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In Good Company: Singh on CSR

~ Connecting the dots between Business, Society & the Environment

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Chatting LIVE with Mars’ Sustainability Chief: Integrating Sustainability, Driving Responsibility

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSR reporting, ESG

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@marsglobal, agriculture, barry parkin, climate change, cocoa, CSR, CSR reporting, Disclosure & Transparency, employee engagement, environment, ESG, fish, mars, palm oil, renewable energy, Social Media, social media, Stakeholder Engagement, supply chain, Sustainability, sustainability, sustainable sourcing, triplepundit, Twitter chat


On July 24, 2014, I facilitated a live Twitter chat with Barry Parkin, Chief Sustainability Officer at Mars, Inc. and TriplePundit to offer an opportunity to learn more about sustainability at the food manufacturer.

As a lead up to the chat, Mars published its fourth annual Principles in Action Summary, which details the company’s approach to business, its progress, and the shared challenges facing both its Marsbusiness and society.

As one of the world’s leading food manufacturers with more than 130 manufacturing sites and an expansive supply chain, how does the company contextualize sustainability, set goals that encompass its social and environmental footprint, grow its supply chain and do it all responsibly?

For an hour we chatted – with 104 attendees generating almost 600 tweets, over 3.5 million impressions and 27 questions. Here’s the Storify summary.

And here are Parkin’s responses to the questions that we couldn’t get to in the hour:

  • @cmehallow: Does @MarsGlobal use @CDP Water Disclosure to manage/measure its #water impacts?

We have just completed our second CDP Carbon response and are evaluating the Water and Forest programs.

  • @csrdispatch: This might be a cheeky question, but do you feel a conflict between commitment to sustainability and selling junk food?

Our consumers, both people and their pets, get nutrition and pleasure from our products.  We are continuing to look at the role of our portfolio in addressing nutrition and obesity.

  • @dgardinera @dataeco: What have been your experiences with large #renewableenergy procurement?#MarsSusty

Our most recent large scale project was Mesquite Creek, but we have on-site projects or 100% renewable contracts at more than a dozen globally. We also just announced another project in Australia last week: http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/10219-the-sun-won-t-melt-this-mars-bar.html

  • @kellyfmill: Specific ways #sustainability goals are integreated w/ other departments? 

We believe it’s everybody’s responsibility, therefore we have goals in all functions/departments in the business. 

  • @jsonenshine: Can you share how you are driving farmer productivity? [A3b: Driving farmer productivity is our way to do both.]

Yes, as an example in cocoa, we are providing training, latest planting material and access to fertilizer for farmers.

  • @wssocialimpact: How does @MarsGlobal address sustainability goals in the short term?

We have a range of Sourcing Targets for 2015 and 2020 and Operations Targets (SiG) for 2015. More info at:

http://www.mars.com/global/about-mars/mars-pia/our-operations/sustainable-in-a-generation.aspx

http://www.mars.com/global/about-mars/mars-pia/our-supply-chain.aspx

  • @gurumug: How do you cross-verify #sustainability reporting standards/systems ?

We have a third party audit of our data and an assurance by Corporate Citizenship.

  • @greenguyboston: Glad to see your sustainable sourcing goals, but what is your progress to date against them?

Check out our 2013 Principles in Action Summary to learn more on our progress to date: http://mars.com/pia.

  • @jreneemorin: What are @MarsGlobal biggest challenges working with suppliers on #MarsSusty?

One of the challenges is that we work with 100k+ suppliers and often many tiers of them back to the farmer. 

  • @cmehallow: When @MarsGlobal needs to access capital markets, does its strong #susty program provide advantage?

We are a private, family-owned business, but we do believe that boosting our reputation through sustainability is crucial to attracting great people to work for us

  • @rohitms4: Is there any specific standard to measure your success in #sustainability?

Yes, measurement of impact and not just activity. 

  • @earthshare: How is @MarsGlobal investing in associates and their communities? #MarsSusty

In 2013 we did more than 500K hours of Associate training, and through the Mars Volunteer Program, 19K Associates devoted 70K hours to their communities.

  • In response to A15: @darrylv asked: That is promising. How about elsewhere in your supply chain? #MarsSusty

Because there are more farmers in cocoa than any other crop we purchase, we started there first and we’re looking to learn from our experiences in cocoa.

  • @beth_rcarnac: As a Mars Associate, I’d love to ask where have you seen our Associates best come together to collaborate on this #MarsSusty

There are Associates at every factory around the world and collaborating across our sites to achieving our SiG goals. 


Want to chat with us? Email me for more details.

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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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Integrated Thinking: SAP Refocuses Sustainability Targets to Maximize Impact

11 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSR reporting, CSRwire, ESG

≈ 1 Comment

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aman singh, Brand Management, BSR, cdp, cloud computing, CSR, CSR reporting, CSRwire, data, Disclosure & Transparency, employee engagement, ESG, green cloud, impact, Innovation, integrated reporting, nigel topping, peter graf, renewable energy, sap, Social Media, social media, Stakeholder Engagement, strategy, Sustainability, sustainability, sustybiz, technology, Twitter


How do you continually increase your positive social and environmental impact while growing your economic bottom line?

It’s a question that has many sustainability professionals preoccupied as global business returns to some sense of stability amid a rising urgency to curtail its footprint and address critical issues like climate change.

For technology companies, which are targeting emerging markets for growth and increasingly touting the efficacy of the cloud as a solution, this is a particularly precarious question. Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer at SAP, believes integrated thinking can help.

We chatted live with Graf and sustainability heavyweights BSR CEO Aron Cramer and CDP Executive Director Nigel Topping on April 11, 2014, at #SustyBiz.

But before you grab the recap, here’s some context.

Green Consumption: SAP Shifts to Cloud

In its second Integrated Report, SAP offered more context regarding its decision to shift to a cloud business model. The technology giant also announced it has started to power all its data centers and facilities globally with 100 percent renewable electricity as of January 1, 2014, which it predicts will help “eliminate carbon emissions caused by its customers’ systems by moving them into SAP’s green cloud.”

SAP_integratedreport_2013

Ambitious or not, the new goals indicate a significant shift for the company as it figures out how to involve its consumers in its sustainability targets without compromising on its growth ambitions. And according to Graf, switching to Integrated Reporting was important to help move the company closer to thinking in a more integrated manner about its business model, its impact and its long-term future.

As he stated in an interview last year, they didn’t have to change tracks. But it was time.

“We have been reporting on our sustainability performance since 2008. The report has grown in sophistication over the years and we even won several awards in the last two years for our report’s interactive nature, etc. So technically, we could have continued on that road.”

Creating Value

So how has Integrated Reporting helped SAP integrate its sustainability goals with its business strategy?

“One, it has brought business strategy closer to how we create value – our green cloud is a perfect example of that. Second, we have aligned the structure of our report with the IIRC framework, including new navigation that allows people to filter content according to different types of capital (ESG). We’re also continuing to support the G4 framework and have become better at explaining the short-, mid- and long-term impact of integrated reporting than last year,” said Graf.

And how does SAP’s performance stack up for 2013?

For one, as its business has grown so have its emissions and environmental footprint. “As a cloud company, we acquired Ariba and Success Factors but kept our budget stable to buy renewables, which is why renewables reduced [from] 51% in 2012 to 43 % 2013. It is clear that we want to put sustainability into the core of how we create value. So moving to 100% renewable electricity is a natural consequence of the shift of our business model into the cloud.”

Retention is marginally down as is employee engagement.

“While employee engagement was slightly down by 2%, our overall score of 77% continues to represent an industry leading performance. We believe the small reduction is due to our shift in strategy to the cloud. The good news is that we have already taken steps to drive employee engagement up toward our goal of 82% by 2015.”

Debating the Efficacy of Cloud

Which brought us back to the question of cloud computing. With mixed feedback from the media, how does the company explain the rationale? “The cloud has a variety of advantages. First of all, you achieve better economies of scale. The entire data center is shared between all customers using our servers, network, storage, etc. We have also been implementing a wide variety of energy efficiency measures, such as cold isle containment, more efficient hardware, and detailed energy consumption transparency,” he said.

And because SAP now has a green cloud, the carbon emissions of its customers get eliminated.

But it’s also key to put all of this against the lens of consumption. As Graf noted, while energy consumption of IT is growing at 3.8%, data centers usage is growing 7.1%. “Data centers are doubling in growth vs. IT as a whole when it comes to energy consumption. That’s why a green cloud is critical.”

How? By leveraging multiple routes to get to its goal of 100% renewable energy. “First of all, we are producing some of the renewable electricity ourselves in solar plants in the U.S. and Germany. Second, we are procuring renewable energy and renewable electricity certificates from a small, select group of providers.” SAP is working with CDP and the WWF to determine criteria that the production of renewables the company acquires will have to meet. “Finally, we are producing carbon offsets ourselves by investing into the Lifelihoods Fund, an investment fund that literally plants hundreds of millions of trees and returns carbon offsets rather than financial returns,” he added.

A Triple Bottom Line Conversation

From carbon credits to direct investment in renewables, SAP is implementing a comprehensive strategy aimed at taking advantage of all available avenues to reduce its negative impact. But Graf’s emphasis on influencing end-user impact also brings us full circle back to where we started: How can technology companies most demonstrably and positively influence consumption and development?

For Graf, it’s about going back to basics – and embedding sustainability into the core of your  tweet-jam-sap-sustybizbusiness strategy.

“Sustainability and growth are not contradicting. The problem is that most companies run a “sustainability strategy” in parallel to their corporate growth strategy. In such a setup, sustainability goals are often perceived to be in contradiction to growth aspirations. The trick is to evolve from having a sustainability strategy to a corporate strategy that is sustainable. It’s about taking a broader point of view, understanding the impact of decisions not only on financials, but also on the environmental or social capital of the company,” he said, adding, “Any conversation of growth needs to be a triple bottom line conversation. ”

So is the way forward for companies to decouple sustainability from growth? How can companies continue to grow and expand their business profiles—profitability—while reducing their negative impact? It was a compelling conversation – grab the details at #SustyBiz!

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on April 10, 2014.

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#SodexoCR: A Conversation on Integrated Reporting, Responsible Supply Chain Management, Values, Ethics & More…

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSR reporting, ESG

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aman singh, Brand Management, community development, CSR, CSR reporting, Disclosure & Transparency, diversity, employee engagement, Environment, ESG, ethics, integrated reporting, marketing, Social Media, social media, sodexo, stakeholder engagement, supply chain, Sustainability, sustainability, Sustainability Report, Twitter


https://storify.com/AmanSinghCSR/sodexocr-a-conversation-on-integrated-reporting

 

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Stakeholder vs. Shareholder Value: Connecting the Sustainability Dots With Philips, Drexel University & Profits4Purpose

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSRwire

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aman singh, cause marketing, corporate citizenship, corporate social responsibility, CSR, CSR communications, CSRwire, employee engagement, ESG, HR, Leadership, philanthropy, phillips, profits4purpose, shareholder value, social media, Stakeholder Engagement, Sustainability, sustainability, transparency, Work culture, workplace giving


Is there a connection between employee engagement and shareholder value?

Several similar questions came up in a recent webinar I facilitated, held in partnership with Profits 4 Purpose with guests Philips and Drexel University. While the question doesn’t have a linear answer – as is often the case with sustainability – it did take us through quite a conversation on connecting engagement with value, how CSR strategies affect business performance, the whole conundrum of measurement as well as what the latest research suggests.

Daniel Korschun, Assistant Professor and Fellow at the Center for Corporate Reputation Management at Drexel University, led the conversation by sharing some of his research with our audience.

“We’re moving into a new phase …since the 1950s we have had a debate about whether more CSR is better than less. While I don’t think this debate has been completely settled, there is general agreement among most practitioners that the core issue today is how we do it, not the quantity. That means we need to concentrate on effectiveness, which is where I have focused my research,” he started.

Employee Engagement: All About Signals

Employees are paying attention to CSR, he said.

And they notice when managers or customers support the company’s CSR initiatives.  When they notice this support, they are more likely to develop CSR and business performance“feelings of membership with a company.” In its most powerful form, we may begin to hear things like “I am an IBMer or a UPSer.” This feeling of membership then translates into a whole host of measurable outcomes like job performance, intent to stay in the job, or intent to volunteer.

For example, Korschun said he finds that people who feel this sense of membership are 87 percent more likely than others to be among the top performers of their company. And these effects hold even after controlling for pay satisfaction, personality traits, tenure, and work experience. The big lesson then?

  • Make CSR an open secret! “The more people who are discussing your behavior, the better.”
  • Have upper management act as champions: “If people don’t feel that management is aligned with your CSR strategy, impact will be muted. Executives don’t need to dictate CSR from the ivory tower but employees must know definitively that their leaders are on the same page, and are committed to social responsibility.”
  • Encourage contagion across stakeholders: “Engage customers in the same CSR programs as employees? Programs that get customers and employees to join forces (especially on volunteering sites) can create a bond…and that sort of contagion can lead to both happy employees and happy customers.”

Philip Cares: Formalizing Responsibility

Melanie Michaud, Senior Manager for Internal Communications with Philips North America took the baton from Daniel to evidence his data and research with how the practice and implementation of employee engagement maps out across a corporation. Emphasizing that Philips USA did not have a process in place till 2010 to vet requests and manage engagement across the company. “It was sporadic and led by employees who cared about various causes,” she said.

After several acquisitions, the company realized they needed a more formal process to align all its community development work with its business and employee base. That led to Philips Cares, through which, the company focuses on environment, education and health.

With tremendous uptick in the number of volunteers [over 8,000 volunteers] and donations in the 15 months since the program launched, Michaud highlighted the following keys to the success of Philips Philips caresCares – crucial for those managing relatively new programs or on the verge of launching one:

  • Do your research
  • Have a clear vision
  • Engage leadership
  • Have a volunteer tracking mechanism
  • Align with nonprofit partners
  • Emphasize local champions
  • Have consistent program branding
  • Engage in storytelling
  • Give employees a voice
  • Walk the talk

Setting a Global Strategy With Local Impact

So how does Philips ensure its CSR strategy is global in scope while local enough to support its communities?

That’s something we’re continually challenged with. We’re always tying everything back to our vision and mission of improving lives through innovation. We’re also doing some research now about rolling out a program like Philip Cares globally. In some areas there is greater interest than others and we’re currently working out how that will all work out,” Michaud responded.

One of the questions that came up during the webinar was around the survey Philips uses to seek feedback and make changes to its program. Emphasizing that the survey was a work in progress, Michaud said questions revolved around identifying causes, target audiences, types of volunteering activities as well as a bunch of open-ended questions for more elaborate feedback.

Practice vs. Software: Connecting Volunteerism With Impact

For Jason Burns, CEO of Profits 4 Purpose, the task was to connect Korschun’s research and Michaud’s practical perspective to how companies can best measure and track CSR and employee engagement activities. “We’re focused on helping companies make employee engagement simple, innovative and relational,” he started.

What are the key components to capture their attention? Burns summarized his comments in three neat categories:

  • Inspiring vision with easy execution: “We see a lot of companies starting with the end goal in mind, asking employees to focus on tracking…that’s less than inspiring. As human beings, we desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves so its important we start with a vision.”
  • Measuring impact: “Excel kills impact…how can we launch a strategy and review it for impact in real time and in alignment with employee engagement, mission and partners? Can we solve a specific problem that fits within the mission of a business? Can we cast a ‘what if’ scenario for employees to be motivated, to make a difference and get involved in a real easy and seamless way?”
  • Sharing a compelling story: “You’ve executed the strategy, and achieved great impact but why is it important? The most powerful piece for an employee when they volunteer is being part of that impact firsthand. The next powerful piece for those who might not be on the ground is communication, the story. It goes beyond the numbers.”

While the P4P platform helps companies do all of the above in one centralized place, what stood out was the fact that it also leverages the data into meaningful stories, disclosure commitments and  p4p_webinar_5filings. As Burns explained, “We saw companies that had the vision but were having difficulty making the management seamless with vendors, contractors and excel sheets. Things were duct taped and often a nightmare and we wanted to open that up to make the process productive and inspiring for all involved.”

Connecting The Dots Between Engagement & Shareholder Value…

But Jason’s iteration of execution versus measurement and reporting brought us back to a core question we began the panel with: how are companies like Phillips connecting the dots between volunteerism, engagement, retention and business growth?

“In terms of definitive links all the way to shareholder value, we have research connecting the steps of a CSR program all the way through. There is, however, no one study out there that links the end point with any one of the steps along the way. My research connects job performance with CSR and others have linked that to shareholder value. So while the connections are there, there is no one study that we can point to,” offered Korschun.

For Philips, it’s still to be determined, said Michaud.

“It is still a bit fragmented but we have moved from a theory to a practical emphasis on measurement and tracking. And the research being conducted is definitely encouraging, albeit complex,” added Burns, highlighting a trend we’ve been seeing on CSRwire as well where researchers are now, finally, being able to grab data on voluntary disclosures and link the connections between measurement, the various threads of sustainability and the question of value.

…Regardless of the Economic Climate…

What does the research then say about the impact of CSR programs on shareholder perspective and behavior irrespective of the economic climate? [Audience question]

While Korschun said he wasn’t aware of any studies that have looked at the influence of economic climate on how CSR drives value, “we generally find that for customers, the effects are clearest when CSR and employee engagementmost other product features are at parity. This suggests that CSR might become a little less important for consumers during a recession, when price becomes more critical.”

He added: “However, for employees, the company is a big part of their identity. So as long as a person feels fairly secure in their job, CSR should still have a similar effect. Putting this together, I would conjecture that ROI might drop a bit overall during a recession, but the drop would be uneven across stakeholders.”

…And Company Performance

“The weight of the evidence in academic studies suggests that there is a small positive effect of overall CSR on overall company performance. In my view, each company will have programs that are more and less effective. Since employees can express their commitment to the company in many ways, it is very difficult to put an ROI figure on any single program. The best way to measure it is usually to choose a couple of outcomes that are critical to shareholder value and then examine the link between CSR program(s) and these outcomes,” Korschun offered.

Final word on the erstwhile ROI of social contributions and impact?

For Michaud, this is a toss-up.

“We have some of the basics in place about measurement but I think qualitative measures are as significant. They’re really the next level of ROI. Of course, media stories help as well but we’re this is a discussion that is really ongoing for us.”

“A lot of companies are surveying employees and getting positive results. Now we need to work on finding the stories of impact,” added Burns while Korschun recommended systemic thinking:

I ‘d like to recommend [to companies] that they start with the goals. If one of your business challenges is employee retention, start with that and work backwards. Ask yourselves what is the right program that can have social/environmental impact and create business value at the same time?

Download the slides.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary sectionTalkback on June 25, 2013.

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#SharedValue & Sustainability: In Conversation with Nestlé Waters North America

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSR reporting

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Brand Management, consumer behavior, CSR, CSR reporting, Disclosure & Transparency, Environment, ethics, Leadership, nestle waters, packaging, recycling, shared value, social media, Stakeholder Engagement, stakeholder engagement, supply chain, Sustainability, sustainability, Twitter, water


 

A conversation with North America's largest seller of bottled water on how they define Shared Value, their take on what's often critiqued as an "unsustainable business model," their drive for modernizing recycling infrastructure and much more more!

[View the story “#SharedValue: A Chat with Nestle Waters North America” on Storify]

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Changing Business from the Inside Out: How to Pursue a Career in CSR and Sustainability

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR

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amd, Apple, Business Ethics, Career advice, career advice, career in sustainability, careers, CSR, CSR jobs, epa, gap, intel, Job search, Jobs in CSR, jobs in CSR, Leadership, Net Impact, Nike, Social Entrepreneurship, social media, supply chain, Sustainability, sustainability jobs, tim mohin, Work culture


What does one do to get a job in the field of corporate social responsibility? And moreover, how do you excel at something so nebulous and undefined?

I’ve spent the last eight years trying to decode these issues and report about what companies are doing to not only embrace the essential message underlining CSR but also integrate a sense of responsibility within their culture. I interviewed practitioners, researched numerous CSR reports, and conducted multiple surveys on the issue to identify what exactly translates into a “CSR career” or “CSR job”.

While feedback, comments and social media indicated that my reporting was helping raise awareness and compelling professionals to think about their choices, I realized that what we needed was a reference guide, an encyclopedia of sorts, a How-To of practical tips from executives who are embedded in large corporations and have experience influencing change, leading behavior change and staying patient when the profits vs. CSR debate rears its head.

Turns out, Changing Business from the Inside Out: A Treehugger’s Guide to Working in Corporations is the handbook I was looking for.

Written by Tim Mohin, Director of Corporate Responsibility at AMD, the book offers critical pieces of advice and practical tips for current and aspiring professionals who believe they can make a difference through their careers.

Tim_MohinAnd that is the segment that Mohin wants to target. He told me a couple of years ago that he wanted to write a book aimed at people who “want to change the world through business.” Then, jobs were  few and we were struggling as an economy. Occupy Wall Street was yet to take shape.  And corporations were focused on surviving a deep recession not worrying about their social responsibility quotient.

But as we know today, this recession has not only furthered the divide between consumers, employees and corporations on a whole host of social, environmental and economic issues, but also pointed the finger to each and every one of us. Where does the blame lie? How did we get here?

In this vacuum of trust in the marketplace, Mohin’s book is a much-needed antidote for professionals and students who want to restore our economy, while protecting the environment and benefitting society, but lack the practical advice.

Changing Business from the Inside Out: A Treehugger’s Guide to Working in Corporations

We sat down for a heart to heart about the book, his tips, his journey at AMD and much more.

“The book is meant for people who want to use their careers to change the world. I want to enable the next generation to create the change they want to see happen,” he began. For Mohin, a vocal co-supporter of student-led organization Net Impact whose conferences attract thousands of job seekers, students and professionals each year, the field isn’t as “rosy as it looks.” [Note: Net Impact members get a discount!]

“Increasingly I felt that people who wanted to have a meaningful career didn’t understand what the field involves. There are certain sets of skills that need to be acquired,” he added.

The CSR field is growing. And companies are starting to respond to what was primarily a movement driven by activists, students and academia, by creating CSR departments and integrating corporate citizenship into business strategy.

Each of these points of integration, implementation and planning however, requires specific skill sets. And as more job opportunities emerge, Mohin believes it is up to the incumbents to educate and mentor an “army of professionals who can work in CSR and sustainability.”

Should Companies Create CSR Departments?

He likened the evolution of CSR to the quality movement in the 1980s when every company responded by starting a quality department. “Today, large companies realize that they must have someone in charge of CSR. It’s not a new department per se but builds upon the community, public affairs or environmental teams and adds on other parts of corporate citizenship,” he said.

Now, the question of having CSR departments has always triggered opposing reactions among professionals, executives and job seekers. Should CSR be a separate department? Or an integrated element of everyone’s job description? Or a C-suite led initiative?

For Mohin there is no debate, contrary to what several of his peers in corporate America have told me.

“I do think we need a department: it should be senior, small and strategic. Fundamentally, what that department is doing is setting direction, vision and key performance indicators [KPIs]. But the real work is being done by traditional line management functions.”

“For example, most companies need to have a CR council and together we work through top-level  goals to meet our vision, execution and measurement. When you look at CSR, it’s too broad for any one manager to manage. By nature, it’s a cross cutting service group that works with others to get the job done,” he emphasized.Tim_Mohin_Book

“But if there is no one in charge, it gets lost and nothing gets done.”

Preparing for a Career in CSR

But many of the skills, programs and business processes are transferable outside the CSR function, as I discover every time I interviewed a CSR executive and analyze their career’s trajectory. Mohin concurs. “Remember that most CSR functions simply report the news,” he told me, adding, “The news, though, is created in line management and mainstream corporate roles like procurement, HR, legal, and supply chain.”

Mohin’s advice hits home. For years, I have advised students and professionals that to forge a career in CSR, they must first develop a sector expertise, a specific skill set and then decide which element of CSR they can fit into. Using “I want to work in CSR” is never a good starting point.

For the author, it comes down to “Skills, Processes and Programs.”

“In chapter one, I identify how CSR has evolved at companies and how organizational structure affects the practice. Use this to figure out where you fit. Then turn to chapter two, where I list out the skills necessary for a successful career in CSR,” he said.

Once you’ve identified where you fit, chapter three and four offer a crash course in CSR strategy and how to respond to emerging issues. The rest of the book focuses on the many different programs under the umbrella of CSR. “So pick the one that applies to your skills and passion and then understand how to excel in that particular field,” he explained.

Apple, Gap & Nike: Supply Chain Crucial Area for CSR Jobseekers

For example, supply chain is an area that Mohin has devoted part of his career to while at Apple. But his emphasis – two long chapters – on the area of supply chain has more to it than passion or experience. “For me, this area is the No. 1 growth area in corporate responsibility. When you see the trend starting back a few years ago with Nike and Gap’s supply chain woes, and now Apple in the electronics industry, the critical importance of supplier responsibility becomes clear,” he said.

“Now it’s becoming embedded in companies more so than ever before because of outsourcing. Companies have found outsourcing to be cheaper and strategically more efficient for them. But accompanying that, we need a supplier responsibility program, therefore the growing demand for professionals who can understand all the nuances of both supply chain and social responsibility,” he said.

Another important reason that there are jobs in this area: Supplier responsibility is a big, complicated task. “One that requires quite a large team of skilled professionals. At Apple, it started with just me and I quickly hired a small ream but if you compare to Gap, I believe they have about 70 people in labor standards. Disney has even more,” he said, adding, “Now, imagine the scope and scale of managing all social responsibility for suppliers of all the Fortune 500 companies.”

Running a Data-Driven Program: Leading Through Influence

In order to drive a CSR program, however, whether it is supplier responsibility or environmental impact, every project requires a robust method set in place for the collection and analysis of relevant  data that can feed strategy and project the achievability of goals.

And that’s where Mohin places his bets for success.

A common thread at every company he has worked for, including Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and Apple, is managing data-driven programs. The ability to set quantifiable goals and measure progress has been a crucial aspect of his career in corporate responsibility. “[Data] has been a hallmark of my career,” he said.

So much so that Mohin has devoted an entire chapter on the need for establishing meaningful goals and knowing what to measure. In the book – chapter four – he uses the examples of Intel, Coca-Cola and Starbucks to exemplify his emphasis. In our conversation, he referred to lessons from his tenure at Intel.

“When I was the environmental manager at Intel, the first thing I did was establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) so that we could start measuring our global environmental performance and forecasting the future. As soon as we figured it out, senior management wanted to know. And because we were focused on the data, we were quickly able to identify the process changes and reductions that decreased our emissions even while production was increasing,” he recalled.

His advice?

“[You] need to be able to understand what’s important for your business and your stakeholders and how you can quantify progress in these areas to be successful. These metrics together become a dashboard seen by senior management regularly so they track the success measures and identify areas to improve. Running your program this way ensures that you will get the engagement and buy-in needed for a successful corporate responsibility strategy,” he said.

“Once you start to measure what’s important to your business and your stakeholders, you start to see alignment.”

Finally, I asked him to list the top skills he believes anyone aspiring to excel in CSR and sustainability must have. [Buy the Book]

In Mohin’s words, you must be:

1. A Lifelong Learner

“In corporate responsibility, you have to be flexible and curious. You’re often working in areas that are not your strong suit but if you’re open to new experiences and unafraid to be the dumbest kid in the class, this field is for you. Not everyone has that kind of personality. You have to be comfortable in your skin. And, it helps to have a thick skin.”

2. Able to Lead & Influence Without Being the Decision Maker

“You must be able to lead and influence when you’re not making all the decisions leading up to the end goal. You must be able to understand the system well – such as identifying and building relationships with those who have the budget and the authority to get things done – and be able to work with them and influence across a broad spectrum of people and groups to work toward a common goal.”

3. Able to Communicate Well

“It is one thing to know your business and another to describe it to someone else who may not know your business as well. It’s like talking to your mother about CSR. To be able to do this job, you have to be a good communicator. It’s a critical skill in many fields but absolutely essential in CSR. CSR leaders are like the ‘de-coder ring’ in many companies because they have to understand the inner workings of many business groups and explain it to others.”

4. Social Media Savvy

“The world of communications has changed in fundamental ways and the future will be very different too. We need to stay on top of were communication is headed – and right now, that’s social media.”

“What I learned from social media is that I get more out of it than I put in. I learn something new every day through social media. Communication is happening in real-time with real content and being social media savvy is an essential element to be effective in many fields.”

5. Able to Understand the Importance of Stakeholder Relations

“Remember that the field of CSR is new, it’s evolving. But also remember that social media and hyper transparency are becoming the new normal, which makes stakeholder engagement not just a priority, but essential.”

“The world is watching and CSR is about our behavior as a company. If you’re not asking people ‘how you are doing?’ and ‘how you can get better?’ then you’re flying blind.”

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on August 16, 2012.

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Crowdfunding for Capital Creation: Fad or Business Opportunity?

03 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSRwire, Guest Author

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capitalism, cityville, clay christensen, crowdfunding, CSR, CSRwire, donorschoose, Facebook, kickstarter, klout, LinkedIn, pinterest, small business, social enterprise, Social Media, social media, soho loft events, Stakeholder Engagement, tumblr, Twitter, youtube


Co-written with Patricia Smith

“You can’t evolve into being a social media company. You have to be born social,” began Lou Kerner, veteran internet analyst and former managing director of the Private Shares Group at LiquidNet, an institutional equities marketplace. {Kerner departed LiquidNet within three months of taking the job citing differences in views with upper management.]SoHo_Loft_Capital_Creation

The event: The SoHo Loft conference on capital creation and crowdfunding at law firm Reed Smith’s palatial New York City office.

The topic: Crowdfunding and social media, i.e., how investors, analysts and executives can now use the power of social crowds to raise capital.

Crowdfunding isn’t just the newest — and hippest — way of raising capital for entrepreneurs today. It is also a wide open opportunity for investors, analysts and activists to build new enterprise and address the change they continue to seek from traditional business. Crowdfunding, essentially, builds on our hunger for social connections to raise awareness, pique interest and channel that into opening access to capital for worthy projects.

Case in point: Kickstarter, RocketHub, Seedmatch, etc. Some would even put DonorsChoose in the same category.

Congressman Patrick McHenry, R-NC, who opened the conference, alluded to President Obama’s recent appeal to pass the crowdfunding legislation, titled The Entrepreneurs’ Access to Capital Act, to free up capital for entrepreneurs. A firm and emphatic supporter of the bill, he added:

“The marketplace desires this. Why else would so many people come here on such a gloomy day if you didn’t want this? Capital must flow where it is best used. This is what is at the heart of capital formation. Get to the point where the American dream was to grow a business and eventually access our public markets.”

Choosing to use Innovator Dilemma author Clay Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation, Kerten exemplified Wal-Mart and Amazon not dominating the fast-growing social media space today despite their size and history because “you have to be born social to be social.”

Web 2.0: Banking on Social

KickstarterPrimarily “Second Internet” or Web 2.0 companies are all about facilitating sharing, he emphasized. Facebook is the dominant platform for these activities, he continued, adding that Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Pinterest and YouTube represent formidable platforms in their own user following and growth.

In this landscape, brands can no longer buy audiences. “They have to earn them because users choose what messages they’ll share with their social network,” he argued. Example: Gaming company Zynga’s ability to drive Cityville to 100 million users in just seven weeks by leveraging Facebook users’ willingness to share their passion.

Smart brands understand people with high social media influence can do a lot to help or hurt their brand with a simple tweet or Facebook post. Klout is the perfect example of this growing niche of influencers. In its short existence, Klout has rated over 100 million individuals’ influence on social media and devised a score that Kerner termed as the equivalent of a FICO score for the Internet.

The Palms Hotel in California, in fact, is using these scores to decide who gets an upgrade. Some airlines are using it to decide who gets bumped from a flight, he added.

Social Media: Fad or Opportunity?

Offering up a recent study of Facebook usage, Kerner noted that 16 percent of Facebook users’ time spent online was on Facebook. Further, that time spent online was up 40 percent from the year before. Compare this, he said to Facebook’s latest product, Frictionless Sharing, which allows you to share content with your Facebook network without actually being on the Facebook platform. The opportunities? Endless.Zynga_s_Cityville

Twitter’s uniqueness, on the other hand, is in the immediacy it offers users. This, according to Kerner, is only going to grow. Pointing out that news organizations were one of the weaker members when it comes to using social media, he added: “Of the top news organizations, 93 percent have Twitter links going back to their own content and only 2 percent have links that send them someplace else.” For Kerner, this emphasis on pushing out content and resulting failure in engaging their audience in real dialogue translates as lost revenue.

We’re already using social media to channel our passions, thoughts and build deeper relationships. So, why not also to fund projects and new ideas?

What do you think? Could crowdfunding be the way forward for budding entrepreneurs tired of working in a closed-door market?

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary sectionTalkback on February 28, 2012.

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2011: The Year Business Learned to Say Mea Culpa

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSRwire

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Accountability, Best Buy, Brand Management, Carol Cone, climate corps, corporate governance, CSR, CSRwire, edf, Ethics, jobs, Leadership, Management, McDonald's, Ofra Strauss, Social Media, social media, Stakeholder Engagement, Sustainability, sustainability, timberland, transparency, UPS


Image

These were just some of the things that kept us busy in 2011. While some represent the changing marketplace, others are age-old struggles between activists, consumers, employees and corporations. Yet, they all represented the emergence of new forces at play in our corporate corridors.

Yes, 2011 represented despair for many – the jobseekers, the underemployed, the single parent, the shopper, the CEO, the trader – but with despair, as CSRwire’s CEO Joe Sibilia noted, comes hope, adaptability and often, solutions.

And it is at that stage that most of us converged in 2011.

Transparency: Is Business Ready?

Take, for example, the recent BSR conference held in San Francisco. My panel addressed a topic that is bound to get most of us shifting in our chairs: Sustainability in a Hyper-Transparent World. Ouch, right? Joined by executives from Oxfam, Intel and SourceMap, the conversation included several uncomfortable moments (I offered up Zappos as an example to the audience, citing that the company livestreams its all hands meeting in order to live its mission of “building open and honest communications.”) and featured several probabilities, suggestions, and potential solutions by a group that included lawyers, sustainability executives, CSR officers, reporters, strategists, entrepreneurs as well as nonprofit leaders.

“When you are increasingly naked, fitness if not optional.” – Macrowikinomics

That the panel attracted a full room of senior executives willing to discuss difficult issues like privacy, corporate governance and stakeholder responsibility is a start.

The C-Suite Headlines Sustainability

Till last year, while much was being written about CSR and sustainability, executives were largely absent from the dialogue. In 2011, this changed ever so subtly. Earlier in the year, Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn took the stage at one of the year’s most prolific conferences, the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship’s annual conference. He discussed the importance of employee wellbeing, organizational design, transparency (Kathleen Edmond was the first Chief Ethics Officer to start a blog on ethical issues in the workplace) and the importance of stakeholder engagement.

“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

At Net Impact, Nike’s Hannah Jones took the stage as did REI CEO Sally Jewell. BSR kept the momentum going by featuring Ofra Strauss, CEO of the Strauss Group, Autodesk CEO Carl Bass and Anheuser-Busch CEO Carlos Brito.

These chiefs weren’t exactly looking to gain brownie points. They were after all speaking to the choir in some respects and to an audience that for the most part, gets business and social responsibility. But what made each of them stand out was their honesty about the difficult problems facing us today – a first? – agreement on the role of business in adding to today’s social and environmental mess.

“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

Mea culpa, they all said. Followed by: Here’s how we are trying to change ways, rethink growth, repurpose missions and reengage stakeholders.

That’s a start.

Social Media Engagement: 140 Characters Rule

Despite all the naysayers of social media, there is no denying that for any organization that sells a product or service today, having a dedicated presence on Facebook and Twitter is a prerequisite. With engagement reaching never-seen-before proportions, even Chief Sustainability Officers are learning to communicate in 140 characters or less.

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

But several companies dipped their toes in active engagement by trying out new formulae: Best Buy released their annual CSR report by hosting a live webinar (that I moderated) with their Sustainability team and a parallel conversation on Twitter. As I quizzed them about the report, questions poured in from Twitter: What was Best Buy doing in the area of conflict minerals? What about human rights? Recycling? How about consumer education? And why the low diversity ratio of employees?

Squirm they did, admitting that the issues were complex they did, but answer they also did.

They weren’t the only ones though.

Timberland (that was acquired by VF earlier in the year) launched their new Communications portal, McDonald’s hosted a live chat on Twitter with VP of CSR Bob Langert, UPS held several chats during the holiday season from sustainable gifting to green packaging choices.

Communicating your sustainability story is an important cog in the wheel called trust and the choice to engage is no longer a valid option. How you choose to do so, however, will continue to differentiate you from your competitor.

Making Business Sense out of Sustainability

Several large organizations came forward in 2011 asking jobseekers and students applying for jobs in sustainability and CSR to understand how to relate their core competencies and knowledge to the issues facing us today, i.e., water depletion, carbon emissions, climate change, etc.

How can depleting levels of water relate to a professional services firm, for example, or a bank? Why must a software company invest in engaging and educating its supply chain?

Climate Corps: Creating Jobs & Savings

The Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Corps program is one of very few initiatives that have managed to tie sustainability with business strategy and growth while creating jobs out of the process.

From placing seven MBA candidates as summer fellows in 2008, the program has quickly grown in popularity, placing 96 students at 78 companies in 2011. The fellows spend an entire summer working with their host companies on identifying energy efficiency solutions, implementing carbon management processes and helping diverse businesses embed environmental sustainability into their strategies.

The results: Millions in savings. While few get direct job offers from the Fellowship, most have had success finding jobs where their unique mix of experience, passion, and the ability to tie business strategy with sustainability, is appreciated and utilized in changing processes, setting standards and adapting organizations to a fast-changing reality of limited resources.

This is a start.

Organizational Design & Sustainability

Where does sustainability fit in your organization?

Everywhere, really, is the only correct answer, irrespective of where the chief sustainability officer sits. This, finally is getting addressed by what I consider a crucial component at any company: The HR and recruitment teams. In collaboration with IE Business School, I moderated seminars with recruiters, HR directors and organization design consultants on the value of CSR in candidate recruitment and retention.

We discussed the relationship between productivity, values, respect and growth. We heard from students who want to work for socially responsible companies and executives who are redirecting their organizations to instill a culture of ethics, responsibility, accountability and pride.

Mea culpa, most of them said. That’s a start.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on December 30, 2011.

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2011 in review @ Singh on CSR: 5 Months, 31 Blog Posts, 9,500 Visits

08 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR

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aman singh, aman singh das, Brand Management, BSR 2011, citizen journalism, corporate citizenship, corporate social responsibility, CSR, CSR communication, CSR journalist, CSR reporting, CSR strategy, economic value, employee engagement, In Good Company, mainstream media, net impact 2011, Occupy Wall Street, shared value, social media, sustainability, sustainable business, sustainable business practices


The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,500 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

While I won’t bore you with the stats, here are the top three winners of 2011:

  1. Net Impact and BSR 2011: 7 Days, 2 Conferences, 5 Trends in CSR & Sustainability
  2. Does Expending Resources on CSR and Sustainability Destroy Economic Value?
  3. CSR and Sustainability in Mainstream Media: Citizen Journalism Or Simply Shared Value?

Thank you to all of you for a tremendous year! I value your support, trust, readership, comments, courage and enthusiasm to say, do and compel others toward the right action.

Here’s to expanding our “small world” of CSR and sustainability slowly but surely, one person at a time in 2012!

– Aman

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