Over the summer, I saw a full-page advert in the NYT for the environmental activist group Earthshare.org (http://www.earthshare.org/). I couldn’t find a graphic of the ad to share with you, but have reproduced the copy below:
“Ever decision we make has consequences. We choose what we put into our lakes and rivers. We choose what we release into the air we breathe. We choose what we put into our bodies, and where we let our children run and play. We choose the world we live in, so make the right choices. Learn what you can do to care for our water, our air, our land and yourslefyourself at earthshare.org.”
What attracted me to the ad was the emphasis it places on individual responsibility, rather than merely harranging firms for polluting too much. The headline of the ad (including capital letters and bold) captures the tone exactly:
“WE LIVE IN THE HOUSE WE ALL BUILD.”
As regular readers of this Newsletter will know, I favor a similar emphasis within the CSR debate. I think firms act much more quickly in response to key stakeholder demands (consumers, in particular) than they do when expected to initiate action that has no demonstrated support in the marketplace. In other words, if consumers stop buying a certain product because they disapporave of the way it was produced or some other action by the firm that produced it, that firm will quickly adapt or fail. In other words, we are as responsible for the corporations that survive and thrive in our society as the organizations themsleves. It is not a perfect solution for the problems in our capitalist system, and I do not absolve firms of all responsibility (and I still think that those firms that are able to differentiate themselves in relation to CSR will be more successful in the long term); it is just that I think more would be achieved that much faster in terms of CSR advocacy if an equal empahsis was placed on stakeholder responsibility (e.g., consumer education) as on corporate responsibility.
Have a good weekend.
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther
