CSR — not just a January diet
Dry January, where you don’t consume any alcohol for the month of January, is becoming more and more popular. For those who have a consumed a little too much over Christmas, January off the sauce could never be a bad thing. However, if you celebrate on the 1st of Feb with a personal bottle of JD and the belief that you can now drink whatever you like, guilt-free, for the next 11 months then really what was the point?
Unfortunately, this is the same way that many companies are thinking about CSR. These limited initiatives in themselves are not a bad thing, it’s good that these companies give all their employees 1 paid CSR day a year or recycle or give X amount to charity. But if this then means they feel that their duty is done and they can now act however they like, guilt-free, then really what was the point?
Don’t get me wrong, all these things are great and the companies shouldn’t stop doing them. But on their own, they are simply not enough — these initiatives should be the icing on the CSR cake, not the cake itself. If these businesses are using environmentally or socially unethical suppliers or using large amounts of natural resources or energy that could be avoided then this 1 day out of 252 working days a year, painting local primary schools doesn’t sound so great.
CSR, whether we call it that or something else, needs to be fully incorporated into the daily fibre of the business. Some examples of businesses making real changes to how they work and their role in society are:
- Puma’s Environmental Profit and Loss Account
- Marks & Spencer’s Plan A
- Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan
- Levi’s Waterless Jeans
- Safaricom’s M-PESA
[caption id=”attachment_4492" align=”aligncenter” width=”300"]
Click on the image above to see a video of Levi’s Waterless Jeans[/caption]
The best thing about all of these examples is that these companies are actually making more money out of them, for example, Plan A is said to have led to £70million of profit for M&S in 2010. While some of the initiatives started as CSR, they were quickly integrated into the business as soon as the savings became clear. The other initiatives have never been CSR but were seen as better ways of doing business both financially and socially. Other companies who are paying lip service to CSR need to think about how they change their business for the better, better for the people and environment they work in and better for the business. To quote Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever “it’s a no-brainer”.
There are some other great examples out there, but there needs to be more! Virgin Unite, where I am currently on placement, has been working to create the B-team, a group of business leaders who are coming together to work towards a better way of doing business in the world and I look forward to seeing the innovative solutions that they come up with.
So, if you only remember two things, remember: 1) don’t operate in a silo — look at your day to day business and work out how to make this process socially and environmentally better; and 2) if you work on this principle it will be good for business!
