consumers are pretty smart these days: They can see when something is reactionary and when it has been a longterm commitment. They trust brands that have longterm missions and whose programs are in sync with brand value.”

“A great example is the latest Tide for Hope campaign. It’s a perfect example of how core competencies can help provide value. This builds way more trust than something thrown together in a short-term cycle.”

“Ruder Finn also strongly believes that this is not only an opportunity to grow our practice but also to help define what the industry means by CSR and educate companies the issue to ensure that it continues to build as a best practice.”

The Nature of PR: Aren’t most programs reactionary in nature at first contact?

“It’s certainly a mix. Some companies who have been doing this for a long time are doing well and CSR contributes to that reputation. They build trust. Others are more reactionary but won’t be sustained or provide strategic value in the long run.”

“There is a real business case for CSR and companies are beginning to see that. Companies that have longterm Initiatives don’t have to resort to crisis management and there is value in that.”

Strategizing CSR: What then is the underlining ethos of the new practice?

“We learned a lot from working with PepsiCo on their Dream Machine recycling program. Today, we see a real opportunity in helping clients with cause marketing initiatives that reinforce their business practices and core competencies.”

“We counsel clients to do corporate social responsibility strategically. To build something that looks inside the company…dig around and see what they are already doing, what they stand for, what their core values are, and then create a campaign that captures all of that.”

Implementing CSR: How is implementing a CSR strategy going to differ from PR campaigns?

“We’re moving into pure strategy now. It’s not about short-term projects anymore. CSR is more about what makes sense for the business. How can I create something that my company stands for and does good for our community at the same time?”

“These programs go to the root of what CSR is all about: Good business sense that also provides value.”

Comments? Thoughts? Leave a comment or connect with me @AmanSinghCSR.

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As Steve Jobs Departs, A Review of Our Love-Hate Relationship With Apple…and Sustainability

24 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aman singh, aman singh das, Apple, brand management, brands with purpose, BSR Conference, Business, Carol Cone, cause marketing, CEO Network, consumer education, consumerism, corporate social responsibility, CSR, Edelman, Good Purpose Study, Green, In Good Company, Leadership, Management, Matthew Bishop, Performance with Purpose, Steve Jobs, Sustainability, sustainability, sustainable business, sustainable technology, technology, Work culture


As we slowly recover from the stupor of the not completely unexpected news that Steve Jobs has stepped down as Apple’s CEO, here’s a post from recent months that’s worth a retake.

Context: At Business for Social Responsibility’s (BSR) annual conference last year, Edelman’s Managing Director for Corporate Citizenship Carol Cone released the 2010 Good Purpose Study with a dramatic declaration: “Cause marketing is dead.”

The main overarching finding of the study, as regular readers will recall, was this:

87 percent of consumers worldwide believe that business needs to equate at least equal weight on society’s interests as on business interests.

Accompanying Cone at the release were panelists from Levi Strauss, PepsiCo and a personal favorite: The Economist‘s Matthew Bishop, who amid the hype and hoopla of the report, quietly asked: “Are we really going to stop buying Apple because of its crappy environmental policies?”

An excerpt, originally published on Vault’s CSR blog: In Good Company:

The GoodPurpose study by Edelman

“Cause marketing is dead”

That controversial statement is how Cone opened the panel, adding, “That [cause marketing] world is way over. Purpose has replaced cause marketing and branding.” Companies aren’t building marketing plans around a cause anymore, she argued. Rather, “they are infusing their very strategy and business model with purposeful corporate citizenship.”

Defining real purpose

Picking up where Cone left off, the always-entertaining Matthew Bishop began with a prediction: “If we continue the current road toward demanding transparency and corporate social responsibility, within the next five to 10 years, we will begin to see corporate board meetings being live streamed to select people.”

Chuckling about the ambitiousness of his own statement, he went on to note, “Likewise, the real question is how much of this data [in the Good Purpose study] is picking up on aspirations rather than real choices [of consumers].”

PepsiCo: Performance with Purpose

Alleging that PepsiCo’s latest mantra of “Performance with Purpose” was indeed a verification of this shift from cause marketing to purposeful corporate citizenship at companies, Communications Director for PepsiCo Americas Beverages Melisa Tezanos gave high points to CEO Indra Nooyi for pushing for a company-wide cultural change that today drives all their business functions.

[READ: Pepsi Takes Performance with Purpose to Heart: An Interview with Chief Personnel Officer Cynthia Trudell]

“However, Nooyi is completely unapologetic about giving ‘performance’ as much importance as the ‘purpose’ part and she makes no bones about it,” said Tezanos, adding that this helps everyone across the company stay committed to a culture of profitability with purpose. Explaining the drivers behind PepsiCo’s highly successful Refresh project, she further stated, “For millennials, social responsibility is huge. We’ve seen through research again and again that their purchase intent goes up significantly when the brand is associated with a good cause.”

And finally, referring to the findings of the Edelman study—and Cone’s earlier comment, she said, “Marketing used to be blamed for being short-termism. Today, marketers are the biggest defenders of long-termism.”

But would you give up Cola…or Apple?

Bringing the conversation back to a level plain field, Bishop concluded with a sobering thought, “But what is real and what is fake with purpose? Will Pepsi ever move beyond the heart of its products, i.e., increasing obesity? Are we really going to stop buying Apple [products] because they have crappy environmental policies?”

———————————–

Just some food for thought as we go on a whirlwind ride with the media in coming days on the history, the present, and the future of America’s favorite company, Apple. Don’t forget to add your perspective by leaving a comment or connecting with me @AmanSinghCSR.

And if you haven’t already, share your opinion on whether social media engagement make better brands or more effective leaders by taking this new BRANDfog survey on social media and leadership.

More on Edelman’s Good Purpose study: Encompassing 7,259 respondents in 13 countries, the study was conducted by consulting firm StrategyOne with the objective of analyzing whether—and how much—purpose plays into purchase decisions worldwide, and further, how these transform into consumer activism via social media.

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