The economic situation is certainly affecting all of Corporate America in so many ways. Budgets are tight, but there is even more of a need for CSR and Philanthropy in these tough times. Here is one man’s take on the need to not cut back on your CSR efforts.
Link to the video message from Stephen Howard, CEO of Business in the Community.
Spada, a UK public relations consultancy, has come out with a study that links the length of corporate sustainability reports with the likelihood of winning corporate sustainability awards. Here is the study.
Environmental Leader has looked at the report and summarized the findings in their daily newsletter. Check it out here.
Do you think this is true from your experiences?
This SIRAN study finds that 86 of S&P 100 companies have some level of sustainability communications. The imc2 report identifies best practices in four sustainability communication categories:
- holistic definition
- integration
- engagement
- ransparency.
The study documents a clear connection between sustainability action and communication.
Download the free whitepaper.
Recent Aberdeen research on sustainability initiatives has revealed that top performers place the transformation of enterprise culture at the center of their sustainability and corporate responsibility platforms.
Findings demonstrate that sustainability best practices are as much about change in organizational culture as they are about process transformation. Among the Best-in-Class, vision, leadership, education, and communication are as important as changes in operational processes and technology. In fact, this focus on people and processes results in a variety of qualitative improvements across the enterprise.
Best-in-Class organizations indicate that their Corporate Responsibility (CR) and sustainability platforms have positively impacted employee / management relations and company communication (56%). This Analyst Insight will compare Best-in-Class outcomes from two Benchmark Reports; Building a Green Supply Chain, from March 2008 and Getting from Green to Gold from July 2008 – both of which indicate that culture is the lynchpin to sustainability success.
http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/perspective/5537-AI-green-business-culture.asp
Vault.com, Inc. (http://www.vault.com) is proud to announce the release of the company’s first digital-only book, the Vault Guide to Green Programs. The guide details how many prominent North American companies are incorporating environmental concerns into their business practices.
Companies profiled in the guide include: Accenture, Apple, Boeing, Burt’s Bees, Citi, DuPont, Gap Inc., GE, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Northwest Airlines, Random House, Seventh Generation, Sony BMG, Starbucks, Whole Foods and many more.
http://www.vault.com/store/book_preview.jsp?product_id=53449&industry=190
In a broader analysis of 50 global companies, Towers Watson found that companies with low engagement scores had an average operating margin just under 10 percent. Those with high traditional engagement had a slightly higher margin of 14 percent. Companies with the highest “sustainable engagement” scores had an average one-year operating margin of 27 percent.
Forty percent of employees with low engagement scores said they were likely to leave their employers over the next two years, compared to 24 percent of traditionally engaged employees, and just 18 percent of employees with the highest “sustainable engagement” scores.
So what is energy, exactly? In physics, it’s simply the capacity to do work. In other words “energy” and “capacity” are essentially interchangeable. In simple terms, energy is the fuel in our tanks — what’s required to bring our skill and talent to life. Without sufficient energy, skill is rendered irrelevant. You can’t run on empty and that’s increasingly what employees are being asked to do.
Feelings of overload and burnout are default emotions in today’s organizations. Nor is this likely to change soon. Higher demand and fewer resources are the new normal. Effectively addressing the issue of capacity — energizing the workplace — depends on the willingness of individuals, leaders and organizations to each take responsibility for their roles.
For organizations, the challenge is to shift from their traditional focus on getting more out of people, to investing in meeting people’s core needs so they’re freed, fueled, and inspired to bring more of themselves to work, more sustainably.
Specifically, Towers Watson concludes that organizations must create policies and practices that make it possible for employees to better manage their workload, live more balanced lives and exercise greater autonomy around how, when, and where they get their work done. Policies focused on flexibility and working remotely contribute to a more energized workplace, we’ve found, and so does setting organization-wide boundaries around the length of meetings and the hours during which people are expected to respond to email.
For leaders, the key is to begin thinking of themselves as Chief Energy Officers. Energy is contagious, for better and for worse, and disproportionately so for leaders — by virtue of their influence. “The manager is at the heart of what we might think of as a personal employee ecosystem,” the Towers Watson study concludes, “shaping individual experience … day in and day out.”
Read full article in Harvard Business Review
Sustainability has moved up in the corporate agenda over the past three years and become recognized as a source of innovation and new growth, according to a recent Corporate Sustainability: A Progress Report, published by KPMG International.
Why? Sustainability touches every aspect of an organization, from corporate stewardship to brand communication to transparency and governance to environmental interaction to employee relations to health and wellness. And while examining your business from this vantage point may seem overwhelming, it quickly becomes less burdensome when you recognize sustainability directly impacts your company’s longevity and success.
Is it really important?
Thoughtful leadership questions a paradigm shift or the need to adopt a new behavior prior to actualization. But when it comes to embracing sustainability, a strong business case exists already.
For example, on Deloitte’s website, sustainability is termed “a fundamental change driving long-term profitability,” referencing opportunities for innovation; human capital and technology changes; the implementation of high value processes; waste, emissions, water and energy issues; regulatory requirements; new growth markets; and shareholder expectations.
In May 2010, David Lubin and Daniel Esty talked about the “sustainability imperative” in the Harvard Business Review. They referred to sustainability as an emerging megatrend, citing environmental issues as steadily encroaching “on businesses’ capacity to create value for customers, shareholders and other stakeholders.”
When a survey of chief executive officers was released by the United Nations Global Compact and Accenture in June 2010, sustainability was identified as critical to the future of companies, citing the growing number of environmental, societal and governance concerns.
And, these CEOs considered the corporate attributes of brand, trust and reputation as the primary drivers to act on sustainability. Other motivators, in descending order, were the potential for revenue growth and cost reduction, personal motivation, consumer and customer demand, and employee engagement and retention.
Tapping into resources
Whether you are starting your sustainability journey or have it underway, a plethora of resources and volumes of data are available to assist you. In fact, Google produces 39,700,000 results for “sustainability” in .05 seconds.
But before you seek help, it is critical to understand where you are in this process by identifying how your resources are allocated in terms of corporate stewardship, environmentally-friendly behavior, diversity initiatives, corporate ethics and transparency, employee relations and other sustainability matters.
After completing a comprehensive inventory, you must determine where to concentrate initially and what your long-term goals are.
Ceres, a national network of investors, environmental groups and other public entities, emphasizes the necessity of business sustainability to achieve a global economy that supports today’s population and the projected 9 billion people in 2050. It’s Roadmap for Sustainability identifies four areas considered key for a comprehensive and coherent sustainable business strategy: governance, stakeholder engagement, disclosure and performance.
But, there are numerous other well-known and highly reputable nonprofits, businesses and government entities that offer guidance, tools, or collaborative opportunities, such as the Conference Board for the Center of Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability; Institute for Sustainability; Business Civic Leadership Center; Harvard’s Kennedy School Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative; Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship; Business Social Responsibility; the Environmental Protection Agency; and University of Cambridge Program for Sustainability Leadership.
Embed into the culture
Sustainability is more than producing an annual report, signing a public commitment, or winning corporate philanthropy and environmental awards or certifications. It must permeate a company’s culture, engaging everyone from the board of directors to the least paid employee.
There are roadblocks. Capital investments in eco-friendly technologies may not be predicted to generate sufficient return on investment or in a timely manner.
Current corporate infrastructures may have barriers that prevent implementing environmentally-sound practices. Broadening the corporate perspective to include societal issues or the impact of the company on a community may require changing a business plan or corporate objectives.
Changing human resource guidelines that have served the organization well for many years may face major challenges. Introducing a new strategy across business functions can be extremely complex.
Such inhibitors, however, can be overcome when everyone makes sustainability a priority and focuses on innovative solutions for issues.
Thus, the board of directors must demand a commitment to sustainability; and executive management must demonstrate its importance by leading, educating, recognizing and requiring accountability. Only then can the entire organization begin the cultural change necessary to bring the sustainability platform to life.
Easy? No. But sustainability is a necessity for companies focused on their future and their reputation.
Ruth Ellen Kinzey, The Kinzey Company is a corporate reputation strategist, consultant, and professional speaker. Want to hear more about a specific topic? She can be reached at (704) 763-0754 or http://www.kinzeycompany.com.
Sustainability Leaders Go On Record (podcast)
