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Do you need a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program
| Guest post by: John Heap |
Article Overview: CSR is 'fashionable'. it appeals. however, too many organisations adopt CSR as a 'badge' to demonstrate their altruism, their environmental credentials. This article argues that CSR is a business issues - not a badge of honour; it we approach it right, CST can help our bottom line.
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Free Download - Do you need a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program By John Heap |
Do you need a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program
Do
you need a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program?
That
is the wrong question to be asking.
What
you do need is a productivity improvement program – because that is how you
increase your markings and your competitiveness.
Essentially,
improving productivity is the only way to add extra value and make a business
more profitable in the longer-term. Productivity increases the size of the cake
that is shared out ... rather than just trying to slice up the cake in
different proportions.
At
its most simple, productivity is expressed as outputs/inputs – it is what you produce
compared to the resources you use in that production.
However,
over the last couple of decades, we have realised that not all outputs are good
– many organisations produce waste, pollution, emissions and other harmful
substances. In addition to any effects these have on the
environment and the planet, they cost the business money.
We
have also realised that we do not always consider fully the other impacts we
have – the social impact we have on the communities in which we operate, the
full impact we have on our employees … and on the wider society.
That
is why we now hear about concepts such as the triple bottom line and SEE productivity
– suggesting that, to be sustainable in the longer-term, organisations need to consider
their social, environmental and economic productivity.
The
real breakthrough in thinking, however, has been for some organisations to realise
that they need to consider the three factors not because they want to be seen
as being ‘good’ … but because they have realised that attendance to the SEE
factors is good business.
We should
address our 'negative outputs' and simultaneously make our business and our
environment better. This can be done by looking at our waste and seeing what we
can do to reduce it ... but it is much more effective when we look at the whole
process of producing our goods or services and see what can be done to
re-design the product and/or the process to avoid creating waste (and those
other negatives) in the first place.
Some ethical consumers, concerned environmentalists,
global NGOs and so on are lobbying for change.
Companies are moving from concentrating on stakeholder value (how much money they make for
their shareholders) to concentrating on stakeholder values, recognizing that there are multiple stakeholders whose
values sometimes conflict. We must
commit to facilitating the management of the outcomes of productivity efforts,
and the mitigation of its unintended consequences.
What we do in pursuit of growth and wealth must be
economically viable, but also must be environmentally bearable and socially
equitable. We want to act as responsible
citizens – to demonstrate our corporate social responsibility – but we can do
this in a way that contributes to our bottom line … we just have to start
thinking differently.
The pundits keep reminding us that the only thing
constant is change.
All sorts of external factors - the availability
of raw materials, government policies, legislation, the availability of
capital, interest rates (need I go on?) - have an impact on organisations.
Looking at our
productivity (in all its forms) enables us to understand and then improve the
ratio of our outputs to our inputs - to add more value, to reduce ‘negative
value’ and to become both stronger and more sustainable.
A fit, lean, efficient and flexible organisation
has much more ability to cope with external change – and to survive and prosper.
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