Strategic CSR - Unilever

The headline and opening sentence in the article in the url below suggests that we have discovered how to measure CSR, comprehensively:

 

"Unilever and Patagonia have cemented their position as the world's most sustainable brands, topping the list of sustainability leaders in a new report released Thursday."

 

In fact, the text should read that these companies are "perceived to be the world's most sustainable brands." The reason comes down to the question asked in the survey that generated the data on which the headline was based:

 

"The 2015 Sustainability Leaders Report, produced by think tank SustainAbility and research consultancy GlobeScan, asked 816 sustainability experts in 82 countries which company they thought best integrated sustainability into its business strategy."

 

When you are asking people "which company they thought best integrated sustainability into its business strategy," you are going to generate opinions rather than facts. This would be OK if the opinions were based on knowledge of what is actually going on inside these companies; instead, they are based on what people think is going on. The dangers of relying on perception-based understandings of reality are that, once a perception is formed, it (a) becomes susceptible to group think (i.e., I need to say what others are saying) and (b) becomes particularly difficult to dislodge (i.e., these companies are the best because they were the best last year). As a result, there is a great deal of inertia in lists like this:

 

"Unilever drew top honors for the fifth year in a row, while Patagonia ranked second, the same position it occupied last year. The two companies were followed, in order, by Interface, Marks and Spencer, Natura, Ikea and Nestle. … BASF is the only new company to make the top 11, while two companies – Walmart and Puma – fell off from last year's top 10 list."

 

The sorts of biases that infuse these kind of survey data become particularly apparent when you look at the regional breakdown of perceptions described in the article:

 

"In Asia, for example, India's Tata group is the fourth-highest regarded company, and Shell and Proctor and Gamble both make the top 10. In Africa and the Middle East, 5% of experts identified SABMiller as a top leader. Meanwhile, in Oceania, Westpac came in third, Tesla came in fourth, and HP, Siemens and Novo Nordisk all made the top 10. Unilever and Patagonia, in fact, were the only two companies to make the leader list in every region."

 

Until we are able to create a meaningful measure of CSR that allows us to capture all aspects of operations and compare across industries and cultures, this (no doubt profitable) industry of creating CSR/sustainability lists is going to be driven by anecdotes and perceptions (which is why companies like Enron and BP won so many CSR/ethics awards for so many years).

 

Take care

David

 

David Chandler & Bill Werther

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation (3e)

© Sage Publications, 2014

 

Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: http://www.sagepub.com/chandler3e/

Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/

The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: http://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/

 

 

Unilever, Patagonia cement their positions as the world's most sustainable brands, says new report

By Bruce Watson

May 28, 2015

The Guardian Sustainable Business

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/may/28/sustainability-leaders-report-unilever-patagonia-ikea-nestle

 

Strategic CSR - 2012

As the article in the url below reminds us, when there are so many reasons to criticize, you can sometimes lose sight of all the good things that are happening in CSR:

“It’s easy, amid the daily churn of downer headlines, to lose sight of the good stuff, the developments that signifies a marker for progress.”

With this in mind, here are a selection of the fifteen highlights of the best that happened in terms of sustainability in 2012 (according to GreenBiz.com):

• Marks & Spencer announced that it had sold one billion sustainable products. Over a third of the items it sells now boast some form of sustainability credential.
• The U.K. government said it will introduce mandatory carbon reporting rules requiring around 1,800 of the country's largest listed companies to report annually on their greenhouse gas emissions.
• Whole Foods became the first major North American retailer to stop selling unsustainable, or red-listed, seafood, a determination by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Blue Ocean Institute that the fish species is being overfished or that current fishing methods harm non-target marine life or habitats. 
• Nike’s adopted a waterless dyeing technology that uses recycled carbon dioxide to color synthetic textiles. The process could eliminate the use of countless billions of gallons of polluted discharges into waterways near manufacturing plants in Asia.
• Puma published a detailed environmental profit & loss statement for 2010, valuing the costs to the planet incurred by its operations across its supply chain.

This list reminds me again that for-profit firms are central to the kind of society that we want to construct. They are the best way that we have found to organize and distribute scarce resources in the most efficient and socially constructive way. For-profit firms need to be a big part of the solution, which is why the business school is such an important part of a university education.

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/

2012 was the year that …

By Joel Makower

December 31, 2012

GreenBiz.com

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/12/31/2012-was-year

Strategic CSR - M&S

Over the summer, I read about a great idea by Marks & Spencer (M&S) that is called “Clothes Exchange.” The policy, which is a partnership developed in connection with the UK charity, Oxfam, is described on M&S’s website as:

“…the biggest programme in the UK to encourage consumers to recycle their clothes.”

The idea makes good business sense, while also helping the firm meet its aggressive “Plan A” goals (Case-studies: Primark vs. M&S, p198).

First, the socially-responsible benefit comes from encouraging more people to donate their old clothes to charity, rather than throwing them away (which, M&S claims, happens in 80% of cases currently). M&S’s solution, via the three-year old Clothes Exchange, is to “pay people to recycle”:

“Anyone who heads down to an Oxfam store with a bag of unwanted clothes gets a £5 shopping voucher. The idea has been a roaring success with us, the consuming public. Oxfam has collected over seven million garments – that's an item from almost one in every eight UK residents.”

Second, the business benefit comes from ensuring that the vouchers that people receive from Oxfam are spent at M&S, but in a way that generates additional business that may otherwise have gone to the firm’s competitors:

“There are two conditions to the scheme. First, at least one of the recycled items must be an M&S product. Second, the £5 can only be used against purchases in M&S of £35 or over. Both make eminent sense.”

The result is that M&S is able to reduce its environmental footprint (reducing waste and used landfill space), while supporting one of the UK’s most popular charities in its goal to reduce poverty, while also generating increased custom in its stores:

“Oxfam is in the business of reducing poverty. More clothing donations means more funds to do just that. M&S is in the business of making profits. Persuading people to come into its stores and spend is therefore fundamental. A voucher helps towards that. Consumers feel happy (they’ve collectively pocketed vouchers worth over £7.5 million so far), as does M&S (whose tills are busier).”

Ultimately, the plan is altering consumer behavior, which is essential if meaningful, lasting change is to be achieved:

“Companies can’t force us to ‘do the right thing’. But they can present us with options that take the hassle out of doing what – in our more principled moments – we know to be right.”

For more information about the M&S/Oxfam partnership, see: http://plana.marksandspencer.com/about/partnerships/oxfam%20

For more information about M&S’s Plan A, see: http://plana.marksandspencer.com/

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/

The M&S Effect: Bin bags and business sense

Ethical Corporation’s Management Blog

By Oliver Balch

May 13, 2011

http://crmanagementblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/m-effect-bin-bags-business-sense-and.html

Strategic CSR - CSR in 2010

The article in the url below provides an overview of the major CSR stories in 2010.

Issues covered range from the BP Gulf oil spill, to the launch of ISO26000 (Case-study: ISO26000, p305), to the expansion of Marks & Spencer’s Plan A (Case-study: Primark versus Marks & Spencer, p198), to the release of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb) study.

In terms of both its breadth (range of issues and firms covered) and depth (facts and figures), the article is a very good summary of the past 12 months in CSR.

Have a good weekend.

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/

2010: A Year Dominated by Macro Trends

Rajesh Chhabara

December 3, 2010

Ethical Corporate Magazine

11

http://www.ethicalcorp.com/resources/pdfs/content/201012243226_review%20of%20year.pdf

Strategic CSR - CSR in a recession

The article in the url below asks the question: Why do firms continue to invest in CSR when many expected such policies to diminish in an economic downturn?

"That easy prediction has turned out to be wrong. Mars, the world's biggest confectionery company, has announced that its entire cocoa supply will be "produced in a sustainable manner" by 2020."

The author also cites the examples of Cadbury, the maker of the UK's most popular chocolate bar that recently made a similar commitment to Mars, and Wal-Mart:

"… the world's biggest retailer, which told a meeting of 1,000 Chinese suppliers last year that it would hold them to strict environmental and social standards, the downturn notwithstanding."

The author then proceeds to outline the strong business reasons behind these decisions by the three firms. He argues that, contrary to skeptical opinion, in the current economic climate, CSR is essential for firms seeking to please customers, guarantee supplies of high quality raw ingredients, and also lower costs:

"… when, in 2007, M & S laid out its "Plan A" on sustainable sourcing and fair trading, it expected the changes to cost the company £200m ($290m, €225m) over five years. But because, like Wal-Mart, M & S is saving money through its initiatives, it is finding its changes are cost-neutral."

Have a good weekend

Dave

Bill Werther & David Chandler

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility

© Sage Publications, 2006

http://www.sagepub.com/Werther/

Why corporate responsibility is a survivor

By Michael Skapinker

829 words

21 April 2009

Financial Times

Asia Ed1

11

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bc9a37ce-2def-11de-9eba-00144feabdc0.html