Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Skip to main content LinkedIn Find People, Jobs, Companies, and MoreSearch for: All SearchAdvanced Inbox 737 Notification 11 Add Connections Add Connections Invite your contacts Quickly find people you may know by searching your email contacts: GmailAOLHotmailOther Peter Burgess Home Profile Network Jobs Interests Business Services Upgrade Corporate Social Responsibility Corporate Social Responsibility 31,351 members Member Information and settingsShare group DiscussionsPromotionsJobsMembersSearch Emilia Asim - Ita Unfollow Emilia in your own words: Define CSR. Manager's Choice Emilia Asim - Ita Senior Consultant, Strategy & External Relations at ThistlePraxis Consulting In your own words: Define CSR. Hello everyone, I'm collecting information for a resource section for an upcoming conference on CSR -The Africa CEO Roundtable & Conference on CSR. http://www.ar-csr.com. Your responses will help guide an attempt to find a holistic definition which would help advance the concept and practice of CSR especially for non-practitioners and business leaders in the african business environment. Thanks! NB: Please add your full name and what you do. Like (62) Comment (289) Share Unfollow Reply PrivatelyMay 26, 2011 Comments MICHAEL PAPAMICHAIL, Tatiana Stebaeva Christensen and 60 others like this 289 comments Akin Olatidoye Akin Akin Olatidoye Learning and Research, Hephzibah Christian Research. Online Learning Suite. Corporate Social Responsibility means Volenti non fit injuria : a duty to care and not violate in the course of interaction or other forms of dealing. Akin Olatidoye Learner and Researcher Like (6) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate May 30, 2011 Bruce Summers, CVA, Dr Uwem Ite and 4 others like this Ron Strauss Ron Ron Strauss Brand Guide for Fresh Ideas and Renewed Growth. Product Launch Reviews. Measureable Results. CSR is where a firm's mission and values lead to initiatives that preserve and/or improve the common good while also improving its business results. The initiative can be passive in nature and instructs the firm to 'leave it as you found it' in terms, for example, of having a neutral carbon footprint, remediating a polluted site, etc. Or, the initiative can be dynamic in nature and instructs the firm to better the common good. An example is Starbucks Clean Water Initiative, where Starbucks helps local coffee growing communities understand sustainable agricultural practices, and where Starbucks helps provide clean water to coffee-growing communities. The benefit to the community is less GI disease, higher worker productivity, and a sustainable, better quality product. The benefit to Starbucks is a more dependable abundant supply of quality coffee beans throughout its supply chain. In essence, CSR is a 'win-win.' My name is Ron Strauss and I'm a brand guide, founder and CEO of Brandzone, and co-author of 'Value Creation: The Power of Brand Equity' Like (17) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 1, 2011 Erika A., Apostolos L. and 15 others like this Farhana Ahmed Farhana Farhana Ahmed CEO at Amader Kotha ( amaderkkotha.com.bd) CSR is a commitment. A commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to the economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families , as well as that of the society at large. Like (12) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 3, 2011 Suhail A., Phillip S. and 10 others like this Amol Kulkarni Amol Amol Kulkarni Regional Business Manager at Tata Consultancy Services CSR from a corporate point of view is to reduce the guilt factor. The way people make money these days by stepping on others, by giving few cents away makes them feel less guilty & they blow it up to earn some good PR image too. Thanks. for NGO, any help is always welcome so be it even from the most corrupt corporates on this planet - what can be better way to purify them. Like (4) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 3, 2011 Nishi Singh, Dr. Rupal Tyagi and 2 others like this Sune Skadegaard Thorsen Sune Sune Skadegaard Thorsen Founder and CEO, GLOBAL CSR Dear Emilia looking forward to seeing you in Nigeria, where I will present this definition: CSR is how corporations take responsibility for contributing, while not becoming a barrier, to social, environmental and economic sustainable development Like (14) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 3, 2011 Ellen B., Phillip S. and 12 others like this Satyanarayana Rudra Satyanarayana Satyanarayana Rudra G.M.(mines) in B S ISPAT LTD(sister concern of M/s Amtek Auto) Definitely it is a commitment by a corporate in lieu of the benefits/earnings, it is getting through people/society by setting up industries. The privitisation of industries allowing investor to establish industries and play a role of Govt.to develop the society.The profits should go back to society through CSR. This commitment should be honest & should reach the much needed.And contribute to the overall development of society. Like (3) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 3, 2011 Ananya C., Dr Uwem Ite and 1 other like this Bisi Bright Bisi Bisi Bright 1st Vice Chairman/CEO, LiveWell Initiative LWI CSR is the art and science by which corporates give back to the community; it is a developmental 'tithe' given to fill in the social gaps existent in such a community and, in fulfilment of a moral obligation to that community by the respective corporate. My name is Bisi Bright, I am a Consultant Clinical Pharmacist and Public Health Practitioner; I run a non-profit health empowerment organisation in Nigeria called LiveWell Initiative LWI as its 1st Vice Chairman/CEO. LWI has impacted over 1 million nigerians and over 3,000 ghanaians with health literacy and empowerment since its inception over 3 years ago through its free health programmes to the populace. The organisation's health sector capacity development initiative is pivoted through its training department, the LWI Academy www.livewellng.org/academy/index.php The organisation has never been donor-funded; however it is self-sustaining through its income-generating social initiatives and capacity building tools. Emilia,kindly let me have a Complimentary Invitation to the African CEO CSR Congress, since I live and work in Nigeria. Thank you Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 3, 2011 Harry McAlister likes this John Kirk John John Kirk (STARTTS)The NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors John Kirk - postgraduate student at Southern Cross University Australia. CSR is the commitment by a corporate entity to take responsibility for the impacts on the environment in whcih it operates and make restitution for any negative impacts. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 3, 2011 Arveyonka L. likes this Rhonda Bannard Rhonda Rhonda Bannard Strategist - Relationship Development, PR, Social Responsibility, Events, Marketing, Nonprofit Corporate Social Responsibility is a philosophical value embraced by corporate entities that believe their purpose and responsibility is to not only be sustainable (through profits), but that they do so in a way that thoughtfully incorporates an understanding that their actions impact the greater community and world in which they operate - that means their employees, the people of their community, their customers and others impacted by their work. (When the community is successful, they can be successful.) It also means how they daily impact the planet. CSR is about our interconnectedness to one another, yet offers a strategic goal-oriented bent to leverage the work and key relationships a company needs and seeks to impact to maintain its viability and success. The overarching concept of CSR offers many strategies that can be tapped by a company depending on their business goals, community needs and interests. There is no cookie cutter CSR strategy. Like (7) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 4, 2011 Rev. Hope A., Ellen B. and 5 others like this munish nanda munish munish nanda Head Sourcing & Security Division (Business Head) CSR is a commitment by the corporate entity to give back to the society some part of the gain made by it. It is perhaps better to adress the local needs of the society eg education, medical and health, electricity, clean drinking water, environment, endangered species etc etc. What issue you address is also effected by the company/corporate desire or agenda and the geography the efforts are directed in. For the effort to be truthful and fruitful, it better be selfless and not selfserving. I am employed as Head of Supply Chain in a Telecom company in India. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 4, 2011 Tarun C. likes this Ron Strauss Ron Ron Strauss Brand Guide for Fresh Ideas and Renewed Growth. Product Launch Reviews. Measureable Results. Munish - You say '...it better be selfless and not selfserving.' When it's 'selfless and not selfserving' it's charitable giving rather than corporate social responsibility (CSR). There need not be any connection between the charitable giving and the company's brand, other than positive publicity. Thoughtful CSR programs are based on brand values that are core to the firm's Mission or Vision. Properly done, these programs enhance the community as well as the value creation network (industry) of which the company is a part. They also relate to, and 'pay off' brand attributes that the company's various stakeholders care deeply about. Properly done, CSR programs not only generate positive publicity, but also define and strengthen the quality processes of the company and its supply chain, and the engagement of the company's key stakeholders. I believe that CSR programs are most effective and sustainable when they create 'win-wins.' Ron Strauss Co-author: 'Value Creation: The Power of Brand Equity' Brand Guide at Brandzone Like (10) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 4, 2011 Nishi Singh, Dimple P. and 8 others like this Rajat Panwar Rajat Rajat Panwar Asst Professor and Chapple Chair of CSR 'CSR is a two stage consideration of the imapct of business on society. First, it means being responsive to social and environmental well-being in the course of conducting business. Second, it refers to philanthorpic contributions that business may use in order to propmote broader well being. So, it relates to both how businesses earn as also to how they spend. Rajat Panwar (Chapple Chair and Assistant Professor of Social Responsibility ) at Northland College, Wisconsin, USA. ' Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 5, 2011 Jugnu Hydari, Dimple P. like this Amit Mahajan Amit Amit Mahajan Consultant at Independent CSR is not really a commitment but rather a need based approach now. It is a way to ensure sustainability. TO be a bit sarcastic one could say CSR = Corporate Sustainable Revenue or Corporate Sustainable Resource. Every successful company understands or should understand the need for ensuring sustenance and that is what it is all about. When one starts thinking of ensuring sustenance from the least connected one will surely find that the key to total sustenance is when every bit is cared for. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 5, 2011 Ida K. likes this Pamela Sol Dobniewski Pamela Sol Pamela Sol Dobniewski Lic. en Administración UBA - Premio Amartya Sen '100 Jóvenes por la Ética para el Desarrollo' What a definition! CSR is a way of doing business. Companies can do good by doing well. CSR implies reconsidering the way of doing business, shifting towards the triple bottom line (Social, Environment and economic perspectives). CSR is voluntary, it depends on the country, it depends on the industry, and it's beyond compliance. Dear Emilia, I have something that might be interesting for your CSR definitions, the main aim which is Sustainable development, and the limits for CSR in the ongoing global context. I would like to send it to you. So if you're interested send me you email and i'll answer you back!. Pamela Sol Dobniewski. Budget Coordinator for Fundación Huésped - Argentina CSR student. On field asistant for Amartya 'Promoting Sustainability' . Like (6) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 5, 2011 Val S., Pavan N. and 4 others like this Rajat Panwar Rajat Rajat Panwar Asst Professor and Chapple Chair of CSR CSR is a two stage consideration of the imapct of business on society. First, it means being responsive to social and environmental well-being in the course of conducting business. Second, it refers to philanthorpic contributions that business may use in order to propmote broader well being. So, it relates to both how businesses earn as also to how they spend. Rajat Panwar (Chapple Chair and Assistant Professor of Social Responsibility ) at Northland College, Wisconsin, USA. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 5, 2011 Ashie Hirji Ashie Ashie Hirji Director, President @ Asita Informatica Inc (visionary, evangelist, digital activist, next gen) new media Brilliant answers given by everyone ..great topic and we can cover so much on this subject..... CSR also known as corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, sustainable responsible business or corporate social performance, is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. My view... CSR is a concept created for corporations & further allows corporations to integrate social, ethical & environmental concerns giving back to society a model incorporated within their business operations for their stakeholders, this further allows corporations to get a strong brand position in the global arena. This gives meaning for doing good for society under social business, whilst impacting and making sure the communities at large benefit. I am the director of Asita Informatica Inc & we have a subsidiary which is a goodwill new media social enterprise. about me: I used to be in the fashion sector prior to starting my vision & company in 2004 I have a great story & why I began the secured ICT journey... I was born in Africa - I work secured ICT sector for end users I work with many youth /women & IO globally My focus & area for our good will org in developing countries Our CSR model has a financial sustainability model I am currently working with several groups in Africa. We adopt cyber security policies for end user security. I work with many youth & women in developing countries. I work with tech leaders and I am their evanglist. I mentor many youth & young professionals & we use best practice in our business. We have many case studies to show you & we are currently designing several projects with young leaders in developing countries. I have been self funding most of the projects with youth in East Africa since 2004. If you want to know more about who we are feel to contact me. Best Ashie or follow me @mymulticast Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 5, 2011 Zeynep Bilgi B. likes this munish nanda munish munish nanda Head Sourcing & Security Division (Business Head) Dear Ron, Point taken. Thanks. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Sune Skadegaard Thorsen Sune Sune Skadegaard Thorsen Founder and CEO, GLOBAL CSR Question to Ron: How do define common good? - is freedom of information and expression a common good? Question to Pamela Sol: If CSR is only the voluntary things we do - can you be a socially responsible company when using child labour or bribery? If the definition is limited to only the voluntary - beyond compliance - that would be the case and then CSR becomes meaningless. CSR is obviously a 'both and' which you will also see from the coming EU definition and which is implied in the UN Global Compact principles (that by the way define what the international community has agreed to as 'common goods' (Ron)). All the best Sune Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Anna B. likes this dinesh dinesh singh co-ordinator at Kanpur Parivartan Forum CSR to me is commitment of profit making organisations to remmit back to society/groups so that a positive change arrives in life of masses Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Sune Skadegaard Thorsen Sune Sune Skadegaard Thorsen Founder and CEO, GLOBAL CSR Interestingly Dinesh; most CSR practitioners would not consider donations / philanthropy as an adequate approach to CSR; I think your definition imply the opposite - or do I misunderstand the 'commitment' defining CSR? All the best Sune Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Adham N., Sivakumar M. like this Ron Strauss Ron Ron Strauss Brand Guide for Fresh Ideas and Renewed Growth. Product Launch Reviews. Measureable Results. Sune - As you imply with your reference to the UN Global Compact principles, 'common good' can be defined for each company, depending on the company's brand attributes (core values) and the dynamics of their value creation network (supply chain/industry). Here is the UN Global Compact's 10 principles: 'The UN Global Compact asks companies to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anti-corruption: Human Rights •Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and •Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses. Labour •Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; •Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour; •Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour; and •Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. Environment •Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges; •Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and •Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies. Anti-Corruption •Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.' Notice the phrase 'within their sphere of influence.' I would define Freedom of Information and Expression as a basic right that is fundamental to the UN Global Compact. Like (4) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Hepsiba Shirley J., Husameldin Elnasri and 2 others like this Silvia Stamato Silvia Silvia Stamato Presidente Académico II Congreso Internacional de Mobbing y Bullying: www.mobbingbullying.com.ar Very interesting answers, given by everybody! But in a practical way, Corporations are responsible in first place about their employees. In second place their are responsible about their customers and then about their providers. After this comes the social responsibility and it must be shown mainly by the tax payment. Then if benefits allow it they can make charity Silvia Stamato author of 'El Desarrollo en el escenario de la Globalización'. Editorial Libros. Buenos Aires 2007 Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Ashie Hirji Ashie Ashie Hirji Director, President @ Asita Informatica Inc (visionary, evangelist, digital activist, next gen) new media @Ron further to what you posted UN Global Compact principles I was at the Climate Change Wine Conference in Marbella My org was helping during the conference here is what Kofi Annan said: The Global Compact: Challenging Business to Become Leading Actors in Sustainable Development Secretary-General Annan has been championing the importance of economic, social and environmental sustainability throughout his career at the United Nations. He is President/Founder of the Global Humanitarian Forum, an international humanitarian arena to foster dialogue and broker partnerships that strengthen the international community’s ability to effectively address current and emerging humanitarian challenges, including sustainability and the effects of global warming on people of the world, especially the poor. A report released by the Forum in May of 2009 estimated that climate change is responsible for the deaths of 300,000 people every year, with 325 million of the poorest suffering most. All its work ultimately aims to be of benefit to the most vulnerable, particularly those living in least developed countries. In an address to the World Economic Forum in 1999, he challenged business leaders to join an international initiative - the Global Compact - that would bring companies together with UN agencies, as well as labor and civil society, to promote and respect universal environmental and social principles. In this speech, the Secretary-General will reiterate the responsibility of businesses and individuals to address environmental challenges; undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; protect human rights; and encourage the development and transfer of environmentally-sustainable technologies. In regards to secured ICT for equal access for ALL is the only way things will change , @mymulticast Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Zeynep Bilgi B. likes this Ron Strauss Ron Ron Strauss Brand Guide for Fresh Ideas and Renewed Growth. Product Launch Reviews. Measureable Results. Sylvia - Effective CSR practice requires that a 'systems' approach be taken to the value creating network of which the company is a part. The needs of all stakeholders are to be considered. Effective CSR programs require that there is cross-silo cooperation within the firm to realize the objectives of the CSR initiative. What is the law is not elective, and therefore not CSR. There is no hierarchy of which I'm aware that requires CSR before charitable giving, or vice-versa. Many companies do both each year. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Silvia Stamato Silvia Silvia Stamato Presidente Académico II Congreso Internacional de Mobbing y Bullying: www.mobbingbullying.com.ar Ron: I agree with you in this: 'the needs of all the stakeholders are to be considered' and 'Effective CSR programs require that there is cross-silo cooperation within the firm to realize the objectives of the CSR initiative'. But I´m very concerned with the hierarchy, as you call it. It`s because lots of times I`ve seen companies that make charitable giving not to pay taxes, don´t offer quality to their customers or the worst of all employ children, use slave work, pay less than the rest of the market or make mobbing to workers. All this is usual in Latin América Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Jan Pieter Six Jan Pieter Jan Pieter Six Owner, SIX*CSR Consulting My advice would be to avoid new definitions of CSR. An excellent and widely accepted definition can be found in brand-new ISO 26000. Jan Pieter Six SIX*CSR Consulting Like (3) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Aldobhani T., Anna B. and 1 other like this Ron Strauss Ron Ron Strauss Brand Guide for Fresh Ideas and Renewed Growth. Product Launch Reviews. Measureable Results. As I commented elswwhere, I don't consider charitable giving to be CSR, although it may be viewed as part of a CSR program. If companies give to charity to reduce their tax burden, so be it. The answer may be to change the tax code in a way that does not remove incentives for charitable giving. If they don't offer their customers good quality and value, someone else will and the market will take care of that. If they don't pay their employees competitive wages, they will lose them as the market matures. If wages are being held low through collusion, those companies are breaking the law and need to be prosecuted. If child or slave labor is being used, the companies doing so need to be prosecuted. I'm not sure what 'mobbing to workers' is or means. Each society and body politic sets its own standards for what is socially responsible using laws, regulations and a sense of what's right (spirit). Companies are becoming more aware that in order to sustain growth and profits, they must be viewed as responsible actors in our lives. Acting on this realization, they elect to create CSR programs that not only respect the letter of the law (and regulations) but also the spirit. I believe it's important to 'parse' through these different areas so as not to ask CSR programs to do what law enforcement should be doing. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Val S. likes this Steph Sharma Steph Steph Sharma Strategy, Lead The Difference | Adjunct Faculty, Bainbridge Graduate Institute To add to Ashie's view: integration of CSR into business operations and value provided to stakeholders is key vs. the 'addition' or separate initiative added into the operational business structure. If integration and incorporation into the 'way a firm does business' is believed to be core to CSR, then the entire executive leadership team through to the board of directors must lead according to this additional value the organization is providing.This may require an additional stream of information, education and accountability to ensure executive leadership incorporates CSR into business priorities and operations, across time. For organizations where this is an add-on or the job of one person, they create risk that this becomes solely philanthropic or a box check vs. part of the culture of the company. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Husameldin Elnasri likes this Varun Prakash Sharma Varun Prakash Varun Prakash Sharma HOD QA at ARICIA India I am in total confirmity with Akin Olatidoye. CSR is responsibilities towards the well being of life and environment which is directly and/or indirectly impacted by the existence and functioning/ production operations including the impact caused by the output of a corporation. If a corporation makes socially responsible investments in it’s infrastructure, human resources, products and associated services it shall be deemed socially responsible. 'Charity begins at home', it’s said. Though I am tempted, I restrain myself from elaborating because I know that I am stating my perceived definition to a group of highly knowledgeable and intelligent people. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Sivakumar M. likes this Carlos Viesca Lobatón Carlos Carlos Viesca Lobatón Senior Consultant at Independent Sustainability and CSR Consulting Secure loyalty from internal and external stakeholders by incorporating human development to the value chain of companies Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 6, 2011 Ashie Hirji Ashie Ashie Hirji Director, President @ Asita Informatica Inc (visionary, evangelist, digital activist, next gen) new media @Stephanie Sharma thank you for your insights & input and some of the points you bring have much value to me :) appreciate your inputs. @Jan Pieter ISO 26000 is very interesting I managed to call Geneva to get more information who to contact in Canada and Spain are you directly involved with ISO in anyway or are you a member for Netherlands?? I would be open to speaking with you. Your CV & site is very interesting. (my area truly is end user security - for developing countries within the ICT sector - I find nobody today is addressing end user security or making this a priority for developing countries - neither is the UN.) if you are open I would like to speak with you. best Ashie Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 7, 2011 Jan Pieter Six Jan Pieter Jan Pieter Six Owner, SIX*CSR Consulting Dear Ashie, Please feel free to phone me, but I wonder whether we have a common interest: - I am not directly involved with ISO, but as CSR-consultant I am of course interested in ISO 26000; - ‘End user security’ is an area I am totally unfamiliar with, as with most ICT-related subjects. Kind regards, Jan Pieter Six Jan Pieter Six SIX¬CSR Consulting Burg. Damsstraat 29 5037 NP TILBURG The Netherlands +31 (0)6 1450 6676 jps@sixcsr.nl www.sixcsr.nl Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 7, 2011 Ashie Hirji Ashie Ashie Hirji Director, President @ Asita Informatica Inc (visionary, evangelist, digital activist, next gen) new media Hello Jan, Thank you Jan, I will give you a call and once we speak you will understand my work around end user protection and why it is critical for any org working with children, women, youth especially in developing countries. Many IO are not adopting this policy...and now 'we are starting to see many dangers taking place within the world of cyber social networking sites.. & threats & dangers taking place on many social sites I have been doing case studies since I began my work in 2004... Unfortunately no one was taking me seriously....nor did the UN take me seriously...we are in a totally different ICT age... and many innocent children especially in developing countries will be critical targets... I am not talking about IT level.. I am talking mainly on social networking sites that includes FB and any open funded sites by UN or World Bank social sites......Best Ashie Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 7, 2011 Kym Cadle, CPCC Kym Kym Cadle, CPCC Corporate Culture & Engagement, Social Responsibility | Leadership Development | Professional Coach | Speaker CSR efforts encompass two key areas for our food production co: 1) Sustainability: the long term health of the company, its customers and employees, the environment and the communities where we do business: from ‘farm to table’; and 2) Charitable Giving. Our approach is to direct charitable giving to the causes that matter most to our consumers and employees (which feeds back to #1). Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 10, 2011 Melanie Brooke-Lander, CSR-P Melanie Melanie Brooke-Lander, CSR-P Director of HSE Programs and Corporate Social Responsibility at Baker Hughes Director HSE Programs and Corporate Social Responsibility for Baker Hughes Incorporated. CSR is the consideration of the social and environmental impacts, not only the financial impacts of our business decisions and actions. It encompasses the concept of sustainability and should result in benefits to society, the environment and the company. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 10, 2011 Hiren Devani Hiren Hiren Devani HR Head at New Look Multitrade pvt. ltd A concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and a cleaner environment. A concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 11, 2011 Doriana Scardino Doriana Doriana Scardino MSc Corporate Governance and Business Ethics- looking for new opportunities It is really difficult to give a definition of CSR as it embraces a lot of different areas, however 'CSR is nothing more and nothing less that doing the right thing',while doing business. Companies can conciliate people, planet and profit (triple bottom line ndr) at the same time. It is a change of prespective in the organisation behaviour and in their corporate governance. Approach to Csr changes in respect to organisations and countries For example in my country , Italy due to its enterpreneurial filed consisting of small and Medium enterprises, CSR is part of the way many companies behave, as they can build strong relationship with their community, but at the same time many of them consider the approach to Corporate Social Responsibility, with all its reporting procedures and documenation a hindrance to their own management. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 11, 2011 Francesco Mazzeo Francesco Francesco Mazzeo Responsible Investment Adviser at Sustainalytics CR is the opportunity businesses have to switch from being part of the problem, to being part of the solution, in today's unsustainable society. Assuming the commitment to create social and environmental value (often intangible benefits) in addition to the classic pursuit of maximize economic benefits, make the companies act like a further member of society: they have to be accountable toward all agents affected by theirs activities (or likely to affect them) and assume responsibility for the consequences and impacts of such activities. Accountability actually refers to the right to be heard of all agents involved or affected by the decision making process of the companies, consequently the pursuit of continuance and success cannot be longer achieved at the expense of the rest of society, but must take into account its expectations and concerns. Fundamental principles required to be fulfilled are: transparency: the complete disclosure of information which enables stakeholders to make decisions; completeness: responses must reflect the expectations of the whole set of stakeholders, also the voiceless and include a 'triple bottom line' strategy covering economic, environmental and social topics. continual improvement: strategic approach toward long term, sustainable business which helps society to provide its needs without undermining the essential conditions permitting a healthy, equal, sustainable human development. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 12, 2011 laila laila Elkholy -experienced in Environmental Management &quality systems- CSR,its the responsibility of business in participation in developing communities arround,doing their best in environmental protection Imean contribution to sustainable development. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 12, 2011 Cal Bruns Cal Cal Bruns Owner, Chief innovationist and Creative Director, Matchboxolgy Planning, Managing and measuring wiith the ethos that doing good is good business. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 12, 2011 Christel Maasdorp Christel Christel Maasdorp Project Management I agree with all or most of the definitions proposed above, however, we should be weary that it does not become the privatization of government's responsibility to look out for/look after it's most deprived and socially needy. Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 12, 2011 Joyce P., Adham N. like this Lionel Lyster Lionel Lionel Lyster Managing Director at Double LM Ltd CSR literature and speak is directed primarily towards MNC's, however SME's have a big and more important role to play in this. Research on the irish market finds most interesting results. Lionel Lyster Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 12, 2011 Jakob T. likes this Rodrigo Ortiz Hintz Rodrigo Rodrigo Ortiz Hintz Sustainability Consultant, Social Responsibility Strategy Advisor, Travel Industry Specialist CSR is a long term strategy that business embrace from the top of the administration to all its employees. It should be a voluntary approach to the way the organization carries out its activities. All its practices should be based on natural and cultural conservation for the creation of wealth for local development. Roy Ortiz Cofounder of PURAVERA S.L. (Responsible tourism) Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 13, 2011 Neil Goldman Neil Neil Goldman CEO / Founder of Hotels for Hope Hi Emilia, while it might be too late to give a response I still appreciate the open discussion... CSR is a movement that acknowledges organizations can define their successes in more than just revenue. When social outreach is genuine, it resonates with customers, employees and the global community. Being authentic inspires customer loyalty, improves employee retention, attracts quality talent and gives brands a distinctive advantage. Name: Neil Goldman What We Do: I am the founder of Hotels for Hope. We manage/broker conferences, meetings, events, etc... and turn room night consumption into charitable good. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 17, 2011 David Gandara David David Gandara Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at DB Squared, Inc. There is a great article out right now in the 'Harvard Business Review' ('Creating Shared Value' page 62 to 77, HBR January - February issue. The article compares Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Shared Value. It's a must read Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 17, 2011 Sudeshna M., Val S. like this Chris Coulter Chris Chris Coulter co-CEO, GlobeScan We did some interesting global research asking people across the world how they define CSR. The top four 'definers' of CSR include employee treatment, being honest/ethical/transparent, protecting the environment and creating jobs/supporting the economy (especially in Africa). A large surge in people pointing to honest/ethical/transparent as a defining element of corporate responsibility. Best, Chris Coulter, GlobeScan Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 17, 2011 María José Gálvez Cardona María José María José Gálvez Cardona Responsable de Proyectos de Responsabilidad Social en Bankia CSR is to lead and manage with common sense, the organizations to be sustainable. And that is done taking into account all the impacts generated by the organization for the stakeholders. The key to CSR is not just the results but the way organizations achieve them. Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 19, 2011 amir W., Sushovan C. like this Ian Matthews Ian Ian Matthews Consultant for Business development with Hiwayman Is the collective name for being a responsible organisation. The evidence of positive activity both internally through good governance, frugality of of use natural resource, employee health and wellbeing projects that include shaping the thinking so that internal education and awareness programmes spill in to the wider community. Externally to support initiatives that are seem in the public best interest. I am a consultant working to introduce behavioural change in the work place based upon the research supported premise that alcohol is a major factor in at work issues such as absenteeism and unacceptible behaviour. The success of our programme to modify behaviour impacts the families and friend network of employees and potentially saves lives by encouraging people to avoid alcohol when driving. I would be interested in the format of your presentation and will happily give you some very positive anecdotal evidence of the success we have achieved with the US military. Ian Matthews Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 19, 2011 Imran Pervez (BSc GDL MSc GradICSA) Imran Imran Pervez (BSc GDL MSc GradICSA) Governance Professional and Steering Group Committee Member CSR is everything that goes beyond the minimum of 'Corporate Lip Service' Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 20, 2011 Tina Lindgreen Tina Tina Lindgreen Founder & General Secretary at The Humanitarian Water & Food Award, Executive Coach You may get inspiration from The Water and Food Organisation and our E-book at www.wafaward.org Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 20, 2011 Tina Lindgreen Tina Tina Lindgreen Founder & General Secretary at The Humanitarian Water & Food Award, Executive Coach My full name is Tina Lindgreen. I am Founder and General Secretary of The Water and Food Organisation www.waterandfoodaward.org Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 20, 2011 Tina Lindgreen Tina Tina Lindgreen Founder & General Secretary at The Humanitarian Water & Food Award, Executive Coach We have successfully designed and managed a CSR Business Case Seminar. WAF's work with facilitating partnerships between NGO's and Social Entrepreneurs and corporations in order to develop and implement CSR sustainable business case is (win-win) is in progress. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 20, 2011 Ron Strauss Ron Ron Strauss Brand Guide for Fresh Ideas and Renewed Growth. Product Launch Reviews. Measureable Results. Sune: I would define freedom of expression and information as a 'right.' Many nations guarantee this right to their citizens via a bill of rights. Guaranteeing this right, and upholding it in the courts, is a way that countries support the common good for their citizenry. Companies place themselves in conflict and open themselves to criticisms when they do business with countries that do not support this basic right (like China). The size of the Chinese market is a powerful lure and for competitive reasons it is extremely difficult to opt out. The hope may be that, over time, by engaging with China they can influence policy and move the leadership towards embracing basic rights such as freedom of expression. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 20, 2011 Gabe Gabe Crognale Environmental Management and Sustainability Practitioner I recently had an unfavorable experience with a so-called 'socially responsible' company and so your thread is very apropos and fresh in my mind as I file a complaint with the SEC about this company's actions. The lesson learned - for a company to call itself truly CSR, it needs to 'walk the talk' in every aspect and detail. Even more so in what it writes down in company documents, such as proxy statements, and what it states on its website as transparent and socially accountable. As far as accountability and full disclosure and transparency, it may be one thing to be misleading with the public, but this issue takes on a whole new dimension when the company refuses to provide a shareholder specific information related to proxy statements. That is why I have filed a complaint with the SEC regarding this company's failure to disclose specific information related to how the company conducts shareholder meetings. What is worse - this company is among the top 100 companies named by CR Magazine! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 20, 2011 Sune Skadegaard Thorsen Sune Sune Skadegaard Thorsen Founder and CEO, GLOBAL CSR Dear Ron Indeed freedom of expression and information is a human right; and defined by our universal agreements - named the International Bill of Human Rights. Indeed, we se corporations being shamed when violating rights; be it in the States (e.g. union busting violating the freedom of association) or in China (the same right). Recent UN studies find that corporations in all sectors and in all parts of the world potentially may influence all the rights negatively ... no states has yet implemented full protection of all rights from corporate harm - China have challenges and so does European countries, USA, Japan etc. - however, China politically supports the full International Bill of Human Rights, whereas USA has been quite reluctant to support (and implement) the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Human Rights as a social construct forms the core of social sustainability - human rights fulfilled (and in in abundance) would create the ideal markets for businesses to thrive. In other words - they are ideal to use as framework for both corporate compliance and corporate contributions to sustainable social development. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights - adopted in the UN 4 days ago - outline the basic expectations for business to manage their responsibility to respect human rights (compliance). They are relevant for all business activities no matter where in the world such activities are undertaken. In essence a company should not be able to claim that it is socially responsible if it does not - as a minimum - manage its impact on human rights in all its relations. All the best Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 20, 2011 Ron Strauss Ron Ron Strauss Brand Guide for Fresh Ideas and Renewed Growth. Product Launch Reviews. Measureable Results. Dear Sune: Thanks for widening my perspective. I didn't mean to pick on China, I was using them as an example. I should have/could have used many examples. What, in your opinion, are the various barriers to states and corporations stepping up and meeting the challenge to 'protect, respect and remedy' business and human rights? What mechanism, if any, can compel companies to comply? The U.N., while it can set standards based on research, such as the International Bill of Rights, but has no power to enforce those rights, other than the bully pulpit. The main mechanisms that will enforce these rights will vary widely by country, depending on the laws of the land, and the ability of citizens to bring their grievances to a court of law. Human rights abuses are prosecuted vigorously in the U.S. through, for example, our tort system. Since the U.S. has the highest per capita number of lawyers, there is access to representation and to the court system to ajudicate alleged violations. Sadly, corporations deep pockets and ability to string out these cases for years, discourages many prospective plaintifs. I can only imagine the barriers to bringing a legal complaint against a company violating human rights in China (Ooops!). In addition to the legal system, there is the court of public opinion. The internet and social media provides transparency and the ability to publicize basic human rights violations. It remains to be seen if the intersection of marketplace forces and social media approbation leads to widespread compliance on the part of corporations. My own view is that the real culprit in the lack of adaption of vigorous compliance with basic human rights is an accounting code that fails to assess costs based on compliance with basic human rights. This, in turn, serves to reward firms that are in violation of basic human rights by distorting their true cost structure, and rewarding a flawed business model. Investors are beginning to get more insightful about this area. Finally, another potential remedy would be to show how firms, when they violate basic human rights, and are caught doing so, will suffer harm to their reputation and therefore to their brand value. Since brands are a significant part of most firms' market value, as an intangible asset, this may be a way to stimulate compliance. What do you think? Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 21, 2011 Nahid Montashir QUB Nahid Montashir Nahid Montashir QUB Ethical Compliance Manager at Debenhams Retail plc, UK This is Montashir Nahid from Belfast, UK and currently pursuing my MSc in ‘Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)’ at the Queen’s University of Belfast. Please see my comment below: Since the start of modern CSR movement in the 1960s, academics, professionals, corporate leaders and relevant personnel were not able to reach a common definition of CSR till to date. Amaeshi and Adi (2007) stated that ‘There are as many definitions of CSR as there are writers'. Then McElhaney (2008) states that, if CSR is to be treated as a part of an effective corporate strategy, then its definition would be, by definition, unique to each firm based on that company’s objectives, risks, opportunities, and competencies. Thanks, Nahid M Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 25, 2011 Sandrine Teyssonneyre Sandrine Sandrine Teyssonneyre International Relations/emerging markets professional I like short definitions, and with business they work best. CSR is shaping and managing the impact of the corporation on its global environment. 'Global' means both worldwide and multi-disciplinary. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 25, 2011 Iminabo Abbey-Kalio ICSAGrad Iminabo Abbey-Kalio Iminabo Abbey-Kalio ICSAGrad Project Administrator Nigeria LNG SAP HCM Re-implementation Project CSR is conducting business in a value adding and sustainable way; considering the society and environment when making business decisions. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate June 25, 2011 Angela Conte likes this Anthony Ochieng Ogwanga Anthony Ochieng Anthony Ochieng Ogwanga Tourism Coordinator at RURAL TOURISM NETWORK KENYA CSR - A concept whereby corporations integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with stakeholders on a voluntary basis. Alot still needs to be done on CSR in Africa... All the best, Tony. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 1, 2011 Jill Poet Jill Jill Poet Helping SMEs become more profitable by embracing ethics and values at the very core of their business operations. We refer to CSR as responsible business and this is our definition: 'A responsible business operates efficiently and ethically; meets and exceeds legislation; and always considers its impact on people (the workforce, the community and society at large) and the environment.' As you can see from my profile, I'm Jill Poet from the Organisation for Responsible Businesses. At basic level we are a membership organisation specifically for SMEs and focusing on the CSR agenda. We have also launched a new UK standard called The Responsible Business Standard. Just Google to find out more!! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 1, 2011 Andrea Andrea Mau Manager, Guest Experience at FRHI Hotels & Resorts At my workplace CSR/sustainability covers the following areas: customers & stakeholders, environment, our team and the community It means that our impact on all four of them is positive and they should be considered in all our actions and daily business operations Maybe information about ISO 26 000 can be helpful - http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/management_and_leadership_standards/social_responsibility/sr_iso26000_overview.htm Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 2, 2011 Ashie Hirji Ashie Ashie Hirji Director, President @ Asita Informatica Inc (visionary, evangelist, digital activist, next gen) new media We are a group of African born inviduals /social busines/tech activist.... we believe in creating a new kind of cyber revolution. We are working on a cool project....we are looking for strong partnerships with CSR organizations. If you believe in ethics in social business follow our work. VIA .Read My Lips LIve say's SHOUT IT OUT - make companies accountable when they are not being 'ethical' we are in the midst of hosting a conference in East Africa the event takes place end of July - we are .looking for strong corporate companies to support our work & what we are doing within the end user security protection...over the internet & social networking site... porn is becoming the BIGGEST problem and issue....the dangers are taking place over many social sites.......if you know ETHICAL corporate companies in Africa /EUROPE/GLOBE .... who may wish to join our work and become one of our sponsor - contact me -follow my work via @mymulticast Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 3, 2011 elena bonacini elena elena bonacini Chairwoman You Able a company doing something good, without profit. especially for a company producing medical equipment, csr can have a great meaning, allowing to do something good without profit but also without demaging the profit side Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 4, 2011 Umberto Musumeci Umberto Umberto Musumeci President at Sport4Society To avoid misunderstanding with philantropia and others, I would like to underline that CSR means that every company must take all the responsibilities for the consequences (direct or indirect) of their business behaviours along the entire line for the creation of the value product, services and so on). This must be extended to the subcontractors' activity control, in the area of all working conditions, incuding but not limited to salaries, union's rights, workers dignity, overtime work, freedom of movement, etcetera. Moreover, CSR should oblige Companies to give better conditions than the legal ones if the legal ones are not sufficient to the worker and his/her family to conduct adecent life. The trend however is sometime to reduce CSR to just philantropy or donations NGO's. Which is Ok, but its' not enough. It is a sort of 'double face company' ( f.i.) the one which uses directly or indirectly children work and at the same time makes donations for creating schools in Africa.... The real problem is the definition of the 'sphere of company's influence' (as the work of Prof. Ruggie at the UN HHH.RR. committee is trying to determine). Till where a Company can really and effetcively intervene in the subcontracting production line? The legal answers (contratc, state laws, are not the right ones in my opinion). Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 4, 2011 Harsha Mukherjee Harsha Harsha Mukherjee Entrepreneur | Philanthropist Great Discussion! @Sune: I agree that CSR has to be mandatory to some extent, but look at the case study of India. In India the government tried to make it mandatory that 2% of profit generated should be given in CSR activities but it had to retract back due to the opposition and concluded that it has to be voluntary with minimal constraints. In many countries it is just taken as philanthropic activity whereby, CSR is much wider than Philanthropy and is a super set of it. CSR according to me: Every company should fulfill its duties not only towards its stakeholders and immediate beneficiaries but also undertake the charge of ameliorate the area where their operations, productions, distribution, consumption, et al is taking place. Name: Harsha Mukherjee Social Entrepreneur ('Ekjaa')/Researcher Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 4, 2011 Jyothirmayi C. likes this Rajshree Rajshree Shukla Principal Partner, Nouvelle Idee & Technology Advisors CSR is a perception. A company is perceived to be socially responsible if it offers its products/service at good prices, and respects and gives back to its employees, community and environment. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 4, 2011 Shimunza Gibson K. Shimunza Gibson Shimunza Gibson K. BUSINESS CONSULTANT CSR incorporates the community, environmental and socio-economic factors in a society. It is a concept that considers an organisation as a vital stakeholder and citizen whilst looking at optimum practices (affecting people and profit in our planet). Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 5, 2011 Clare Williamson Clare Clare Williamson Transforming consciousness by identifying the best focus for social responsibility efforts & supporting measurability Why do we have to define anything? Isn't responsible business good business and do you think we get lost a little in buzz words and definitions? Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 5, 2011 Shimunza Gibson K. Shimunza Gibson Shimunza Gibson K. BUSINESS CONSULTANT Clare in an ideal world responsible business is good business. Please watch ' The Corporation'. Adopting a laissez-faire approach would be fantastic, however not all companies will play fair. Hence the need to have a minimum agreeable standard as a form of utilitarianism (looking out for the greater mass). People, Planet and Profit. Triple bottom line. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 5, 2011 Jess Backofen Jess Jess Backofen National Vice President at Friends of the Children CSR is when a company commits to investing in the communities it serves in order to have a meaningful purpose as well as grow deeper trust and loyalty amongst customers, employees and leadership. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 5, 2011 Pareena Prayukvong Pareena Pareena Prayukvong Director at The NETWORK Totally agree 'CSR is a commitment and it shows how business doing its business in respect of the triple bottom-lines. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 6, 2011 Shimunza Gibson K. Shimunza Gibson Shimunza Gibson K. BUSINESS CONSULTANT Indeed Pareena, it is a challenging concept. Hopefully we will see more businesses genuinely incorporate CSR and not just use it to bolster their corporate image (by paying lip service to it and when crunch time comes negating people and the planet). Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 6, 2011 Jeff Townsend Jeff Jeff Townsend Secretary/ Founder at APPG Extractive Industry CSR is the determined actions taken by business to ensure their social and environmental ethics and morals create a neutral or positive outcome for local communities, individuals and/or environment whilst not impinging on the company's ability to hit designated financial goals by operating in the aforementioned location. A rather long sentence but ultimately to me that is CSR as succinctly as possible. Unfortunately CSR in its very nature is viewed as a responsible reaction to business operations. Hopefully one day it will be seen as a core part of business. Perhaps one day it will be Corporate Social Operations (insert word of choice to represent core action) instead. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 7, 2011 Shimunza Gibson K. Shimunza Gibson Shimunza Gibson K. BUSINESS CONSULTANT I concur with your statements, it will be excellent if CSR actively becomes a core part of business. Your definition of CSR is comprehensive too. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 7, 2011 Adrian L Jones Adrian Adrian L Jones Bizitalk - Helping Small and Micro Businesses gain the exposure they deserve The first thing any business has to do before it delves into all the admirable activities listed above to increase their CSR profile is to pay their bills promptly. If you don't pay your suppliers on time how can you call yourself ethical or corporately responsible? Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 7, 2011 Adham N. likes this Tugba Gunn Sen Tugba Gunn Tugba Gunn Sen Production Planning │Supply Chain │ FMCG │Think Tanks It is impossible to give a universal definition to CSR. For some entities, CSR is purely a voluntary activity outside their main business activities which are actually to make profit, whereas for non-profit or social enterprises it is embedded in their mission and vision and believe in their cause. Depending on the nature of business, entities exist for different reasons, which may have completely different roles, outcome and thus different responsibilities. It is subjective and even some people may regard CSR as being economically or legally responsible which is fundamental for a business to survive, as well as taking care of your employees. @Adrian - I agree with you. The core problem comes when companies do not have enough information about how to integrate CSR in the value chain. HOW do you measure the benefits and returns from doing CSR? The effort diffuses to the community as benefit which is good but the company do not benefit itself and then might become a cost. Doesn't it then become irresponsible to its investors? If so it must then transfer the CSR cost to the society and consumers again must pay for it. That is irresponsible too so WITHOUT good information you cannot do CSR effectively. I am currently doing research in this area in small business enterprises and managerial perception. I must say that outcomes differ and NO one sees CSR in the same way. Its too subjective due to cultural and personal values, nature of business and depends on which industry it is. @ Sune Skadegaard, you touch upon the dilemma of business ethics. Bribery such as 'gifts' is a cultural thing. should the companies follow the concept of utilitarianism, making cost benefit analysis? Sometimes it can have essential means of developing infrastructure or even survival in african communities due to economical unequality but equally it kills the moral fabric of the society and affect corporate repuation. @Emilia. So as above, you will find it challenging to find a holistic definition in my opinion. In particular bussinesses act in different industries, thus may not be responsible for the same isses and dont address things in the same way. What you need to do is to encourage entrepreneurship and very close network with local communities for best outcome as possible. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 7, 2011 Shimunza Gibson K. Shimunza Gibson Shimunza Gibson K. BUSINESS CONSULTANT It is fantastic that we have a forum where we can all share our perspectives on a plethora of issues. Some African countries are actively engaged in eradicating corruption (e.g Anti-Corruption Commission in Zambia). Poverty and Morality are two different concepts, in some instances they may have a link and in others they will not. Businesses can choose the approaches that suit them best. Some advocated for a triple bottom line approach. My understanding is a number of people have offered their viewpoints on CSR and I think the majority of us are better for it. In fact clearly what has been recognised is that CSR is challenging for most businesses. Furthermore based on the various comments, there are numerous definitions for CSR. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 8, 2011 Mosharaf Hossain Mosharaf Mosharaf Hossain Program Coordinator- Youth Development at ChildFund India CSR is sum total of social, economical, ethical, environmental and philanthropic responsibilities of a corporate entity... Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 8, 2011 Geoff Cline Geoff Geoff Cline General Counsel at The Light Group CSR is doing business (or operating any entity) in a manner that understands who all of the stakeholders are (present and likely future) and balances the interests of profit(s), stakeholders and society generally, while doing the least harm to the environment/planet. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 8, 2011 laila laila Elkholy -experienced in Environmental Management &quality systems- CSR is responsibility of an organization for the impacts of its decisions and activities on society and the environment , through transparent and ethical behavior that contributes to sustainable development , including health and the welfare of society; takes into account the expectations of stakeholders.CSR is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behavior and is integrated throughout the organization and practised in its relationships. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 8, 2011 Clare Williamson Clare Clare Williamson Transforming consciousness by identifying the best focus for social responsibility efforts & supporting measurability @laila - I really like that definition, it is less linear than others I have read and I think that is important because social responsibility is anything but linear! @Emilia - you certainly have some food for thought ay! ;0) Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 9, 2011 Jitesh Kumar Panda Jitesh Kumar Jitesh Kumar Panda Independent Development Consultant In the short run, CSR implies 'Contributing to Society' i.e. beyond generating profit. . In the long run, CSR may refer to ' Promoting Sustainable Business' i.e. CSR as integral part of business functions. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 9, 2011 Patty Tobin Patty Patty Tobin President, Tobin Communications, Editorial & Media Relations: Healthcare, Finance, CSR, Authors, Consumer, Tech & More Raising the profile of an issue / social problem through press events and strategic investments. (Yes it could assuage corporate 'guilt' or offset negative environmental impacts). The investment will have value to the communities and nonprofits served, and be part of an ongoing commitment of time, resources, and funds -- as part of its regional, national and global mission. (I was part of a program like this). Patty Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 17, 2011 Moses Gathira Moses Moses Gathira Project Officer at Deworm the World C.S.R is to me defined as a companies obligation to give back the community as it applies to religious groups in form of tithe, zakat and many more. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 18, 2011 Per Grankvist Per Per Grankvist Writer, speaker, author Check out John Elkingtons interesting piece on the difference between sustainability and CSR / Shared value etc. John Elkington @volansjohn on family businesses and #sustainability http://ow.ly/5GRpF Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 18, 2011 Elaine Cohen [elaineco@netvision.net.il] Elaine Cohen Elaine Cohen [elaineco@netvision.net.il] CEO at BeyondBusiness CSR is a way of doing business which supports long term sustainable success through risk mitigation and development of new business opportunities in a way which considers, improves and transparently accounts for impacts on people, society and the environment. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 22, 2011 Jill Poet Jill Jill Poet Helping SMEs become more profitable by embracing ethics and values at the very core of their business operations. Love your definition Elaine. The number of different perspectives in this discussion is interesting isn't it? Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 23, 2011 Elaine Cohen [elaineco@netvision.net.il] Elaine Cohen Elaine Cohen [elaineco@netvision.net.il] CEO at BeyondBusiness hi Jill, thanks... there are many different and interesting thoughts in this discussion, though while I agree that values are often at the root of good CSR, I do not subscribe to the view that CSR is mainly about 'giving back' or 'being good'. I see CSR as a business strategy which is an enabler of business success but requires business to be accountable for their impacts. elaine Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 23, 2011 Ron Strauss likes this Ashie Hirji Ashie Ashie Hirji Director, President @ Asita Informatica Inc (visionary, evangelist, digital activist, next gen) new media CRS the big topic - I am organizing a conference in Uganda with several women & youth leaders in Africa - any one here who may have contacts for CSR business you believe would be interested to sponsor or join our vision - let me know, this is our first campaign...taking place on August 2-3 2011 (we are a group of change leaders working towards a new model for inclusion for collaboration - where $$ meet talent Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 23, 2011 Dan Bliss Dan Dan Bliss Corporate Affairs and Communications Director at JTI Pretty much in line with Ron and Rhonda... Sustainable CSR is a strategy and set of activities that positively impacts a company's external social/physical environment while also bringing a positive return on CSR investment to the company. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 23, 2011 Debabrata Mandal Debabrata Debabrata Mandal Executive Director at Institute for Sustainable Initiatives-ISI CSR is the developmental process where corporate and society will own, and mutually agreed upon.. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 24, 2011 Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is concerned with treating the key stakeholders of a company or institution ethically or in a responsible manner. ‘Social' includes economic and environmental responsibility issues both inside and outside the company or institution. CSR, or CR, is a process whose main aim is to create sustainability. [Michael Hopkins in 'The Planetary Bargain' first published Palgrave,1999] Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 29, 2011 Imran Pervez (BSc GDL MSc GradICSA) Imran Imran Pervez (BSc GDL MSc GradICSA) Governance Professional and Steering Group Committee Member Dear Michael Hopkins..it is so refreshing to find you are on linkedin..i have used the quote you have just referred to in my dissertation including the thoughts of Michael Jenson on value maximisation trade offs and Archie carolls views on corporate aristocracy and the CSR pyramid..I studied your planetary bargain book a great deal on my msc and found it truly engaging enlightening..i would very much like to find out more of your views and experiences to gain further knowledge..if that would be okay please let me know.. Kind Regards Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 29, 2011 Jill Poet Jill Jill Poet Helping SMEs become more profitable by embracing ethics and values at the very core of their business operations. Michael, my concern with your definition is the inclusion of the phrase 'key stakeholders.' Whilst that definition can and should be quite broad, it could also be construed quite differently thereby implying that only those directly connected with the business are 'key stakeholders.' Taking this further, others might assume that activities far along the supply chain are not directly connected and therefore should not be considered within the remit of CSR. This could theoretically include issues such as sweat shops, child labour, illegally sourced timber and a multitude of other unacceptable behaviours far along that supply chain. As I assume this connotation is not your intention, can I respectfully ask that this phraseology is adapted to be more explicit. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 29, 2011 Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment Imran and Jill, many thanks your comments and kind words. The definition I presented in its shortened form is one that I have discussed year after year with my graduate students and professors at the University of Geneva. In fact, as Jill rightly points out, all the words are 'loaded' which is why we spend over 20 hours (one module) in the course de-constructing it, plus a further 20 hours on stakeholder identfication and dialogue and a further 20 hours on supply chains. A brief discussion on de-construction of my definition (in turn based on work by mainly US academicians, Donna Wood, Ed Freeman and Mitchell) can be found on my website as well as hundreds of other articles on CSR...see www.mhcinternational.com Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 30, 2011 Hugo Skoppek Hugo Hugo Skoppek I help companies to become more sustainable CSR is when a company mitigates negative its impacts and unleashes the potential of people beyond the boundaries of its own organization. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 30, 2011 Debabrata Mandal Debabrata Debabrata Mandal Executive Director at Institute for Sustainable Initiatives-ISI it is very nformative and encouraging one.. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate July 31, 2011 Babasaheb Jogdand Babasaheb Babasaheb Jogdand UGC - Junior Research Fellow at Department of Tourism Administration Dr.B.A.M.UNiversity Auranagabad Corporate Social Responsibility is the responsibity of the organisation to behave ethically & socially improving the lifestyle of thier employees, without harming the cultural & natural environment of the society. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 2, 2011 Patricia Bacuros Patricia Patricia Bacuros Director, Gifts-in-Kind for Humanitarian Programs and Emergency Response I am coming into this conversation a bit late and wonder if we will ever be able to define CSR. What I find fascinating is that there is little mention of the non-profit sector or cooperation and coordination which is needed before any type of CSR can actually occur. I think companies are looking at new ways to give - reasons are vast - but the old way of giving is no longer working for many comanies and organizations. I am coming from the NGO point of view and now want to learn how it's done on the corproate side. Companies must be strategic and seem to need the non-profit to advance their cause. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 8, 2011 Bruce Summers, CVA Bruce Bruce Summers, CVA Social Collaboration Analyst, World Bank Group and Personal Historian at Summoose Tales Hmmm... I think Corporate Social Responsibility is about vision and partnership, supply and demand, and requires 'skin in the game'. Vision and partnership - sometimes it is an individual employee volunteer who visions a way to personally and professionally engage and partner with a community organization. Sometimes it is group of employee volunteers who vision that they can make a difference partnering together to address a community need. Sometimes it is a corporate leader listening to stakeholders - employees, nonprofits, peers and visioning a way the company can partner with nonprofits and other stakeholders to make a larger impact. Supply and demand - Sometimes it is a retiree, a spouse, a connection, or a nonprofit leader, employee or volunteer who has a vision for how time, talent, and resources can be utilized in partnership with a company and its workforce to address short term and long term community needs, a vision to channel resources to increase reach and achieve better outcomes and impact. The nonprofit or key catalyst/partner volunteer needs to create space and build the support framework to create demand for utilizing time, talent and resources. This is especially true if the organization want to utilized Pro-Bono or skills based employee volunteers or volunteer consultants. Without the 'demand' side of the equation, it is much more challenging for the corporate/ 'supply' side to plug in resources. The idea situation is for the nonprofit organization to be thoughtful and strategic, think past just the fundraising element, think through employee engagement and strategic volunteering, utilize vision - where do we want to be in 3 years, how do we want to get there; what roles can existing employees and volunteers play; how do we create a win-win-win opportunity for partnering with corporations?? Skin-in-the Game - sometimes the trickiest part of CSR is ensuring that each partner the corporation, the nonprofit, potential clients and other key stakeholders all have 'skin-in-the Game' an integrated win-win-win approach, connected to a 3 year vision seems to work best vs. a we-they scenario. All sides can learn from the other, 'together' more impact can be achieved. Organizations need to supply a 'relationships' manager, corporations need to supply a 'relationships' manager, joint planning, oversight and dialogue fosters a stronger partnership and often leads to better odds to achieve vision and impact. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 8, 2011 Emily Davies Emily Emily Davies Head of HSEA - Sustainability and Environment Why do we use the term CSR? To me this puts added emphasis on the social pillar of the tripple bottom line. Why not simply CR - defined as a corpoates commitment towards sustainable development (of which most commonly can be defined by the Brundtland report). My point is, if we have CSR - then why shouldn't we have CEnvR (environmental) or CEcR (economic). It isn't holistic has the potential to cause confusion, on an agenda which often struggles to hit the board room. Comments? Em Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 9, 2011 Steph Sharma Steph Steph Sharma Strategy, Lead The Difference | Adjunct Faculty, Bainbridge Graduate Institute Emily, Interesting thoughts and great challenge to the dialogue of trying to get more consistent, as well as accurate in our language so we can all move forward from the same 'space' and with energy to address common areas! I too have been struggling with how CSR encompasses sustainability which has from my learning included environmental, ethics, safety, economic (profit to corp and community). In their HBR article written in 2006, Michael Porter and Mark Kramer provide a simple model (which is appealing) for the range of depth/type by which corporations integrate or get involved with society. They hold that corporate involvement can range from 'Generic Social Impacts (Responsive CSR), Value Chain Social Impacts (mitigation of harm), and Social Dimension of Competitive Context (Strategic CSR) They don't debate that this umbrella of work be called something other than CSR, but they do help to delineate the range of activities comprised but more importantly that a) social opportunities be tailored to the business itself and mapped accordingly, b) that the social perspective must be integrated into the company's core frameworks that are used to understand the competition for the guidance of business strategy. Please try to get access to the article 'Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility'. While this area of research and application has certainly evolved since 2006, I found the foundational concepts to be very applicable and created structure for understanding and communication. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 9, 2011 Sandy B. likes this Geoff Cline Geoff Geoff Cline General Counsel at The Light Group Having watched this thread with great interest, including proffering a definition for 'corporate social responsibility,' I am not surprised that there is a broad range of definitions and disagreements among like-minded, intelligent folks on the topic. To me, CSR/corporate social responsibility is fraught with insurmountable problems, not the least of which is that it isn't inspiring and can't be understood on its own terms. My colleagues and I at the CSR Group LLC have been developing offerings around a different kind of CSR...Conscious Stakeholder Relationships™--Yes, it still has too many syllables. But Conscious Stakeholder Relationships does a better job of describing the essential characteristics of responsible, sustainable business practices. Taken as a whole, the phrase underscores the importance of being aware of, thinking about and acting on the connections and mutual dependence of the multiple stakeholders that a business has. Individually, each of the words provides guidance to leaders, employees and board members. 'Conscious' reminds us to be explicit and intentional in our activities and our communications; to avoid sending unintended messages by what we do or say; to make sure that those we are speaking to or working with understand what we want; to assure to the highest degree possible that outcomes are what we planned for and expected AND to be able to explain with clarity when the unexpected occurs (knowing that the unexpected will occur some times). 'Stakeholder' refers to the broadest understanding of the impacts of business activities. Employees, shareholders, customers, vendors, suppliers, communities, activists, government regulators and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may be primary, but they are hardly the only stakeholders of a business. Competitors and similar businesses, geographic regions, the ocean(s), rivers, and lakes (i.e. water), trees and other natural resources, air are also stakeholders of every business enterprise. 'Relationships' reminds us of the interwoven connections in a business; how a decision in sourcing relates to and impacts a region half way around the world; how a color choice relates to environmental impacts; how market conditions and/or world events color our thinking—short term and long term; how the world, and good decision making, is rarely 'either or' and is more often 'both and.' Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 9, 2011 Sandy B. likes this Ini Onuk Ini Ini Onuk CEO/Lead Consultant at ThistlePraxis Consulting Limited Been reading with great interest. I want to agree with Patricia Bacuros that more often than not, in the discourse on CSR, we forget the critical role of the NGOS. I also think a careful analysis of the role of each stakeholder might help identity a more encompassing definition of what CSR really is. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 9, 2011 Imran Pervez (BSc GDL MSc GradICSA) Imran Imran Pervez (BSc GDL MSc GradICSA) Governance Professional and Steering Group Committee Member Stephanie i agree with your perspective..I have just read the porter and kramer 2006..csr in my view should be implemented and embedded taking account of firms organisational stratrgy..i think jenson (2001) captures it in his paper on value maximisation..in that to get the best out of csr trade offs are required the optimum balance is needed.. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 9, 2011 Cynthia Cynthia Roomes Community Development Manager at The London Community Foundation CSR - an holistic approach. Corporate = the entire organization is involved and engaged in the process. It is facilitated and empowered by structures and hierachies which enables contributions to CSR without the threat bullying or intimidation. There is a whistle blowing policy to protect the innocent, it is implemented effectively and monitored regularly. The desire for social economic and environmental improvement and change is welcomed at every level within the organization, and the board / executive / management make every effort to create an organizational culture which ensures that this is the case in real time - for the staff team, project suppliers, service providers, beneficiaries and end users alike. Social = the mission is to achieve a complimentary matrix of ethics and enterprise whereby by entrepreneurs, businesses and organizations care about the consequences of their activities, and their impact on communities, society, the economy and the environment. Responsibilty = proactive in making use of best practice information advice and guidance to ensure that there are clear and transparent pathways to challenge and correct bad practice in corporate behaviours. The rewards have to be worth it when organizations get CSR right, and conversely the sanctions have to be published and appropriate when organizations get CSR wrong. There are several instances where this approach to CSR could have been employed: The financial services authority should have responded robustly to what was happening in the banking sector well in advance of the collapse in the global economy; The health service commission should have addressed the failings in the care of the vulnerable and at risk long before that damning and disturbing documentary on the BBC. Bigger better and more effective: Corporate sponsorship and mentoring of SMEs Codes of conduct based on sectors and industries Quality Kite Marks - properly promoted and resourced Annual award ceremonies for exemplars High profile televised lectures debates and presentations (online too). Achieving accountability: This group discussion and posts offer many examples of outcomes which are part of the bigger CSR picture - but in those famous first and last words 'its just not good enough - more has to be done'. Annual CSR reports on the successes and failures of every major corporation, charity, social enterprise and public sector organization should be a minimum requirement, accessible and available in the public domain, including digital and multi-lingual platforms. International Governance: Intergovernmental working groups on issues of social economic and environmental concern that go beyond the often inconsequential wranglings occuring in G8-20 summits. CSR must ride tandem with profit making and economic growth - if China got a grip on this we would be celebrating an economic fairy tale come true, rather than wondering with deep concern how that country is going to disperse the clouds of toxic waste which are a blight on our planet visible from outer space. A Case Study: Whilst I commend Bill Gates on his health programme interventions - I looked on with discomfort and incredulity when I saw the unsanitary conditions people went back to live in after they received their vaccinations. The same conditions that led to their health problems in the first place. Long term sustainable change for better and for good -requires more time and money to be spent on creating infrastructure to manage the disposal of human waste - not a quick fix but a critical mass nonetheless. CSR is the bigger picture - it goes beyond boundaries of party politics because if we (as a community of socially responsible people) do not get it right and challenge more robustly those who get it wrong, soon there will be nothing left to be socially responsible for. So best wishes and congratulations to all those who are 'out there' doing something about it... CAR Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 30, 2011 Katheryne Molina Medina likes this Robert Kramer Robert Robert Kramer Strategic planning, business development and account management executive It means delivering honest value and benefit to customers, employees, investors, the local communities in which it resides, the countries in which it does business, and ultimately, the planet and all of its inhabitants. Corporations should be cognizant of their negative impact and seek to minimize it while maximizing its benefits. Ultimately, most companies find that CSR is good business. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 30, 2011 rajib mohanty rajib rajib mohanty JSLPS, SRLM at Jharkhand State Livelihoods Promotion Society CSR is an integrated development with a source of profit making. It needs to be interwoven with other development porgram so that it can ahieve results quickly. It is also a long-term commitment for addressing the development issues rather than piecemeal approach. I am Rajib Mohanty, email- rajib.mohanty @yahoo.co.in, Ph. No- 094379-65125 Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 31, 2011 Suzanne van de Raadt Suzanne Suzanne van de Raadt Global Communications Manager at Alcoa Foundation CSR is/should be an integral part of an organization’s business strategy. It is about being transparent, ethical and at the same time creating value for the organization. This leads to positive engagements with stakeholders in the organization’s ecosystem, including shareholders, employees, influentials, partners and the community. Ultimately it’s about trust. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 31, 2011 Lisa Balfe Lisa Lisa Balfe Policy Researcher at RCT Homes Ltd. I have found comfort with the definitions provided. Many of the definitions are quite loose - philisophical almost, but really enlightening and will help me to develop an approach for our company. The difficuly for me in terms of turning such a definition into something that can guide our activity is an entirely different matter. There are two bits of the jigsaw (in terms of taking and agreed definition forward and developing in into a strategy). First, in order to come up with a definition that fits with what we do and to whom we do it to (people, environment, economy, community) we would need to be clear about the impacts that we create. Does everyone do this or is their CSR a kind of value principle that is part of their business strategy but is not action planned, evidence based, empirically understood? Would an organisation need to undertake a CSR Impact assessment? Second, I am interested in CSR enabling, so other companies that operate in our locality have the opportunitiy to contribute to the wellbeing of the communities that theiy impact upon. Does anyone have a deinition, set of concepts around CSR enabling? Sorry if this isn't really coming up with anything to add to the definition, but I think most of it has already been said. Excellent thread by the way! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 31, 2011 rajib mohanty rajib rajib mohanty JSLPS, SRLM at Jharkhand State Livelihoods Promotion Society When CSR is in the area of affected by the Corporate------that it should be household economic security. When CSR for other areas that it needs to be interwoven with the of holistic development strategy of the area as prescribed in the perspective plan of the area rather than in isolation. CSR must be a profit making strategy along with development of PAPs. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate August 31, 2011 jalaluddin khan jalaluddin jalaluddin khan Director at icda ngo No corporate sector can strengthen itselef without people. Unfortunately, the corporate sector use to emphasise upon the development of its employee only under CSR, overlooking the people, who are the soul. Recently, some of them are talking about periphery development with a view to assuaging the hurt feeling of the people. Why can't a corporate sector part with certain profit to the development of people and thereby becoming a part of development at large. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate September 1, 2011 Brad Bennett Brad Brad Bennett Manager, Global Compliance at Chico's FAS Inc. I agree Ashie, some great attributes are identified in these posts. I support the triple bottom line (TBL) approach and consider CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility an unfortunate term only because it can be self limiting. I favor CR or Corporate Responsibility as the defining term because it is not constrained to only one pillar (i.e. social) within the TBL framework. It is interesting to observe the rich variety of attributes that people assign to this TLA (three letter acronym). The dictionaries may never be able to include this term for this very reason! The truth of the matter is that I could probably live with any of these suggestions and am more concerned with how we organize ourselves around them. I nearly always encounter the 'us/them' paradigm when this type of discussion comes up. My concern is that we become polarized to one side or the other in this model and spend the available energy in debate rather than problem solving. For the moment lets set aside the debate around whether or not corporations should exist and just accept the reality that they do. One of the boundary conditions we must accept is any profit a corporation generates does not belong to civil society, and the profit doesn’t belong to the corporation either. Shareholders own the profit and the corporation is obligated by its fiduciary responsibilities (there’s that word again) to do it’s very best to increase shareholder wealth. The statement that is actually closer to the truth is that corporations are obligated to not just increase but maximize shareholder wealth. When shareholders assign value to the pillars of TBL (economic, social, and environmental), the corporation is obligated to channel resources towards those pillars. Some companies already figured this out and are redefining themselves along this path (i.e. GE & 'Ecomagination'), and others are incorporating these into fundamental product strategies (although I think I might wait awhile before I buy a seat on a solar airplane). I believe the common thread (or at least a common thread) that runs through these companies is that the 'us/them' paradigm has been replaced by the 'we' paradigm. This is the type of work environment that enables the innovation and risk taking necessary for sustainable growth. Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate September 2, 2011 rajib mohanty, Lisa B. like this Steve Carley Steve Steve Carley Manager, Environmental Sustainability Great discussion and great definitions. My definition is that 'CSR is a strategic management tool used to assess an organization's non-financial performance'. If accounting is used to assess an organization's financial performance, then CSR ought to be used to assess an organization's non-financial performance. [Are the customers happy or will their dissatisfaction undermine strategic initiatives?] While I certainly don't disagree with the definitions offered, I believe a good CSR program is used by management for strategic purposes. From what I have read of the definitions offered, many are external in nature (the organization's responsibility to community etc) and I think there is an internal, strategic element to CSR. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate September 3, 2011 Elleni T. Ashine Elleni T. Elleni T. Ashine Freelance Social Entrepreneur CSR to me is commitment, responsibility and approach of business to create a sustainable and profitable future business for all. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate September 4, 2011 Rodolfo Amaya Loustaunau Rodolfo Rodolfo Amaya Loustaunau Brand Manager - Latin America at Gap Inc. CSR is the ultimate invisible hand to let markets free for once and for all. All stakeholders of a society understanding its roles & moral responsibilities towards their community. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate September 6, 2011 Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment I think this link is getting away from definition and into the process of CSR. But I do like Rodolfo's 'CSR is the ultimate invisible hand'. I wrote as far back as 2003 that there is a need for a planetary bargain between the private and public sectors running across the world. In this bargain the public sector will help private organisms to operate with clear ground rules, and the private sector will pay more attention to longer-term social issues than ever before'. The 'bargain' will come as 'stakeholder pressure' will be society's invisible hand, guiding, suggesting, protesting, campaigning and regulating wilder excesses. It will not occur by itself without vigorous actions or attempts to document and suggest alternative ways of conducting business. The socially responsible 'invisible hand' will have to be guided by the millions of concerned people who care about such things. Given that more and more enterprises see that such a course is in their long-term interest, the ground is fertile for this guidance to take place. The fuller article can be found here: http://bit.ly/odv7QC. Reflecting on this today, CSR still moves ahead but is currently fragmented and certainly generally ignored by the drivers of today's world economy..affectionately known as 'Wall Street'. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate September 7, 2011 Debabrata Mandal likes this Bijay Kumar Singh Bijay Bijay Kumar Singh Manager CSR at ACC Limited In Indian company's context , the definition is yet not very clear .ya surely accroding to new company's CSR bill 2012 , its a meanigful contribution towards the upliftment of the community in the surrounding of your operation in the area of Education, Livelhohood , Health , Promotion of rural infrasturcture and etc. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Anne Krause Anne Anne Krause Executive Director, Fundraising at Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation CSR refers to an enterprise being accountable for its impact on all relevant stakeholders; it is the continuing commitment to behave responsibly and contribute to economic development while improving quality of life for employees, members, local communities and society at large. CSR programs support the core of brand promise, enhance reputation, build member loyalty, contribute to business innovation, provide access to growth opportunities and increase employee engagement, productivity, retention and recruitment. I am a CSR/strategic philanthropy consultant, currently engaged by USAA. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago SRIKANTA K PANIGRAHI likes this munish nanda munish munish nanda Head Sourcing & Security Division (Business Head) A number of regulations exist to prevent over exploitation of resources by industry, resources which are increasingly scarce with each passing day. Profits and its pursuit tend to promote twisting of the spirit of the regulations and promote greed, specially in the third world/developing countries. CSR is an initiative through which the industry is able to pay back in form of restoration, regeneration and conservation to the community/area/environment etc. For example water is not only used by humans but also by plants, animals and birds. Do I need to elaborate further? Some months back in this forum someone had pointed out to me the need for industry to benefit from its own CSR initiative to make it sustainable. But I again revert back to my original opinion that CSR initiatives must be selfless. Executed and implemented with the spirit of the law/idea. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant A better question to ask is, simply, what is social responsibility? Corporations let themselves off too many hooks by insisting that the moral and ethical obligations of corporations can be distinguished from those of individuals. Governments let corporations off some of those same hooks; governments, by focusing on benefit within their jurisdiction, do not require corporations to act in the same way that individuals understand responsibility. But governments and corporations are human creations and institutions. When a government or corporation acts in a way that individuals would understand to be wrong, the individuals within those institutions who had the power to affect those decisions are as morally bound as if they had undertaken those wrong actions themselves. And putting it on the consumer or taxpayer, and saying that the institution is neutral and blind and only has to serve the demands of the consumer and the economic interest of the shareholder is a moral copout: If you know that opening a certain mining operation will degrade a local environment and compromise the health and safety of people, you are first and best placed to avoid those negative consequences. The question should, ideally, never get to the consumer. Individuals don the mantle of corporate action as if it were a magic cloak that sheltered them from having to consider moral responsibility. It's pretend. Social responsibility is responsibility to others. Whether you are examining your actions as an individual acting privately or an individual acting as a corporate or government officer, you are bound to act in accordance with what is deemed to be conventionally ethical. NOT what is common practice for corporations, but rather what individuals would think if they were acting alone and in their own interest. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Steve Jesseph likes this Steve Jesseph Steve Steve Jesseph Chief Operating Officer at ICG Group of Companies Well said, Walter! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Emilia Asim - Ita Emilia Emilia Asim - Ita Senior Consultant, Strategy & External Relations at ThistlePraxis Consulting Thanks alot for your great thoughts, we will publish them on our new portal, www.sustainableconvos.com. Please feel free to send me your other articles to be published, if interested. We have a bias for developing economies, though :) Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Maga Ramasamy Maga Maga Ramasamy Human Resources Manager at AIR MAURITIUS Emiia , this is indeed a very good initiative and very often the concept of the CSR it self is being distorted. i do agree with the statement made by Prof. Dr. Michael Hopkins re The Planetary Bargain -Corporate Social Responsibility Matters. CSR can simply be described as treating the stakeholders in an responsible and ethical manner. There should absolutely be a PPP approach i.e private/public Partnership and should not be imposed as a legislation or taxes.. I am a passionate of the concept of CSR, collaborating with the CSRFI ( training institute) and also organiser of CSR Meetup Mauritius. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Emilia, I am a Fellow with the Caux Round Table that is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the USA. My personal opinion is that Corporate Social Responsibility may be defined as: (a) Recognition, by a corporation's shareholders, board of directors and its officers, that corporations are created by the government (in each state, in the case of the USA) in order to achieve a public purpose. That is the fundamental intent behind the statutes that permit a corporation to exist; (b) Intentionally striking a balance among the interests of a corporation's investor shareholders AND the interests of all the other stakeholders (the employees, the community, the environment, the customers, the suppliers, etc.) That's about as simply as I can define CSR. Rob Scarlett Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - Thank you, Steve. I think that this tendency to turn 'Corporate Social Responsibility' into a 'department' tends to leave others thinking, 'I just have to get next quarter's numbers up; someone else is looking after the ethical questions.' Corporate social responsibility is recognition and acknowledgement by everyone in the corporation that they are all, and each, bound to act according to their moral lights. We are a long way away from turning CSR blah, blah, blah into real social responsibility. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Emilia Asim - Ita Emilia Emilia Asim - Ita Senior Consultant, Strategy & External Relations at ThistlePraxis Consulting Great to see Walter and Steve are on the same page. Robert, recognition and 'striking a balance' would mean...acceptance, integration and compliance? Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Emilia, all of the above. Perhaps, as this discussion continues, we can see if there is much of a consensus regarding the best means for ensuring 'acceptance, integration and compliance.' In manufacturing, we love to say, 'If it cannot be measured, it cannot be managed'. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant _ I wish that I had more time to comment today. I don't see much disagreement at all, really. My quibble with Robert would be on the phrase 'striking a balance'. I don't really disagree exactly: we really can't turn every individual and organization into a 100% sustainable entity tomorrow afternoon, so we do have to manage the issue and our progress. But striking a balance can't be allowed to turn into, 'We'll do as much as our targeted profit margin allows and the law requires and then, that's it'. We have to have big picture, perfect sustainability in mind and be crafting policy and strategy to be moving toward that relentlessly and inexorably. We are looking for ways to operate that allow us to support the local and global environment, and the local and global human community. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Walter is correct in pointing out that my definitions were quite over-simplified; and that execution is quite complex. We also need to comprehend the 'system' within which directors can be sued for failure to optimize the financial returns to shareholders. There is no such threat of lawsuits for a board's failure to optimize 'social' returns to the other stakeholders. Complicating this further, especially for publicly-traded companies in the U.S., is the overwhelming pressure in them to show profit-improvement, quarter-by-quarter. Within corporate systems of this kind, it would take extraordinary leadership to seriously focus on 'sustainability'. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Derbhile Graham Derbhile Derbhile Graham Freelance Writer and Editor, Tutor, Creative Writing and Presentation Skills CSR happens when a company puts its money where its mouth is. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Boudewijn (Baudouin) Piscaer Boudewijn (Baudouin) Boudewijn (Baudouin) Piscaer Gérant at UNIVERDE Agencies s.a.r.l. May I be concrete about CSR in Africa? Last January I presented a key note paper at www.accta.com in Johannesburg called 'Sustainable Concrete, an unavoidable opportunity for Africa.' I focussed on the 'People' aspect of the second most used (and abused) construction product in the world and quoted Mandela's speech he gave in London in 2005 on fighting man made poverty. Nigeria, well known by Transparency International, houses the riches African ($ 11.3 Billion) who is a cement producer. When I told the conference that not earthquakes kill but buildings do (Haiti), the Nigerian academics said that you do not need an earthquake and building collaps due to poor use of the cement. There is no sense of responsibility to be noticed by the government that is allowing the cement producer to operate and gain wealth nevertheless. When I tried in this Linkedin group to address the issue on the right to have such a CEO operate elsewhere, I was censored 3 times and the topic was never put on the table. Curious to see how you will deal with CSR and corruption. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Boudewijn, Your comment caught my attention, because I have been following the progress of a Transparency International 'Anti-Corruption Best Practices' project in Lagos, Nigeria, that is being coordinate by Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. If you would like to know more about this project, I will be happy to introduce you to its leaders. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Emilia Asim - Ita Emilia Emilia Asim - Ita Senior Consultant, Strategy & External Relations at ThistlePraxis Consulting I agree, Derbhile. Boudewijn, I agree but there are other key actors who all have responsibilities to fulfill. This is in no defense but the standards such organizations should be held accountable to. Robert, thanks for the information. I would like to be introduced to the leaders of the project. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - The most recent series of posts are really about the challenges of getting CSR to advance properly. As Robert points out, while there is certainly the challenge of corruption, we don't actually even need outright corruption for CSR and sustainability to face very strong opposition within an organization. This all points out the difficulties created when we bestow something like 'personhood' on a corporation and yet we structure the entity so that those who constitute its governance are bound by a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit and be bound only be the law. Efforts to bring sustainability into the organization's operations must then be based on the inherent payoff of sustainability being on a short enough timeline that we are not stymied by opportunity costs that swamp the ultimate benefit. Other strategies that can be used to advance sustainability include the very powerful argument that we can get better production from our workers and more patronage from our customers if they 'like' what we do. To answer this big question about both the inherent lack of moral compass for the average corporation and the more extreme case of outright corruption, I think it will depend on the gradual 'contagion' of sustainability that can be created if one major player decides that it is in their best interests (for whatever reason) to be sustainable and invoke high standards of CSR. Once supply chain issues start to penetrate upstream from major product or service providers, it can create a powerful cascading effect. I actually think that is starting to happen now. And I am hopeful that it will 'go non-linear'. If the effect does exist and turns out to have inherent power then its growth (while still in very early stages) may be exponential. This would mean that at some point a person or organization could not really find a place in the global economy unless they are operating at the highest feasible standards of sustainability. And the shift from fairly modest levels of sustainability and CSR to very high ones could come quickly. If you think that this is entirely unlikely, I'm afraid that sort of suspect that you're right. On the other hand, look at how much attention was paid to sustainability in each decade from, say, the turn of the nineteenth century ... two hundred years. It's an interesting thought experiment. Nothing MUCH seems to happen for many decades, but there's always SOMETHING. At it seems to really start to ramp up in the last few decades. Beyond that, even if this takes hold in a slower and highly moderated and dampened way, its advance as a phenomenon might just be enough to precipitate a review of the legal underpinnings of the corporation. A good book on a way to look at the legal status of the corporation as problematic is Joel Baken's The Corporation. They also made a documentary film of the same title. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Walter, I agree with your reasoning. There is another factor that explains some of the lack of moral balance in the corporate world. That is 'scale'. Most businesses in the world are micro, small or medium-size - perhaps as many as 99% of all the world's business units. These small businesses are integrated into their local communities. They hire their neighbors as employees, their suppliers are often local, as are at least some of their customers. They interact with their local communities and that interaction creates a sense of accountability to ALL of the stakeholders; - not just to the financial owners (they are often the owners, themselves). However, the larger an enterprise becomes, the more 'distant' it becomes from this local accountability. This weakens the sense of accountability to non-financial stakeholders and this leads to many of the 'sins' that we are all concerned about. We have all heard the phrase, 'too big to fail'. Perhaps there should be a new phrase, 'too big to be moral' ? Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Boudewijn (Baudouin) Piscaer Boudewijn (Baudouin) Boudewijn (Baudouin) Piscaer Gérant at UNIVERDE Agencies s.a.r.l. Title of Extraordinary Prof. Jan Eijsbouts inaugural lecture, faculty of law Maastricht;; Corporate responsibility, beyond voluntarism. Regulatory options to reinforce the licence to operate. 'The Crystallization of Regulatory Norms', p. 77'; ;From Fluids to Chains: crystallization is the process through which fluids are solidified, starting from a nucleus and then growing in a fashion which assumes a regular pattern in a very marked contrast to the boundaries from which it emerged. A process of crystallization thus give shape to what was previously shapeless, defining and giving significance to elements of the structure. Drawing on this process, our particular understanding of the crystallization of norms suggests a process by which norms take on regulatory effect'. Casey& Scott 2011, Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment I'd be interested in your thoughts on 'Definition of Corporate Social Responsibility' http://mhcinternational.com/articles/definition-of-csr that we use as the core of our graduate teaching at University of Geneva (www.corporateresponsibility.ch) and our global teaching programme together with an online course on definitions of CSR (www.csrfi.com). Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Cloete Jansen van Vuuren Cloete Cloete Jansen van Vuuren Associate at Restaurant Secrets Inc Unfortunately, for many modern corporations CSR is that thing they do so they can tick a box and publish a nice-looking integrated report at the end of the financial year. It should be more than that... It should be a completely voluntary act of good faith to better the circumstances of those who are stakeholders of the corporation. Yes, it does provide the corporation with some benefits, but this should not be the primary motive for corporations to perform CSR-related activities. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Solomon Belette Solomon Solomon Belette CEO at Catholic Charities of the East Bay CSR should help equalize the playing field by businesses and the stakeholders in any given community or region so that it leads to a win-win exchange rather than a win-lose transaction. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Debabrata Mandal likes this Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - Boudewijn, Thanks for that! I will definitely read the article. But, right out of the box, I love the crystal analogy. Robert, the scale thing is of enormous importance. Makes me optimistic a bit. I'm just thinking about how people in my community are really starting to get interested in local food, just for example. Another thing that I want to mention is that applying a standard can help with this (where that can be done). Read up on the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels. You will be thinking, 'Oh, brother!' until you really read up on what they've done. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant Michael, I will read about your definition as soon as I can. Guests coming for dinner! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Walter - I will locate the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels and seek inspiration there. Plus, out here in Minnesota, the local food movement is exploding, too. Interestingly, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota has a very large Hmong populations from Southeast Asia; and they have made a huge impact on the growth of local food production, farmers markets, etc. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Debabrata Mandal likes this Bijay Kumar Singh Bijay Bijay Kumar Singh Manager CSR at ACC Limited Because CSR has not been defined and even to greater extent it can not be fixed in one or two lines definition. Rightly it has been said many people in this discussion that its a moral committment for profit making company towards the society. In my point of view its the multipronged strategies which aims at the fulfillment to gaps between the providers and receivers.CSR can not replace and develop the parallel kind of infrastucutres . So to bridge the gaps throguh qualitative improvement in order to reach the development schemes to the large section of the soceity is the theme of CSR which we are doing in ACC ltd.Company . Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Debabrata Mandal, Bruce Summers, CVA like this Hector Manuel Torres D Hector Manuel Hector Manuel Torres D Gerente General en Asunto Público To achieve an strategic and ARMONIC relationship among ALL groups of interest. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago rajib mohanty rajib rajib mohanty JSLPS, SRLM at Jharkhand State Livelihoods Promotion Society CSR definition need to co-terminus with a long term perspective with a social enterprising mode. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Simon Lofts Simon Simon Lofts Founder / CEO at Portal21 and HABU - Sustainable Business Consulting & Innovation for the 21st Century Triple bottom line. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - I would like to say something specifically about the 'triple bottom line': it is a flawed idea in terms of expressing a corporation's social responsibility. People, Planet, Profit. The corporation's obligation toward people and the planet are intertwined, and it is also an absolute obligation. The corporation's obligation to make a profit is an obligation that it has only to itself. In the extreme case, if the planet and people were best served by the disappearance of a corporation, the corporation's own need to survive and profit would be in conflict with its actual required fate. That is not to say that it is not socially useful that such a thing as profit exists, only that it is separate from and subordinate to what is good for people and planet. It is a mockery that corporations adopt this triple bottom line approach and equate their profit with moral and ethical obligation. Economic viability is an absolutely essential component of society's sustainability, but that doesn't imply the financial viability of particular enterprises. What it implies is a bit different. The challenge to a corporation should never be seen as, 'we have to make a profit. Can we do that sustainably?' Rather it should be framed as, 'we have an a obligation to be socially and environmentally responsible. Can we make a profit?' As the need to be sustainable continues to enjoy more profile and commitment, corporations that are best at it will have an edge in the survival contest because more and more people and organizations will look upchain for sustainable suppliers. A survivor company will be one that looks at corporate financial viability a different way: 'There is a certain kind of world out there and it requires things of us. It's not just the law; it's the way some of our clients think. Are we part of the way the world is going? Or are we dead? No one cares if we survive, but they do seem to care more and more about this other stuff. One of our biggest clien corporations to whom we supply material has just asked us to meet their energy standard. WTF?' I completely respect the fact that a corporation has to make a profit to survive. What I am saying is that it is in a corporation's best interest to understand that profitability and social responsibility are separate and that they are best advised to understand that their profit is subordinate in the minds of virtually everyone on the planet. That makes it a seemingly harder challenge. But at least then the challenge is understood. Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Debabrata Mandal, Boudewijn (Baudouin) Piscaer like this Boudewijn (Baudouin) Piscaer Boudewijn (Baudouin) Boudewijn (Baudouin) Piscaer Gérant at UNIVERDE Agencies s.a.r.l. Thanks Walter. May we try to summarize that CSR is the governance mechanism to arrive at a proper balance between the People, Planet, Profit/Prosperity principles? The corporate policy that merges the Profit base of corporations into the interest of the People and the Planet? Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Debabrata Mandal likes this Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment Mainly agree with Walter but the whole point is 'how' the private sector makes profits, not profits per se. Of course a company needs profits (actually what it really needs is a strong balance sheet..to discuss another time). But we are talking about CSR Definition, not the process. A good definition is one which when de-constructed (see my above-mentioned article on www.mhcinternational.com) leads to a coherent process. Ed Freeman's work, along with Donna Wood, showed the way forward and in a nutshell I have summarised their definition of CSR as 'CSR MEANS TREATING KEY STAKEHOLDERS RESPONSIBLY'. Ok, you will now ask. What do you mean by 'treating'? What is 'key'? What is a 'stakeholder' (and yes the Natural Environment is a stakeholder). What is 'responsibly'? I have had a stab at all those in my online course on www.csrfi.com and the above short form of the definition is one that all my graduate students at University of Geneva take with them..now over 200 of them creating responsible havoc in the corporate world! Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Walter Palmer likes this Samuil Simeonov Samuil Samuil Simeonov Project Manager bei Bertelsmann Foundation In our organisation we define CSR as the contribution of companies to the solution of societal problems. If we regard sustainable development as a societal problem/challenge, then our definition can be considered also as the contribution of companies to sustainable development. I personally think that CSR has evolved in course of time and is now not being associated with responsibility, what it actually is meant to be. Companies, just like individuals, act in a certain environment and have to abide by its norms and values. Responsibility meins, thus, to act appropriately. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Walter Palmer likes this Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - As I said earlier, Boudewijn, I think that they should be considered separately rather than balanced. I think that a corporation has to accept that they do have a social responsibility. Alone, all by itself, frankly, and clearly, I think that the management and Board have to accept that as a simple fact. Then they have to look at their business and see if and how they can address that responsibility. Then they have to figure out how they will become perfectly responsible, how long it will take, and how much it will cost. Almost inevitably, pursuing sustainability will result in better operational margins, at least in the medium to longer term. People write about that all the time. But this is an evolution that definitely has to be managed: What improvements can we make that are no cost or low cost? What improvements can we make that actually help us generate more revenue and over what time frame? But I think that it is very much easier to make the tough decisions if the profitability and sustainability questions are separated. A company has no social responsibility to be profitable that overrules its obligation to be sustainable. That's because, properly viewed, each term subsumes the other. Social responsibility implies that the operation is sustainable because sustainability IS a social responsibility. The argument gets made that profit is part of the picture because profit allows corporations to continue and corporations are, inherently, contributors to the social good: jobs, required services, etc, etc. That's a fair opinion, but only if you look at profitability of corporations, in general, as a general benefit. It does not mean that the profitability of this particular corporation is necessarily a social benefit. It depends upon what else the corporation does. It's true that in the executive suite, a balance between profitability and action on CSR has to be struck. But it is obviously NOT true that CSR is a balance between profitability and CSR; CSR is CSR. Profitability must be balanced against CSR to determine corporate viability NOT CSR or sustainability. That's my view. I know that some will just try and write the whole discussion off and say, 'Well, it's obviously all part of the same discussion.' It is. But the way it's framed is crucial. From the point of view of an individual corporation, its profitability mission is an obligation to itself. Its CSR mission is an obligation to society and the world. Those can have apparent equal importance to a CEO but they don't have equal importance to anyone else. To the world, your CSR is essential, your profitability is up for grabs to any organization that pursue your business in a way that is sustainable. If an organization puts those things together as one, it is a kind of trick of mirrors that seems to make sense, and can even work in the short term. But it is not only illusion, but delusion, in the longer term. Michael, (and I really am sensitive to the fact that I am coming off as a wet blanket on matters of the established CSR lexicon) I am not in love with references to obligation to 'stakeholders'. If we look at sustainability properly, there are no legitimate entities that are NOT stakeholders. The local and global environment and the local and global population. Who or what are we not counting. Samuil and I are humming in sync. :-) I am enjoying the discussion and I really don't like to seem contrarian but I think that the established corporate vernacular has intentionally or unintentionally afforded itself some unhelpful looseness. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment Agree with much of what you say and also that identifying key stakeholders is problematic, clearly cant be everybody then makes no sense. The salience model of Mitchell and Wood helps (see http://courses.washington.edu/ilis580/readings/Mitchell_et_al_1997.pdf) but agree not perfect...I had a stab with Dubai World (Nakheel its subsidiary) a few years back and I think Chart 2 was helpful based upon the former model see: http://mhcinternational.com/images/stories/Dubai.pdf Again, since profits for a company can be manipulated at will (eg delaying expenditure, changing dividends, increasing savings etc) profits are not the best measure of company performance. If, as in Mauritius and even attempts in India (Nigeria too) to tax company profits so as to create CSR funds continues to expand (I hope not since simply equates CSR with philanthropy and thereby gives it a false name) companies will merely manipulate their profits as they wish to reduce taxation. Like (3) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Harsha Mukherjee, Debabrata Mandal and 1 other like this Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - Michael, With all due respect --and I understand that corporations like to have issues bounded-- trying to identify stakeholders as 'key', and concentrating on those, misses the point. Identifying stakeholders is not a problem at all. And, yes, that is because everything and everyone is a stakeholder. I know that this makes for a very awkward challenge for corporations, but that's the way it is. If a corporation does something that affects others in a small way and those others are not captured by the company's CSR comprehension, the negatives inflicted just become part of that huge unaccounted pool of negative externalities that is precipitating the whole discussion. There is no point is contending that a CSR effort that fails to address everything that is making us think about CSR in the first place is effective. It can't be. Can we construct a CSR frame that understands all of our responsibilities and obligations everywhere, quantifies them, and accounts for them? No. But that is our starting point. And that is our job. Our CSR effort has to acknowledge that we are setting off on the road to accepting all of the responsibilities for everything that we do. I do not live a sustainable life. That doesn't bother me. I know that I can't. But I am committed to helping figure out how all of this works. Stipulating that we have to define targets so that we can get started is fine. But we can't make those immediate targets the way that we understand the larger challenge. 'Key stakeholders' is only legitimate as a way of understanding the easiest parts of what we have to do so that we have a starting place. But the challenge is not bounded by the issues that affect key stakeholders. The challenge is addressing the totality of our effect on the planet's systems and each one of its people. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Michael & Walter - I would insist that the problem is not in 'identifying or prioritizing' a corporation's stakeholders. The problem is how to persuade the corporation's board of directors to consider the interests of ANY stakeholders over the short-term financial interests of their shareholders - without being sued for sub-optimum financial performance. Without addressing that systemic problem of 'shareholder supremacy', we are just 'rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic' ! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment Robert you are talking process not definition and CEOs do get it in general (and, I think, anecdotal and globescan evidence, that the glass is half full not half empty). Eventually Boards of Directors will get it...non-exec Directors certainly are on the CSR page (they might call it something else)...by the way I am on the Board of Directors of a bank. The CEOs (the few) I have spoken with are totally fed up with being judged over the short-term. The focus is on the financial institutions and what a mess they have made of everything (except their bonuses) in recent times. Walter, yes we all wish to have our issues and problems bounded. The planet will look after itself (I await the blast!), what we humans do to each other worries me more. The sustainability community seems to worry much more about global warming rather than the desperate condition of half the people on the planet. Yes climate change is a worry, just tell that to the refugees in the million strong camp on the border between Kenya and Somalia, the desperate out-migrants trying to flee Mugabe's henchmen, Syria...etc etc. But thanks to you two, Baudoin and others, I await your responses with great interest. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Ramesh Chandra Ramesh Chandra Tiwari Director /Secretary General at Manav Kalyan Pratisthan I rarely get into these social media discussions and I await your responses with great interest.our mail is manavkayan@gmail.com Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Mauricio Ibanez Mauricio Mauricio Ibanez Coordinador del Fondo Local de Alianzas Estratégicas para el Desarrollo - DFATD Canada Let's use a basic dictionary: - Corporate: relative to a corporation. - Social: relative to society. - Responsibility: the capacity and ability to respond and be accountable for our actions. Result: The capacity and ability of a corporation to respond and be accountable to the society for its actions. Start with that and you'll see how it covers every other definition. Mauricio (maubanez@gmail.com) Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment Nice - maybe elaborate a bit more: Corporate Social Responsibility is a process that is concerned with treating the stakeholders of a company or institution ethically or in a responsible manner. ‘Ethically or responsible' means treating key stakeholders in a manner deemed acceptable according to international norms. Social includes economic, financial and environmental responsibility. Stakeholders exist both within a firm or institution and outside. The wider aim of social responsibility is to create higher and higher standards of sustainable living, while preserving the profitability of the corporation or the integrity of the institution, for peoples both within and outside these entities. The key is how profits are made, not the pursuit of profits at any cost. CSR is a process to achieve sustainable development in societies. Corporate means any body private, public or NGO [our definition applies neatly outside the traditional private corporate sphere] Original Source: Michael Hopkins (MHCi): A Planetary Bargain: Corporate Social Responsibility Comes of Age (Macmillan, 1998; updated and re-printed by Earthscan, 2003 and re-printed by Routledge, UK, 2010) Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Maga R., Mauricio I. like this Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - Sorry, I think that if a CSR policy targets stakeholders, it implies that we can be selective about how we account for our actions: if they negatively affect those whom we've identified, we react. If not ... Negative externality for someone else. And I would have thought that it would be pretty clear that since the environment provides support, environmental effects do have social consequences. I don't go through life saying, 'I don't normally interact directly nor depend upon this particular person, so I can disregard how my actions affect them.' humans take into account the effects of their actions regardless of any 'stakeholder' status of any victim. In a tie, the ones whom they love take precedence, but they don't ignore a child in the path of their car because they're a stranger. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Bruce Summers, CVA likes this Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment better to be selective than not to care at all...since if everything is important then nothing is too! So saying, no question that environment affects social, economic and financial phenomena, and vice versa. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Mauricio Ibanez Mauricio Mauricio Ibanez Coordinador del Fondo Local de Alianzas Estratégicas para el Desarrollo - DFATD Canada ... still, that falls into the plain definition. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Derbhile Graham Derbhile Derbhile Graham Freelance Writer and Editor, Tutor, Creative Writing and Presentation Skills When companies give without thought of profit. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Ken Mitchell Ken Ken Mitchell Director at Claro Print A business has a social responsibility to obey the law. It is the responsibility of government to set in place fiscal and social policies for the betterment of society. A business may choose to go beyond what is required by the law in order to achieve competitive advantage through brand enhancement and the resultant increase in customer loyalty. At Claro Print we donate 7.5% of the value of our larger client's purchases to a charity of their choice - we do this for commercial reasons - though there is a clear social benefit. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago munish nanda munish munish nanda Head Sourcing & Security Division (Business Head) Is there a definition of 'social responsibility'? What are steps for 'betterment of society'? Societies change and perceptions vary and so do priorities. Priorities of the individual are different from the 'government' or the 'society'. Factor in the awareness level of the average citizen in the developing world and one begins to realize the variety compounding fruitful implementation of CSR. I compliment Ken for truthful points made. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - I don't say we can't or shouldn't be selective, Michael. We can feature the interests of those who are most directly important to us most prominently. We can treat employees, suppliers, members of the local community in a way that exceeds our basic social responsibility to them. But we still have to accept that we have a social responsibility to anyone or anything that we might affect. We can't say, 'We don't injure 'key stakeholders', but this person is not a key stakeholder, so how our actions affect them is not part of our responsibility.' You may treat family and friends in a special way. But if you are hurting people on the other side of the planet, that's wrong and it is shirking responsibility. Everyone --including the people who run governments and corporations-- has a responsibility to refrain from injuring others or other things upon which some or all of us depend. Human history predates the laws that establish the standing of large organizations. We understand the concept of responsibilities in a way that is of fundamental importance to our social evolution: we have to help others and refrain from injuring them so that the whole thing does not collapse and injure us and the ones we love most especially. Distance or invisibility is not a licence to ignore. If we are having a negative effect on someone or something, and we know about that negative effect, it is our responsibility to address it. That human responsibility does not disappear just because we run a government or a corporation. I don't say that it is easy to make this part of the way we behave. I don't say that it is practical for the leader of a 21st century corporation to have this insight and then make it a fundamental part of every transaction tomorrow afternoon. But I contend very firmly that it is reality and if we don't build that reality into our operations as effectively and quickly as we can, we are ignoring our responsibilities. Just because it's impractical to immediately address it, does not make it OK to ignore it. CSR is not 'meeting legal obligations' or philanthropy or putting 'x' percent of net profit into a certain initiative. CSR is understanding the effect of what we're doing in a deep way, making sure that we are doing good and not bad, and changing things that we know should be changed. It's the same as personal responsibility ... because it IS personal responsibility. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Neveen Shadi Neveen Neveen Shadi International Humanitarian Project Management CSR is global outreach to improve people's lives. Neveen Shadi, Ex-USAID, UNDP Communication Manager, currently in transition. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Andrea Hemsted Andrea Andrea Hemsted Sustainability and ICT Investment, Strategy and Business Development Consultant If we want to stand a chance to save our biosphere, business has to show that a certain percentage of their budget is spent on sustainable BUSINESS projects, creating business models that work towards re-establishing the Earth's biological equilibrium. This is a good initiative: http://www.teebforbusiness.org/how/organizational-change-for-natural-capital-management-strategy-and-implementation.html Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Dwipal (DK) Bose Dwipal (DK) Dwipal (DK) Bose Behavioural Change Communication Strategist Enhancing quality of life is the broader definition on which the definition of CSR is founded.It is a process because it is based on responsibility which is an action oriented term. The focus for a specific company may be an identified group, but at the broader level it includes all corporates and all groups. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Debabrata Mandal Debabrata Debabrata Mandal Executive Director at Institute for Sustainable Initiatives-ISI CSR is an approach for reduction or balancing the three key factors of reduction of environmental hazards, balancing economical growth inside and outside of corporate and increasing social well-being.. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Dwipal (DK) Bose Dwipal (DK) Dwipal (DK) Bose Behavioural Change Communication Strategist CSR is an investment by the corporate sector for a better future of our society Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 11 months ago Bijay Kumar Singh Bijay Bijay Kumar Singh Manager CSR at ACC Limited Its nothing but a big and white elephant to befool the community and the sufferers . Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Debabrata Mandal likes this Dwipal (DK) Bose Dwipal (DK) Dwipal (DK) Bose Behavioural Change Communication Strategist Bijay, being a manager of CSR, you can't be so negative. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Thomas Tsalis Thomas Thomas Tsalis PhD Student at Democritus University of Thrace As for my opinion, CSR is the corporate strategy which takes into consideration all social and environmental dimensions of corporate daily operations (since corporates have an active role in societies) addressing them in such a way that they improve not only their financial performance but also their contribution to environmental and social liabilities Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Dwipal (DK) B. likes this David Living David David Living Great Companies Think Differently Updated statement for Corporate Social Responsibility by the European Commission in effort to provide a clear statement of what CSR is (if it hasn't been mentioned above) Old Version - 'a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis'. New Version - ‘the responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society’. Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Debabrata Mandal, Dwipal (DK) B. like this r sugathan r r sugathan Editor at CLRA as production is social and the whole society is contributing to the value of products and services [indirectly through a demand-supply managed volatile pricing system], and distribution is not social, CSR is one way to undo to a certain extent the unreasonable / un- or anti-social accumulation the 'owners are involved in through capital-owned regime, patent regime or even forcible/mafia regime Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Debabrata Mandal likes this Mauricio Ibanez Mauricio Mauricio Ibanez Coordinador del Fondo Local de Alianzas Estratégicas para el Desarrollo - DFATD Canada Are we aware that this discussion started in 2011? Have we compared the definitions? This proves that CSR is a concept under construction, but most importantly, we are not defining it. We have said what CSR does, not what it is... Isn't it interesting? Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Emilia Asim - Ita Emilia Emilia Asim - Ita Senior Consultant, Strategy & External Relations at ThistlePraxis Consulting @Mauricio, thanks for your comment. I have sat back to read the various contributions and the diverse angles and approaches are simply amazing. That in itself lies the challenge, the 'personalization of CSR' across climes. However, does it matter if we define CSR? Should a standardization of definition and/or practice drive us rather than impact? Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Cosmas Okeke likes this Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - I think we know pretty much exactly what social responsibility is. The debate -and this discussion reflects this- is about whether corporations have the motivation and will to accept their responsibilities. More law to compel socially responsible action might improve things a bit, but it also encourages the view that there is no inherent obligation ... just a legal one. That's not helpful. Corporations -just like individuals- are responsible to ensure that their actions are civil, fair, honorable, and kind. We each and all wrestle with things like greed when we are considering our actions. Do corporations have the cues that compel them to face up to the nature of their relentless profit motive and figure out where it SHOULD fit? To me, that's the more useful question. Define CSR? Defined a long time ago. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Walter makes an excellent point. Perhaps we need to find ways to change 'systems' or 'cultures' rather than 'laws' - in order to expect corporations to act in a socially responsible manner. After all, if you work in a system that legally obliges the directors of a corporation to place their obligations to the shareholders above any other obligation they might believe they have to other stakeholders (employees, the community, the environment, etc.); then it is foolhardy to expect these directors to make decisions that are, in all cases, socially responsible. This is a bit of an over-generalization; but the German concepts of 'zusammenarbeit' (cooperation) and 'mitbestimmung' (co-determination) were built into the legal structure; but had a strong shared culture foundation. It might be worthwhile to study how German business executives perceive their role in society. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Denise Baril Denise Denise Baril Workplace Speaker Network, Founder I am hosting an event this week in Calgary, AB to discuss CSR in the the workplace. Event Link: http://workplacespeakernetwork-eac2.eventbrite.ca/ I will share insights that surface. Happy Day! Denise Baril, Founder Workplace Speaker Network Making Connecting Easy! www.workplacespeakernetwork.com Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Janice Dean Janice Janice Dean Management Consultant at Janice Dean CSR For me CSR is first about building relationships of respect and trust with all stakeholder grooups who contribute to, or are affected by a company's activities (from workers and suppliers to customers and neighbours), while enhancing social cohesion and the natural environment. Responsibility most certainly begins 'at home', with managing the impacts of employment, sourcing, production and sales. Particularly where companies are producing significant wealth for themselves in places where government does not yet provide services including sound infrastructure and medical and educational facilities, paying taxes may appropriately be supplemented by more active use of corporate resources to improve localities. Improving the core business (socially, environmentally and financially) and using the capacities of the particular company shoudl certainly come first; unrelated donations to charity etc are good to have but really add-ons.. Janice Dean, Associate Professor, University of Warwick Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bijay Kumar Singh likes this ignas iryanto ignas ignas iryanto Corporate Social Responsibility Profesional CSR is the way of how the growth of capital is hand in hand with the sustainable growth of social welfare and social capital. The real CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) will bring along the true twin CSR (Corporate Society Relationship and Corporate State Relationship). Dr.Ing Ignatius Iryanto, Senior CSR Manager at PT Adaro Energy Tbk - Jakarta - Indonesia. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - Janice, It's going to seem like a quibble, and for some organizations it definitely might seem like an unnecessary technicality, but while 'charity' (and some other things) begin at home, responsibility must act everywhere, simultaneously, with everything that we touch. In the extreme example, if a parent looks at a burning school, they will obviously want to figure out how to save their child first. That's fine. But if, in another situation, they are at home caring for their child as their principle responsibility, they are not entitled, as a function of caring for that child, to do something that was likely to injure other children elsewhere. Social responsibility applies immediately, and everywhere. I only point this out because some organizations adopt a 'we'll get to that' attitude, and use it to defer action on obligations to people and environments elsewhere. That's not logical and it's certainly not responsible. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Casey Bridgeford Casey Casey Bridgeford Wharton Social Impact Africa Fellow CSR Example: Foreign company drilling oil in the Niger Delta: 1. without polluting the land 1. without hurting the economy 1. buying locally 1. hiring locally 5. fixing past mistakes Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Ossama Ismail likes this Konada Sreenivasarao Konada Konada Sreenivasarao -- CSR is a duty of company to take care of the target villages of its area of operation to the possible extent in all aspects to improve the village as a give back policy. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Ossama Ismail likes this Solon Magrizos Solon Solon Magrizos PhD Candidate in Corporate Social Responsibility CSR is commitment. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Ossama Ismail likes this Susan Arnot Heaney Susan Arnot Susan Arnot Heaney Corporate Responsibility & Communications Consultant; former Exec Director, Corporate Responsibility, Avon Products, Inc In its simplest distillation, CSR is still best summed up by the well known phrase: to 'do well by doing good.' It is a company's conscious decision to drive profit and success while doing no harm and adding value to the environment and society. The material issues and tactical implementation vary by company and industry sector, but the core principles are consistent. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bijay Kumar Singh likes this Ché Star Ché Ché Star To stay stagnant is to wither, the move backwards is not an option. So forward I go. CSR is the understanding and embracing of sustainability (social equity + economic viability + environmental stewardship) by corporate entities which is needed to cultivate the circumstances that are necessary to ensures their long term viability. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bijay Kumar Singh likes this David Gregory David David Gregory Director at Enveras Lead Paint Surveys In simple terms: Being aware of the impact of your actions on the people and environment around you, both in the short and long-term. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Sue Davison Sue Sue Davison Foundation Futures The measure of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable. The measure of a company which takes its responsibilities seriously, understands its role in that civilised society. It makes sure its impact is positive both in terms of its environment and the people within it and where possible gives 'something back' in payment for the benefits it reaps. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bhagwan Bhagwan Suryawanshi Founder President at National Development Academy, Maharashtra, India To undertake the developmental activities prioritising the need base without touching the natural environment by way involving the beneficiaries in the process. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Trisa Thompson Trisa Trisa Thompson Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility at Dell Inc. At Dell, it is about using our technology and expertise to do the most good for people and the planet. Really, it is about how a corporation chooses to interact with all of its communities for positive change. Like (3) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bruce Summers, CVA, Tom C. and 1 other like this Marion I. Lipshutz, MA, MSLIS Marion I. Marion I. Lipshutz, MA, MSLIS Marion I. Lipshutz, Information Manager for the Corporate and Nonprofit Sectors CSR is the recognition that profits are not the sole rationale for a firm's existence and aligns the firm with global initiatives for environmental justice and human rights. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bhagwan S. likes this Rujeko Rujeko Jena Marketing, Creativity and Fundraising Specialist It's about using your skills and opportunities for the better of not just your business venture, but most importantly for the benefit of those who are in need. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant I'm going to go back to basics ... again. Regardless of how we 'parameterize' corporate social responsibility with criteria, programmes, jargon, trends, buzz words, consultants, etc, etc, etc, the fact remains that the words mean something fairly simple in plain old english: Corporate Social Responsibility means a corporate organization behaving in a way that is comprehensively socially responsible. If you think that you know what being socially responsible means or even consider yourself a socially responsible person, what you expect from a corporation is that it would regard and treat individuals, other groups, societies, and every other part of the world the way that you think a socially responsible individual would if they could project power and influence in the same way and at the same magnitude that a corporation can. A socially responsible corporation behaves EXACTLY the same way that a very moral and very nice person would. In the same way that you and I need a pay cheque in order to live, a corporation needs earnings. But we have to subordinate that financial need to the moral obligation. Sometimes, if the matter is serious or important enough, we subordinate our own needs to the point of destruction. Corporations need to see obligation that way. We are a long way from that in terms of the way most corporations behave. But that's the ultimate destination. If you were in a situation where you could save your family or your whole community or your country by one selfless act that destroyed you ... you would do it. Where is that impulse for the greater good in corporate boardrooms? Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Debabrata Mandal, Rhonda Bannard like this Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Walter, even if a corporation (through its management - which is the Board of Directors) were inclined to be socially responsible - as a 'nice person' would want to be, it could be sued by just one of its many stakeholders - the shareholders - for failing to optimize their financial returns. The directors of a corporation do not have a legally-defined 'duty' to other than the shareholders of the corporation and the corporation itself. This leaves little room to seriously consider the interests of the employees, the community, the environment, the suppliers, or even the customer! Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Debabrata Mandal likes this Sebastian Moreno Sebastian Sebastian Moreno Coordinación de Acción y Servicio Social en Universidad Ánahuac del Sur CSR is a way to help people in a more productive and massive way. When you work for a company that has a branch os Social Responsability it not only means that the company is helping people just to have a good image, but also because they care about people in need and they can do something to make a change. That to me is what CSR is all about. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Debabrata Mandal Debabrata Debabrata Mandal Executive Director at Institute for Sustainable Initiatives-ISI I think CSR is an integral part of business development. Without having CSR the business will not sustain. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant Robert, I think we all know that. If CSR is not merely to be a window dressing exercise, we need to think about corporate governance. A great book (and documentary film of the same name) is Joel Baken's (sp?) The Corporation. My point is that social responsibility is reasonably well understood. It is a normal expectation for individuals. If corporate governance operates in a way that makes is unfeasible for them, then the discussion should be about corporate governance. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bruce Summers, CVA likes this Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Walter - I agree. It is truly a 'governance systems' problem - when you have a system that puts pressure on board members and corporate officers to 'leave their ethics and values at the door' when they enter the corporation. Some states in the USA had passed legislation creating 'public benefit corporations' that allow directors and officers to balance the interests of their stakeholders and to seek to achieve social goals. In this corporate form, directors and officers are less likely to be sued for failure to maiximize profits that go to the financial shareholders. The social responsibility challenge is greatest for larger, well-established publicly-traded corporations what must respond to Wall Street analysts' performance expectations. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bruce Summers, CVA likes this Noura Noura AlAli Owner at NGraphia Well, CSR is the reason of being together. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Ruggero Lensi Ruggero Ruggero Lensi Direttore Relazioni esterne, sviluppo ed innovazione presso UNI Ente Nazionale Italiano di Unificazione CSR is worldwide defined in ISO 26000 international standard. see www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/iso26000.htm Ruggero Lensi - UNI Italy Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bruce Summers, CVA, Noura AlAli like this Liz Martin Liz Liz Martin Performance Manager - H&J Martin Facilities Management Although CSR concept has been around for decades agreement on how it should be defined remains difficult - perhaps it's problematic for organisations because they are increasingly being required to align with societal norms while generating financial returns?! I think the following definition helps to overcome this problem as it can be broadly applied to allow organisations to achieve their CSR objectives: 'Corporate social responsibility is defined as a business system that enables the production and distribution of wealth for the betterment of its stakeholders through the implementation and integration of ethical systems and sustainable management practices' Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bruce Summers, CVA likes this Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant Ruggero and Liz, In my view, a huge part of the problem is that our answers to what social responsibility means in a corporate setting are technocratic. Let's face it, a CEO, board member, or anyone else has an obvious and apparent obligation to be socially responsible when they get up every morning. That includes the way that they behave and the decisions that they make at work. We have designed the legal framework that enables and defines corporations in a way that militates against applying moral and ethical filters to the actions and policies that we undertake in a corporate setting. Technocratic responses to this quandary are really artificial constructs that allow us to insulate ourselves from the moral responsibilities and consequences of our actions. There is no way around the very profound consequences of creating an entity that is specifically designed to insulate its owners from the consequences of what it does. Because individual shareholders have no legal liability, managing a corporation is, BY DEFINITION, an operation of balancing the risks of action that might be harmful to others against the legal and PR consequences that might be harmful to the balance sheet, but NOT to the shareholder directly. Every risk analysis tends to look, in the end, at the financial value of the share. Technocratic approaches to this obvious shortcoming of the nature of a corporation are designed to give managers tools for specifying the limits to which they can go in satisfying demand for increase in the value of corporate equity. There are no tools for allowing and enabling the application of the real underlying moral principles of responsibility to society. The jurisdictional boundaries make legal resolution of this dilemma unlikely: If my country does something about the definition of a corporation and yours doesn't, capital flows to you. The solution lies in having a few large players say, 'We're not going to operate that way anymore.' If such a corporation can succeed, they can apply contagious pressure through supply chains. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Bruce Summers, CVA likes this Varun Prakash Sharma Varun Prakash Varun Prakash Sharma HOD QA at ARICIA India CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility is Expectations. Expectations from all else, but ourselves! EASY……..isn’t it? I can’t do it? So what! I can expect others to do it. CSR – Citizen Social Responsibility is Righteous living. Every country, every civil society has a constitution, laws, norms, people’s obligations, their responsibilities which always come in first. In fact much before rights. I can do my bit? Who can stop me from sharing my share of life? Corporates come from this very society, not that society is corporate The people (we) who make the society, should be doing what is good for their people not just themselves. We should be doing what constitution expects of us…morality expects of us. Are we, individually, doing enough? If each one of us does what we expect others to do to/ for us from home, from office, from our positions, from our resources, anywhere…. Well! We will see that CSR is Citizen Social Responsibility. Responsible autonomy manages corporations today. Corporations themselves are big societies. Professionals managing corporations are citizen with tremendous autonomy bestowed upon them by promoters and guidelines by respective states. A society is a spiral structure. What goes round comes around. Don’t expect form others….do it oneself…….good deeds will come around. One can be generous only when one can afford to be one. One must put on one’s oxygen mask before helping others. But, if I put on my oxygen mask and thereafter push you to handover yours to one in the seat next to me, what would you call it? 'The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for anyone's greed.' We see world class sports, drama, and reality entertainment daily. Who is funding these for people???????? Billions are spent on football, cricket, baseball, fashion, movies, TV shows because we see them above all other social causes. If we can change our priorities as individuals from entertainment to social welfare…..sharing and caring……believe me….world view will change……corporate is just a small segment of a huge global society. It's dependent of people, their choices... Its time for us to change…….not to seek but to do...let's do it Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Daniela Sarmiento Daniela Daniela Sarmiento Communications, Corporate Social Responsibility and Online Community Management Corporate Social Responsibility is one of the most innovative way to connect people towards one cause. Working on CSR expand the view of people who lead businesses and of whom are served by them. CSR acts as a cycle where everyone gets involved to decrease inequality levels. Daniela Sarmiento Journalist Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Fabrizio di Palma Fabrizio Fabrizio di Palma Student A commitment to doing business in a respectful and sustainable way :) Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 10 months ago Daniela S. likes this Aldobhani Aldobhani Taufik privat sector development Advisor at GIZ With my respect to all definitions and as outsider i define CSR as 'attempts of monopolistic and oligopolistic powers to lubricate their operations to ensure their dominating power and to maintain their legacy over foreseeable future.while appearing as contributors for creating social and environmental values. Many other definitions may be true except of being voluntary initiatives made by corporations for the sake of welfare of others. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Tom Tom Taylor Development/Philanthropy Manager at Impetus - The Private Equity Foundation its a HR issue - fact is that a proportion of people want to 'do good'. you wont attract/retain this section of the talent pool unless you offer your staff at all levels some 'good feeling' - see comments from the UK boss of deutsche bank in the latest edition of 'square mile' magazine Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago CSR TIMES CSR CSR TIMES A widely read monthly publication on Corporate Social Responsibility Dear Group Members, I'm taking this liberty to publish some of your wonderful definitions of CSR in our print magazine CSR TIMES, with due acknowledgements to the writers. Hope this is ok with you. Thanks, Prashant Das, Editor (Dy) - CSR TIMES. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Debabrata Mandal likes this Tom Tom Taylor Development/Philanthropy Manager at Impetus - The Private Equity Foundation Hi Prashant, I would have no problem with that - would you be able to publish a link to the article here when it's done perhaps? Thanks, Tom. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Daniela S. likes this Debabrata Mandal Debabrata Debabrata Mandal Executive Director at Institute for Sustainable Initiatives-ISI CSR Odisha had the same discussion earlier. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Himanshu Chanda Himanshu Himanshu Chanda Founder, ProjectHeena.com CSR to me is just the sum of all the Sustainable and Responsible initiatives that an organization inspires their employees and other stake holders to do. That was my basic understanding when I started ProjectHeena.com our Individual Social Responsibility platform. CSR today is done by separate teams inside the company. This is very sad. What makes a corporate is the employees and stakeholder if they are not aware, not engaged and dont own a CSR initiative. Its completely futile! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Randolph Francis Randolph Randolph Francis Consultant -Social and Environmental Sustainability Corporate Social Responsibility, A very big responsibility and I don't mean the 'Corporate alone', why? you may ask, well not all of us get into the corporate world in the firs place, so, it becomes kind of one sided, I think. For everyrhing that is going wrong, corporates are held responsible for it. Well, I had the good fortune, to work with a corporate for fifteen years and what I learned, was that you don't mess with social and environmental sustainability. But that is besides the point. I believe that each and every one of us needs to have a real positive passion for what we already have at our disposal and start contributing to sustaining all of it. Yes, I am well aware, that it is easier to talk, than to do. But, I have asked this question before, are we doing enough? have we done enough? do we have plans that will help us do more than enough? I don't know. CSR is not just an acronym, it is a huge great responsibility for all of us, to ensure that we leave behind a kind of certain level of comfort for future generations... Every time I think about the current situation, I feel fear of what I do not know enough about Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago M. Starita Boyce Ansari, Ph.D. M. Starita M. Starita Boyce Ansari, Ph.D. Guest Lecturer at NYU Heyman Center for Philanthropy & Fundraising Broadly, speaking it is transparency and commitment to society. However, it is often used for public relations, building brand and market advantage. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France G. likes this Tom Tom Taylor Development/Philanthropy Manager at Impetus - The Private Equity Foundation http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/no-such-thing-as-business-ethics.html Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France Grenier France France Grenier Étudiant(e) (Université du Québec à Montréal) Humbly, my vision: ethics and respect are the answer to all CRS activities without which the value of the share is questionable view of greenwashing. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Alberto Alberto Sehuanes Social Responsibility Consultant Corporate social responsibility is not a business area, is an attitude of the company towards the society. If this attitude is serious the company is licensed to acting. CSR should be provided from the companies, in the actual communication channel with their environment, to build capacity for sustainability and development. As businesses we can not err in incorporate us in CSR simply to respond to an existing model, by engaging in this attitude, the company must give autonomy of action, financial and political, so your feedback germinate development and benefits typical of a act corporately responsible. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Sandhya Sandhya Chellapilla Senior Manager-Institutional Partnership Development at ActionAid Thanks for asking this question. It is an important question. From my perspective, CSR is not just about giving back to the society, but well a company conducts its business with respect to its own people (employees, contractors etc.) and how well it does it for other external people (customers) and how well it conducts itself when it comes to usage of natural resources that it uses/exploits for its business and the people affected due to it in the process, In my perspective, Companies have the responsibility on three fronts- First is with regards to its human resources. The most important among them is labour standards, especially, where the company employs labourers/semi-skilled workers. Whether they meet all labour standards; i.e. do they pay all semi-skilled and unskilled employees as per the labour laws (minimum wages), what are the kind of living and working conditions that the labourers/workers being provided is the very first measure. Most companies do this in their own country, but do they follow these rules when sub-contracting its work to other countries is the litmus test. Sub-contracting is done mainly to cut costs. But does cutting costs lead to cutting corners- especially in terms of under-paying staff, making them work in poor working conditions is the most important measure of how serious a company is about people and not just about its products. Within human resources, other important measure is if the country(ies) don't have stringent labour standards, does the company be happy in letting its labourers remain in poor working and living conditions? That is the question. The latest fire in Bangladesh's garment unit is a case in point. Had the company chosen proper contractors who respected human rights and thus provided proper working conditions, it would have ensured safe working conditions for those working at the bottom of the supply chain and that incident wouldn't have happened. If all companies were to ensure this, such incidents wouldn't happen. But alas, in this particular case, we cannot pin the companies to whom such products were to be sold. Second point on labour standards is employment of child labour. No product of the company should have been produced by child labour. It is a violation of child rights and more importantly, the violation of his/her childhood. The second front is the usage of natural resources by the company in making its products and how it owns up the responsibility to that exploitation. For instance a mining company that mines a mineral would be exploiting the same. How it takes care of the environmental hazards that come with it, whether it genuinely participates in the environmental audits, whether it agrees to independent audits rather than its own audits (for the sake of transparency) are v important measures of CSR. In a more indirect example, how a company makes fizzy drink like colas helps circulate the water it uses is v essential. Precious water that could be used by communities is drawn up in large measures for making a miniscule amount of cola (relative to the input i.e.). This causes deprivation of water to the communities living there. How does it address this issue is an important one. It is important from the environment perspective and also from the perspective that it affects people living there. Both need to be addressed. Whether a company is doing that or not is the most important one. The third front is about displacement of communities when setting up industrial plants by companies. In many cases, especially in the extractive industries, communities have to leave their place of dwelling in order for a company to set up operations. How this is dealt with, whether they are coerced to leave through force by the companies, by bribing the local officials etc. are important measures of CSR. There is no point in a company donating large sums of money if it is doing any or all of the above. Doing these correctly is the first step in CSR. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Arveyonka Logan Arveyonka Arveyonka Logan Events and Recreation Specialist at City of Sugar Land, TX CSR dictates a company's true ethical standards but most importantly, it's the karma in the corporate world. What you produce, you will get back. If you are barely giving cents (as one poster mentioned), your company will not grow. In addition, it's consumer appreciation. I'm spending money to grow your institution, how are you growing my community? How are you growing my skills as an employee? Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France G. likes this Akanksha soni Akanksha Akanksha soni Working with Healthy Living Development Society CSR means ,giving back to the society or community from whom you are earning. Its definitely a need based approach which supports your surrounding to come forward and join hands together for development of a nation. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France G. likes this Raymond Feeney Raymond Raymond Feeney International Development Consultant Off the top of my head: CSR is about creating a new corporate culture. It means moving from a visión where the human person, the community and the environment was there to be used (and abused) by businesses to a vision where businesses recognise the need to take into account and interact with these three elements. When I refer to the human person I am think especially of their employees and their rights and wellbieng; the matter of gener equality; child labour; the inclusión of minority groups. What comes to mind in relation to the community are the effects of businesses on the local community such as the large mining companies as we have in Peru; fundamentally no consultation, upheavel of power relations, promotion of devious opportunism through 'pay-offs' and 'projects'. It also refers to larger societal matters: by maneouvering policies and norms in their favour through lobbies and bribery. The environment component refers to the indiscriminate taking advantage of natural resources, especially wáter, and the destruction and deterioration of the local ecology. The cultural change entails seeing that we are interdependent and acting accordingly. In fact, behaving like that will bring positive to the business. For example, the promotion of good work practice creates a better climate and greater motivation which in turn should up the production as well as improve the company reputation. Cultural change is complex and slow but not impossible Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France G., Miroslava P. like this Rhonda Bannard Rhonda Rhonda Bannard Strategist - Relationship Development, PR, Social Responsibility, Events, Marketing, Nonprofit Wow, i'm exhausted reading all of this. If we put all this energy of defining something into mobilizing communities...imagine! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Larry Wilcox Larry Larry Wilcox CEO at NPO Hub conflict de interest! Transparency? Perhaps the responsibility of a corporation is in conflict with transparency as we are seeing with the dogma of governments and NGOs today. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France G. likes this Miroslava Peicheva Miroslava Miroslava Peicheva Sofia at University of National and World Economy CSR is a behavior of the organization, who ensuring its successful existence and development in a way that does not endanger, but rather contribute to the existence and development of the other living beings. Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France G., Bijay Kumar Singh like this Russell Workman Russell Russell Workman Program Manager at Centrecare CSR is the business adventure of our time: a business which is financially healthy, environmentally aware, socially friendly, loved by employees, customers and suppliers, And develops great products. Anybody can make money, but building a loved business is the domain of super heroes. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Rhonda Bannard likes this Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - What do you expect or want of yourself, the members of your family, friends, and other individuals when it comes to being socially responsible? If a corporation behaves that way, that's corporate social responsibility. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Miroslava P. likes this Aravinda Aravinda Rajagopal, PMP International Projects Coordinator @ Sewa International USA; Corporate Partnerships and Communication @ Youth For Seva CSR is about doing business in a moral, ethical and legal way and taking good care of all stake holders(includes its employees and their families), environment and natural resources. It is giving back to society thro' our product or services by minimizing damage to the environment and resources and not. CSR needs to be linked to the organization's vision, mission and product line, and, has to be integral to the core business and cannot be cut off. A company manufacturing a product has to have its design engineers think thro' before finalizing the product design and process. Imagine a manufacturing company producing automobiles that emit a reasonably high level of carbon monoxide/dioxide, and then takes up a a project under the banner of CSR to plant trees. They, and the world around, are better off if their design team focuses on reducing the carbon emission of their products by a small percentage. That is what I would say is the social responsibility of a corporate. Or take the example of a construction company in a developing country employing migrant laborers. Running a temporary school for children of these construction workers addresses the issue of education of the employee's children,lesser accidents since children are away from the construction site, better output by the laborers since they are at ease while at work - thus increasing their efficiency which translates to increased bottom line. This is a much better CSR initiative than cutting a cheque to a non-profit organization for construction of a school block. While outsourcing, ensure that the sub-contractor's business practices are also ethical, moral and legal. It is not recommended to outsource to a company that has financial charges or legal proceedings against it. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France G. likes this Walter Palmer Walter Walter Palmer Researcher, Writer, Speaker: sustainable alternative fuels and climate; consultant - Aravinda, I think that your comment points out one immense weakness of current CSR discourse: Social responsibility is not an organization's responsibility to its 'defined' stakeholders; it is the organization's responsibility to society. So, CSR is a matter of understanding an organization's effects as broadly as those effects occur, and wherever they occur, and to whomever they occur, and to whatever they affect and change and pressure. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Anne-Helene Anne-Helene Marsoe Human Rights Adviser / Special Adviser on Human Dimension issues, The Permanent Delegation of Norway to the OSCE CSR - How corporate firms while going about their business and how they spend their profit, duly pay attention, consideration and commitment to prevailing social, environmental and economic issues in the environment they operate within (workplace, workforce, marketplace, the supply chain, the community at large, and the environment). It includes compliance with legal frameworks including international standards, ‘do no harm’, as well as providing sustainable positive impact socially and environmentally. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Rodolfo J. likes this Jakob Thiemann Jakob Jakob Thiemann Assistant Campaign Manager, EP 2014 at Social Democratic Party, Denmark Hi Emilia. Since this thread seems to continue I wish to add my contribution. CSR needs to be understood from two different perspectives: 1) From within the organisation it is a practical matter: it is a tool to control/minimise risk 2) From outside the organisation it is a necessary matter: How do we create a world that is better to live in? These perspectives covers most of the comments above. I very much agree with the comment that more focus needs to be given to SMEs. They are the backbone of any economy locally anywhere and therefore need to play a much larger role in the implementation of CSR... Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France G. likes this Tom Tom Taylor Development/Philanthropy Manager at Impetus - The Private Equity Foundation Hi Jakob I'm not sure either of your perspectives covers a very important aspect which is a positive one - your second point is unrealistic, as very few shareholders will ever care about creating a better world in which to live - the business case is all that persuades senior management to adopt good CSR. Your first point is only a part of the business case. 'CSR minimises risk' is true to a degree, but the business case increasingly includes motivating and retaining staff, and even more powerfully, attracting and retaining clients/customers. Proponents of CSR must accept this reality if they are to further its influence within the corporate mindset. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Hena Ahmad Hena Hena Ahmad Director, mPower Connexions Besides all the philanthropic angle highlighted earlier, CSR becomes a compelling corporate action once it is perceived as the best form of PR ! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Emilia Asim - Ita Emilia Emilia Asim - Ita Senior Consultant, Strategy & External Relations at ThistlePraxis Consulting Thanks for your thoughts! Don't we need innovation at this rate? Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Tina Lindgreen likes this Tina Lindgreen Tina Tina Lindgreen Founder & General Secretary at The Humanitarian Water & Food Award, Executive Coach From definition to innovative action: http://www.wafdb.org/invitation.htm Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Jakob Thiemann Jakob Jakob Thiemann Assistant Campaign Manager, EP 2014 at Social Democratic Party, Denmark Hi Tom. Thank you for your comment. Distilled CSR is about minimising risk. You are right of course, that there need to be a business case. But that is exactly what minimising risk is about. But improving staff retention you minimise the risk of losing efficiency; by having a positive public image you can attract new talent - reducing the risk that competitors hire them; by being a stable reliable company you minimise the risk of losing clients/customers to the competition. Second point: an increasing number of shareholders and even more importantly stakeholders take a growing interest in how companies make money. Just look at the tragic accidents in Bangladesh and in Cambodia most recently. Stakeholder pressure and fear of loses in the stock market made the companies and the government of Bangladesh sign the Fire and Safety Accord.... Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Munirul Islam likes this Tom Tom Taylor Development/Philanthropy Manager at Impetus - The Private Equity Foundation Hi Jakob, interesting, thanks. Seems like we're violently agreeing, you through a risk lense and me through an opportunity one. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago MICHAEL P. likes this Sudeshna Mukherjee Sudeshna Sudeshna Mukherjee CSR Specialist - Freelance Amazing! A discussion on-going for almost 2 years and everyone is contributing with full gusto. I was going thru the thread of discussion and must admit that there is so much to learn from everyone's contribution. I am putting my contribution below, not for the conference (it is over now) but more from understanding members' views on this. CSR to me: When corporate as collective acts to create value for the common good for all its present and future stakeholders (direct or indirect), the corporate can be deemed as a socially responsible one. The ability to bring about a positive change and impact on lives of people in its sphere of influence through action is CSR. If it is viewed from a Rights perspective, it implies that all stakeholders (present and future) of the corporates has the right to benefit from the actions of the corporates. Those corporates who recognize these Rights have treaded in the path of CSR. Emphasis in these endeavors is to involve the stakeholders to be part of the CSR so that there is proper representation of their Rights. It is needless to say that when all the above criteria are fulfilled, it leads to sustainability. Like (3) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago SARTHAK R., Bijay Kumar Singh and 1 other like this Rahul Gupta Rahul Rahul Gupta International Consultant I would rather keep it crisp 'CSR is a process to fulfill the responsibility to giving back in the best alternatives to society, of what has been taken through commercial rights of a company in someway, somehow to furnish the goals of the organization.' Rahul Gupta Head- CSR & Volunteering **** Pvt. Ltd. Company Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Francis Sesay Francis Francis Sesay Assisting Director at Special People In Northeast Inc. CSR in essence can be defined as the art of giving back to society in order to strengthened market position. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago France G. likes this Rajesh Nair Rajesh Rajesh Nair Founder & President at KiteLife Foundation (NGO) CSR is a discipline that defined as a serious version of being how a company could be a good corporate citizen in their community with a commitment. Since the markets have been growing and its base for the stake holders are increasing in this compeititive environment, the need of the hour should be not only a great understanding about the discipline but an approach that is innovative, effective, benefited and a sustainable. Rajesh Nair Cheif Consultant KiteLife Foundation CSR Advisory Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Debabrata Mandal, Bruce Summers, CVA like this Surrinder Bains Surrinder Surrinder Bains Community Ambassador For Fundraising at John Taylor Hospice Should be about doing good and doing the right thing. Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 9 months ago Silvia S., France G. like this sarah etta sarah sarah etta Public Relations Officer at Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) CSR is a company concept of integrating social and environmental concerns in its business operations with their stakeholders, in other words not attaching any monetary gains to it. Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Amol K., Silvia S. like this Silvia Stamato Silvia Silvia Stamato Presidente Académico II Congreso Internacional de Mobbing y Bullying: www.mobbingbullying.com.ar I invite you all to II International Congress of Mobbing & Bullying, May 2014 in Argentina: www.mobbingbullying.com.ar Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago DEEPAK SONI (9424182952) DEEPAK SONI DEEPAK SONI (9424182952) Chief Manager CSR and Project at Youth Welfare Society In my opinion - To motivate villages and affected community towards company through developmental and sustainable activities like Education , Health , and skill development . Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Peter Burgess Peter Burgess Founder/CEO at TrueValueMetrics developing Multi Dimension Impact Accounting Great question ... and the fact of hundreds of responses is encouraging. My position on CSR is that it is important, and it really does not matter exactly what you call it, as long as the corporation really does it. I don't believe that the corporate leadership can have total commitment to CSR as long as they only use metrics about profit and aim to achieve good stockholder value. They absolutely must have metrics about what CSR is all about ... good profit AND good impact on people and planet. Such good metrics are possible, but it requires an 'out of the box' rethink on the part of accountants and those that do the record keeping. I am trying ... whether I will succeed depends on many factors ... stay tuned Peter Burgess TrueValueMetrics Delete 5 months ago Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment I think labels must be properly defined otherwise we dont know what we are talking about. I admire Peter Burgess enthusiasm but good definition is crucial. CSR is more than 'good profit AND good impact on people and planet'. CSR is about HOW profits are made not against profits per se. Social means economic, financial, environmental impacts as well as what we normally mean by social. Focusing on people and planet is to focus on tow main stakeholders namely natural environment (planet) and external communities (people). We must include in CSR all key stakeholders especially shareholders, owners, employees, contractors, supply chain workers as well as key external stakeholders such as the media, Government, NGOs, local communities, representatives of the natural environment etc Depending on the 'entity under consideration' i.e I take corporate in CSR to mean any collection of individuals in an institution. If you have read this far let me take your patience a little further by re-stating a definition that we have used for a number of years and the basis for our introductory online course on CSR and sustainable development in www.csrfi.com, scuse the plug but the course is almost free. Therein we define CSR to be: CSR in more detail: 1. Corporate Social Responsibility is a process that is concerned with treating the stakeholders of a company or institution ethically or in a responsible manner. ‘Ethically or responsible' means treating key stakeholders in a manner deemed acceptable according to international norms. 2. Social includes economic, financial and environmental responsibility. Stakeholders exist both within a firm or institution and outside. 3.The wider aim of social responsibility is to create higher and higher standards of sustainable living, while preserving the profitability of the corporation or the integrity of the institution, for peoples both within and outside these entities. The key is how profits are made, not the pursuit of profits at any cost. 4.CSR is a process to achieve sustainable development in societies. 5. Corporate means any body private, public or NGO [our definition applies neatly outside the traditional private corporate sphere] Original Source: Michael Hopkins (MHCi): A Planetary Bargain: Corporate Social Responsibility Comes of Age (Macmillan, 1998; updated and re-printed by Earthscan, 2003 and re-printed by Routledge, UK, 2010). More detail on www.mhcinternational.com Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Dinesh Upadhyay Dinesh Dinesh Upadhyay Senior Manager - CSR 'Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept whereby businesses integrate people environmental and social concerns in their business operations' By this businesses get the strength for a longer sustainability. Every CSR activity should design in such ways that it turned to a profit center and not the cost center in longer run and this can be done by the accurate and proper stakeholders mapping . Making profit and growth is into the DNA of every business venture without sustainable profit and growth it is hard for a business to sustain for longer run. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Bijay Kumar Singh Bijay Bijay Kumar Singh Manager CSR at ACC Limited In my view, It's corporate human face which is the reflection of the committment and caring towards the community , environment and soceity which is the purpose not a subject . Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Dr.Vijay Prakash Sharma Dr.Vijay Prakash Dr.Vijay Prakash Sharma Faculty at NIRD CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY EMERGED OUT OF LEGAL COMPULSION FOR CORPORATE BUSINESS HOUSES TO WORK FOR WELFARE OF PEOPLE IN THEIR BUSINESS CATCHMENT AREAS. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment I think there are many reasons for how CSR both emerged (in fact it has been around as long as the first company was created 2000 years ago..I'll post an article on that on my website www.mhcinternational.com shortly) and then became part of business strategy thanks to work by, believe it or not, USA! academics such as Carroll, Freeman and Woods. A big impetus came after the fall of the Berlin Wall when the score seemed to be Capitalist 1 Communists 0...yet in-between was a need to curb the excesses of capitalism without reducing incentives for the private sector to shine and grow. On definitions, the ones following my own intervention above, are useful but I would urge when you wish to introduce new definitions (or improve on mine) to think of how that could be applied in practice. My own definition easily leads to a 15 point practical business strategy that has been applied across the world from BA to BAT and more recently to an association, UEFA. I am sure those 15 pounts can be improved and made easier to apply. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Jodie King Jodie Jodie King Manager @ Marketing Matters http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-is-CSR-ebook/dp/B00FA4B30W/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment Good for you Jodie, I had a quick look and found you talk about CSER where E is Environmental, I include environmental under 'social' then you define CSER as 'CSER is a company’s vow to operate in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner whilst recognising, listening to and balancing the desires of diverse stakeholders.' So you have the stakeholder definition which is fine by me, hope you sell millions! By the way my own online course defines and elaborates on CSR and I thought it was cheap at $99,down from our original price of $400...but it is 20 hours of work plus a GMU certificate see: http://www.csrfi.com/courses/practical-guide-to-csr-and-sustainable-development-online-course. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Luyanda Mnuna Luyanda Luyanda Mnuna Provincial Director at Nutri Foods Western Cape CSR in basic terms is a commitment by corporate companies to ensure that there is sustainable development in communities by contributing a certain portion of the profits to the development of these communities. It doesn't just end there as certain corporate companies have a responsibility to ensure that certain environmental issues such as pollution through their products is reduced. One example of a much needed focus is the ever increasing problem of plastic pollution in under-developed communities. Plastic packaging companies such as Tetrapak have a responsibility to the communities they serve to ensure that there are sufficient recycling facilities as plastic pollution is fast becoming a problem in rural areas in South Africa DISCLAIMER: I mentioned Tetrapak not as means of blaming them for plastic pollution but as an example as I have dealt with them in business before!!! Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Anna Bajo Anna Anna Bajo Teacher and Researcher on CSR and HRM at Universidad Pontificia Comillas When companies adopt an ethical commitment in their relationship with their stakeholders, the way they re-organize the business to perform in a way aligned with that commitment, then the company is assuming CSR. Hence, CSR is the way companies are planned and managed in order to act ethically with all those that will be affected by business performance. And this planning and management has to be integral; it is not acceptable that a company contributes with part of its profit to anything without reflecting ethically about HOW those profits have been obtained. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Michael Hopkins likes this Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment Totally agree with Anna, CSR is not about destroying profits that would be stupid, but about how profits are made.Some recent thoughts on all this herein in this TV interview of Oct 3rd 2013: http://www.dukascopy.com/tv/en/#112066 Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Bijay Kumar Singh Bijay Bijay Kumar Singh Manager CSR at ACC Limited I am fully agreed with the points of Anna . However to some extent , I am still either confused or have not been able to understand the concept through. My quieries are 1. Why companies in most of the cases are supposed to be accountable to be ethical where as entire thing is not in thier hand . For example receiving of clearance or certificate from Govt. 2. Particularly to deal with the other external stakehloders such as Forest Department, Mining Department , legal section of the Govt and many more always remains a very tough situation and without appeasing management nothing happens . Therefore I believ that its the responsibility from all stakeholders across such as Govt.Community, Media , Policy makers and Company at bigger role of course to ensure it to happen. Yes I agree that company simply can not make CSR as a safe gaurd against any wrong / unethical practices. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Stephen Jordan Stephen Stephen Jordan Partner at IO There is a problem of semantics here, as well as cross-cultural definitions. Every word or concept can have some limited 'stretch' in its meaning, but if you stretch it too far, it can become all-encompassing and not have a lot of definitional utility. This problem has affected 'corporate responsibility'. Specifically, 'responsibility' in American English implies a sense of obligation or accountability or what others expect from the subject. This is why we added the concept of 'citizenship' when we set up the BCLC, to articulate the idea of the values that the subject brings to the situation. In apartheid South Africa for example, a case could be made that responsible companies had to abide by the laws of the country. Civic-minded companies did not have an obligation to any outside entity to protest, they did it because of the internal norms they brought with them. The problem is that this semantic difference does not necessarily translate in other cultures or languages, so corporate responsibility has become an umbrella term, which adds to its terminological confusion in English. This is why it might make sense to talk about two definitions: (1) the 'narrow' definition of corporate responsibility, and (2) the 'broad' definition of corporate responsibility -- and it is this second one that has been most discussed in this thread. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment Very helpful from Stephen Jordan, I especially like his acute observation that 'Every word or concept can have some limited 'stretch' in its meaning, but if you stretch it too far, it can become all-encompassing and not have a lot of definitional utility.' In fact just about all social science concepts have problems with definitions and understanding...for instance anyone want to have a go at an accepted definition of income or unemployment or inflation? What we seem to do is have a rough understanding of a concept which is wide enough to bring us together yet leave room for debate. Stephen knows I prefer the term Corporate Social Responsibility..simply because of the photo of George Bush Jr in 2001 promoting Sarbanes-Oxley in front of a backdrop of 'Social Responsibility'...I leave you to wonder why I wouldnt like that! Nor am I a fan of .narrow' and 'broad' in the same way as I wouldnt add the 'Bush' definition of corporate responsibility. But CSR as a defining concept does lead to very useful methods to analyse issues of corporate social responsibility, I just did one for the social responsibility of the Westgate attack due to my close association with both Kenya and Somalia and it follows the methodology (if you are still with me) that I developed here: http://mhcinternational.com/images/stories/Dubai.pdf Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Elida B. Ansaldo Elida B. Elida B. Ansaldo CONSULTANT FREELANCE - Sectores Comercio Internacional, Desarrollo Local, y RSE: Responsabilidad Social Empresaria. I think that the definition are the standard ISO 26.000. Thanks. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago David Living David David Living Great Companies Think Differently I think the European policy on CSR new policy on corporate social responsibility gives the simplest and clearest definition - 'the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society' refer http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0681:FIN:EN:PDF Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Sithembile Sithembile Mpofu Director at RCSR Social responsibility is balancing the expectations of the internal and external share-holders. It is value system that is then expressed through supporting societal and environmental concerns..... its a value system before its a big cheque exhibited by the mass media. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 months ago Jean Luc John Ahyee Jean Luc Jean Luc John Ahyee MSc Acc, PhD Candidate in Management CSR (corporate social responsibility/ corporate social responsiveness) is a highly debated concept in management and ethics literature (cf. Carroll 1999 in Business&Society, de Bakker, Groenewegen, den Hond 2005 in Business&Society). The abundant research production suggests that this concept is fundamentally normative and political. Its tries to connect some responsibilities/duties (economic, environmental, social, ethics...) with organizations' actions. The content of this responsabilities, their plausibility, their universality, their evaluation, remain socially and politically construct. The important number of contribution, here, is the illustration of a such phenomenon. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 months ago Saharsh David Saharsh Saharsh David CSR Manager at Sandvik ‘CSR is a commitment by companies to extend their social, environment and economic responsibility towards the society they operate in and with their stakeholders’. (Saharsh David) Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 months ago Prithi Chandra Prithi Prithi Chandra Marketing Consultant CSR is a co-operation and co-ordination between the (Triple bottom line) nature, (environment) and corporates (people ) in order to enhance future sustainability. According to me let me liken this to an analogy of the bee and the flower. The bee drinks the nectar of the flower, there by helping itself and further pollinates the flowers thereby helping the flowers so that the future generations of both the flowers and the bees can co-exist and survive together for a sustainable future. Its about building businesses and surviving without endangering each other and creating a healthy society. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 months ago Varun Prakash Sharma Varun Prakash Varun Prakash Sharma HOD QA at ARICIA India 53 likes, 267 comments since May 26, 2011. 'Doing Good' has so many views. Each one of us has a perspective and hence has one’s own view point. Do we really want to limit good deeds by binding them in a definition? Or, do we just let ‘Good’ be done? Impact, of good deeds would be judged by those benefited. Whichever good benefits most will fetch most blessings and in so many ways. Anything good might just be done because it is good; no matter how simple it is, no matter how small is the benefit, no matter how few is benefited and without consideration whether some definition covers is it or not. What I think is 'Good Deed' is as good as what each one of us think is 'Good Deed'. So……Just be good today, tomorrow and ever. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 months ago Silvia Stamato Silvia Silvia Stamato Presidente Académico II Congreso Internacional de Mobbing y Bullying: www.mobbingbullying.com.ar I invite you all to send your presentation or abstract and register for the II International Congress of Mobbing Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 months ago Amit Mahajan Amit Amit Mahajan Consultant at Independent Prithi, I think your definition is not that of CSR but that of inclusive business. IB is a form of CSR strategy. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 months ago Prithi Chandra Prithi Prithi Chandra Marketing Consultant According to the European Commission 'CSR is a concept whereby companies integrate social, and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis'. The stakeholders are aware of the true initiatives and intentions of the companies that practice CSR. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 months ago S.K. PANDIT S.K. S.K. PANDIT Left ITCOL on 1st March,2014,LOOKING for part time or full time opportunities,in the field of CSR- To me CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY is HOW the corporate s do their business , in terms of values , technology, management practices and communication with all stake holders. The underlying philosophy has to be HOW best they Pay back to this planet , nature/environment and society, some portion of the earnings they make. proactively , transparently and as matter of defined MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 months ago Pedro Sampaio Pedro Pedro Sampaio Copywriter & Community Manager at Inpakt In my opinion, CSR is the ability and the approach that a company has to have a social positive impact on a local community for good causes. It's the giving back that the company does in exchange of what the community contributes in benefit of the company. Because the return is never financial alone. Every action has consequences and collateral damages, externalities and we need to be aware of them every single moment and be responsible and accountable for what we do. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 2 months ago Randolph Francis Randolph Randolph Francis Consultant -Social and Environmental Sustainability To me, 'CSR', is one of the many acronyms that covers the subject in varied moods and hues. Some very rigid in the requirements and others less so. To me, it should be looked at not only in terms of giving back to the community but should encapsulate every facet of giving back in terms of individuals, communities, peoples and all the requirements of the environment that all of us in one way or the other so brutally vandalized, destroyed and depleted. leaving us as it were being firmly ensconced between a rock and a very hard stone. I guess that we, all of us involved in this work should ensure that it is not just a lip service that we provide, but to really walk the talk by raising the awareness levels way and beyond where it stands today all around and garner much more support around us to do the right thing. It should be driven from top down and must be spread among everyone involved in the company or group and be lead by passion from all the stakeholders and not just the CSR team alone, which is true of a number of situations I have encountered. This is my opinion without trying to sound preachy nor evangelical. Randolph Francis Consultant social and environmental sustainability. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 2 months ago Robert Scarlett Robert Robert Scarlett International Business Development Randolph & CSR Colleagues - It seems to me that this new year should give us all an opportunity to step back and address some of our fundamental CSR assumptions and the effectiveness of our always evolving strategies for achieving some level of corporate social responsibility within the corporate world. In many cases, CSR has been assigned to a key department or to key individuals within a department and the pursuit of CSR is perceived as the 'job' of that department or individual - rather than the job of the entire enterprise. For some corporations, CSR has become synonymous with 'funding local nonprofit organizations' or encouraging employee participation in community projects. With this CSR 'specialization' within some corporations, the larger questions about the role of a corporation in society are not addressed; and damaging myths like the 'myth of shareholder supremacy' or allowed to go unchallenged. Maybe 2014 will be the year during which we find ways to intensify the debate around these myths and develop more comprehensive approaches to shaping the potentially beneficial role of corporations - that, after all, depend on the will of the electorate for their existence. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 2 months ago Peter Burgess Peter Burgess Founder/CEO at TrueValueMetrics developing Multi Dimension Impact Accounting Whenever the discussion moves to 'defining' something, the something, in my experience, is in trouble. I like to understand issues through metrics. When I look at CSR with this perspective I find that CSR is big in terms of talk, but is not getting close to moving the needle on the big issues that we need to address in society and the global economy. Some of this is a problem with CSR itself, and some of this is a problem with the way incentives work within most big organizations. In most big organizations the CEO may well be standing up for CSR, and there may be a quite robust CSR function in the organization, but it is likely that the CFO and everyone else are still operating with a system of management information and incentives that are all about the business profit and nothing else. This is a huge constraint on the potential for CSR success. My hope is that something like Multi Dimension Impact Accounting (MDIA) which has metrics for impact on people and planet as well as the conventional metrics for profit could be a game changer. With MDIA the CFO can be an ally in the implementation of meaningful CSR initiatives. Peter Burgess - TrueValueMetrics Multi Dimension Impact Accounting Delete 2 months ago Walter Moreno Arana Walter Walter Moreno Arana Especialista en Sistemas de Gestión Empresarial Docente en el CIEC - Universidad de Lima CSR is the result of driving a business towards excellence in management, assuming the most challenging commitments, for all stakeholders and fulfill them Regards Walter. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 2 months ago Luc Lapointe Luc Luc Lapointe Principal at Connexion International Here are some context to my reply. First of all, companies should be responsible for the well-being of their employees as well as mitigate 'all' risk to the social and environmental of the communities where they operate. Any other activities done outside of this spectrum and included in the definition of CSR should be contextualize in the following spectrum. CSR is an opportunity for a corporation to receive a good tax deduction to do something that the governments are elected to do with the high taxes we all pay. There is an assumption that these punctual activities (described as CSR) are better delivered by a corporation than by the public sector (health, education, etc). This perspective brings to mind that since corporation receive a tax deduction for such activities ....that this is an informal tax on consumption for a particular corporation to deliver a 'social' good. If corporations would believe in the 'social' good, would they still do the same if it would not be tax deductible. This hyper-individual approach to social good is less than strategic....hoping that we can move towards an hyper-collective approach that complements existing programs. Unlike Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 2 months ago Peter Burgess likes this Elida B. Ansaldo Elida B. Elida B. Ansaldo CONSULTANT FREELANCE - Sectores Comercio Internacional, Desarrollo Local, y RSE: Responsabilidad Social Empresaria. The Workings Groups of the ISO 26,000 defined CSR. We worked for many years. That is the definition. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 2 months ago Michael Hopkins Michael Michael Hopkins CEO & Founder CSRFI Executive Education, Academic & Businessman, Author/Speaker on CSR, Development, Employment In fact they defined SR, but the problem with a committee defining things is that nobody really agrees with the output definition since it is a compromise between competing forces. Since one has to pay to get the ISO26000 document I took their definition from www.tuv.com/media/india . Therein I note that they use the phrase CSR whereas ISO 26000 talks about SR - see http://www.iso.org/iso/home/store/publication_item.htm?pid=PUB100331 I put the definition allegedly by ISO below. But I have noted before that the definition talks about 'responsibility ON society and the environment'. Now what about the internal stakeholders of an organisation such as shareholders, managers, board members, owners etc Are they included in 'society'? If so, part of my objection is lifted. But certainly not clear. Then sustainable development as a goal is fine by me. But the Brundtland Commission definition implies working for future generations without sacrificing the needs of the present. I.E. distributing today's wealth and income from the poorer people of today, to the richer people of tomorrow. Later in their report (BC I mean) they talk about satisfying basic needs...does that mean that any corporation of today that does a Sustainability Report based on ISO2600 must work toward satisfying basic needs? Interesting conclusion but is that known? CSR definition by ISO 26000 The responsibility of an organization for the impacts of its decision and activities on society and the environment, through transparency and ethical behavior that: • Contribute to sustainable development ,including health and welfare of society • Takes into account the expectation of stakeholders • Is in compliance with applicable law and consistent with international norms of behavior • Is integrated throughout the organization and practices in its relationship This implies the willing inclusion by business of social and environmental concerns in the commercial (economic) activities and their relation with their stakeholders. CSR Correlates with the social and environmental dimensions of Sustainable Development as defined by brundtland comission and the model of the triple bottom line (Economic-Environment-Social or Profit-Planet-People) CSR may be considered as a tool and way of doing business towards sustainable development. CSR is a good way of doing business strategically & profitably. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 2 months ago Hugo Skoppek Hugo Hugo Skoppek I help companies to become more sustainable Sustainability Expert (in the food and fiber sector) As you can see above, CSR definitions abound. Most are based on the Brundtland Commision's definition of sustainable development taking into account environmental and social factors. As far as I am concerned, CSR is all about capital. It is a dynamic interplay between traditional capital (e.g. money and human creativity), natural capital (e.g. minerals and ecosystem services) and human capital (labor). The key is to keep these different forms of capital in balance in space (carrying capacity of the planet) and time (enabling future generations. This is a delicate balancing act, which requires cooperation not competition and I believe that we still have a lot to learn from nature herself in a sense of the blue economy, which I believe is the closest we currently have manifested in terms of CSR. Let me stop here for brevity's sake. I would be happy to continue, though. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 2 months ago Pushparaj . Pushparaj Pushparaj . State Co-Ordinator - Corp Affrs at Reliance Jio giving back to the society Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 7 days ago Ossama Ismail likes this SATISH BHUVIR SATISH SATISH BHUVIR Sr.Manager ( CSR ) at Hindalco Inds.Ltd. ( Unit : Birla Copper ) Integrated development of under deprived community Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 7 days ago Luc Lapointe Luc Luc Lapointe Principal at Connexion International It would be so nice to go beyond words and to measure collective impacts....not so much 'cute' projects. This is an interesting conversation in Asia -- Inclusive business or CSR — what's more effective for development!?! https://www.devex.com/en/news/inclusive-business-or-csr-what-s-more-effective/82930?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRons6TKcu%2FhmjTEU5z16eglXqWwgYkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTcNmN7DYDBceEJhqyQJxPr3DJNUN0ddxRhbkDQ%3D%3D I will use starbucks as a good example 'again'. If you look at there value chain -- to produce a cup of coffee - Starbucks depends on 19 countries to serve that coffee but where is their CSR program?? only in the USA..where the community where they work and the customer that they serve....can certainly afford that very expensive (but good) coffee. I have to admit that I like Starbuck when traveling. The World Bank is working on Open Private Sector....this is where CSR will start making sense! Luc...from the Sucursal del cielo (Cali Colombia) Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 7 days ago Robert Scarlett likes this sandhya valasingam sandhya sandhya valasingam Senior Software Engineer at NTT DATA Americas Also can be said as sharing the knowledge and serving the people who are in need in your own way with technology skills and humanity ..being social is important here.Can be developed with a self motivation and serve a purpose .Doing a job apart from routine things collectively by conducting different activities like go green..old-age home visits and educating students on weekend or in free time..Simply what knowledge we have we have share with people who need them and enjoy their prosperity..:) Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 7 days ago Rajesh Nair Rajesh Rajesh Nair Founder & President at KiteLife Foundation (NGO) CSR to me is a development from a thought striked instant and is not just confined to a process but in keeping in view and work in tandem with the approach and sustainablity for a longer period and attain satisfactory. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 days ago Bijay Kumar Singh Bijay Bijay Kumar Singh Manager CSR at ACC Limited Its beyond to compartmental view of a company . However in India it's no more only a responsibility it has become a compliance to support and play a meaningful role in the overall development of the different stakeholders majorly affected by the company and may have greater influence on the operation of the company. Therefore its a complete mechanism and has to be treated as a crucial and important department. I am sure the Companies now will have a professional and thoughtful approach towards dealing with the situation beyond its fence with a diversified role may be the role of leader, facilitator , catalyst , coordinator and partner . It will bring a transformation and cultural change for both Companies and the community with more transparency . Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 days ago Srikanth Meesa likes this Elida B. Ansaldo Elida B. Elida B. Ansaldo CONSULTANT FREELANCE - Sectores Comercio Internacional, Desarrollo Local, y RSE: Responsabilidad Social Empresaria. Reiterated, Standard ISO 26,000 in its respective chapter, is defined with the consensus of the members of the study committees of the member countries of ISO. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 3 days ago Louis Guay Louis Louis Guay Senior Fellow at Saint Paul Univeristy The definition, I use, for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the way companies integrate social, cultural, environmental, and economic dimensions into their values and operations in a transparent and accountable manner (until now, the text is the same as the one provided by the March 2009 Canadian Government CSR Policy, save for the word 'cultural' which absence forgets a critical element of Social Responsibility, in my view, the indigenous dimension). I have added the unavoidable purpose: …with a view to contributing concretely and measurably to the sustainable/durable development of the community, region and country where they operate. I have invested in identifying the main values and I have the following to offer: Respect, Transparency, participation/multistakeholder, social durability and environmental durability. Conflict prevention and acquisition of knowledge and its sharing as two supportive complementary approaches to forging the effective partnerships. However, CSR in my model is only part of a broader system as social responsibilities are incumbent not only on investing corporations but on governments and community-based cum civil society organisations. With regards to responsibilities corresponding to governments, I offer the following: Government Social Responsibility (GSR) is the explicit or implicit commitments and values emanating from Constitutional and the full body of laws of a given jurisdiction to contribute to creating the appropriate conditions for a governance system to pursue effectively and ensure durable outcomes and outputs from its policies and socio-economic activities. I cannot, in all honesty at this stage, propose a definition for Social Responsibility of or for civil society organisations (CSOs). While I am working on this theme, such a definition would CSOs’ own input as pretending to define this unilaterally, even with the best of faith and intentions, would be pretentious and counterproductive. However, I can assure you that such concept as durable development and commitments to values should be an integral part of the definition. Social Responsibility, therefore, becomes a system rather than a mere attribute of a corporate strategy. And its success is predicated on the three main categories of stakeholders (corporations, CSOs and gvts) fully assuming their responsibilities which may be exclusive, common or joint. Sustainability or durability, as I prefer to call the finality of the approach can only be the result of effective partnerships (formal and informal) between the three categories of stakeholders. Keep this blog alive!!! Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 45 minutes ago Robert Scarlett likes this Peter Burgess Send me an email for each new comment. Top Contributors in this Group influencerFullName Harry McAlister Co-founder of AmpleEarth.com = Animated Videos for Good Causes Unfollow Harry See all members Your group contribution level You're making an impact! Reach the Top Contributor level to get a group badge. 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Academic Research for Ph D: Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) in Small and Medium Scale Companies operating in India I request you to help me by filling the survey questionnaire, as a part of my Ph.D. degree program, available at the: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xQPFCmiI-6sud90kuquklX_OTp320ODycDFo3Ur5ln0/...more 1d ago See all activity Subgroups RSE Latinoamérica 303 members Red Argentina de RSE (RARSE) member Red Argentina de RSE (RARSE) 27 members See more AboutFeedback Privacy & Terms LinkedIn Corp. © 2014 Feedback Next discussion CSR, Social Enterprise or Charity? Overall, w… Corporate Social Re… View next discussion View next discussion Help Center AboutPressBlogCareersAdvertisingTalent SolutionsToolsMobileDevelopersPublishersLanguage Upgrade Your Account LinkedIn Corporation © 2014 User AgreementPrivacy PolicyCommunity Guidelines Cookie PolicyCopyright PolicySend Feedback