Welcome back to the Strategic CSR Newsletter!
The first Newsletter of the Fall semester is below.
As always, your comments and ideas are welcome.
One consequence of the BP oil spill over the summer (although the trend is a more general one that is being driven by media favorites such as Walmart), is the dominance of sustainability (and, by that, I mean environmental sustainability) in the CSR debate.
This is understandable, but unfortunate. It is understandable because of the importance of global warming and the return of visible pollution to America’s shores, but it is unfortunate because the importance of CSR to the business community is so much broader than the cost-cutting benefits of sustainability.
In Strategic CSR, we deliberately emphasized the breadth of CSR, defining it as an all-encompassing business approach that invokes all aspects of operations. It is a strategic perspective of the firm, of which philanthropy plays only a minor role. Sustainability plays a larger role, but it is still only one part of a more comprehensive program.
As such, this semester, I will strive to focus on this broader perspective (perhaps the launch of the ISO 26000 CSR guidelines in October will help re-balance the debate), although I also want to comment on BP and will, undoubtedly, be influenced by the predominance of sustainability articles in the CSR coverage I read on a day-to-day basis.
Take care
David
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders in a Global Environment (2e)
© Sage Publications, 2011 http://www.sagepub.com/strategiccsr2e/
Instructor Teaching Site: http://www.sagepub.com/strategiccsr/
The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: http://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/
Posted by David Chandler at 7:27 AM Links to this post
