CorporateResponsibility.Net

Introducing you to SustainabilityForum.com News

Fabian — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:43:46 +0000

I wanted to let everyone reading this blog know that I will not post much new content here on the site in the coming months. I will focus on my main project which is the SustainabilityForum.com website.

On the SustainabilityForum.com website we also have a large Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) news section. This is the link:

http://www.SustainabilityForum.com/News

Please also feel free to visit my personal and professional blog where I blog about Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Social Media here:

http://www.FabianPattberg.com/

See you there.

All the best,

Fabian Pattberg, Editor of CorporateResponsibility.net

CSR / PR Fail: BP sends fake journalist to cover up the spill

Fabian — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:34:10 +0000

BP is not really getting it what it means to stop with these useless marketing practices. The latest one: Sending a PR agent to pose as a journalist to cover up. I am sceptical by nature but if this is true then this is an outrageous practice. This is the beginning of the article:
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Is there no end to BP’s hypocrisies and ludicrous actions? Evidently not. Here’s the latest, in a long line of curious blunders and aggravating insensitivities: after being publicly chastised time and again for denying access to journalists, BP has evidently loosed its own “journalists” on the scene to really get to the meat of the story . . .

The Wall Street Journal got access to Planet BP, the company’s in-house magazine, and discovered that it had evidently sent out a PR agent thinly disguised as a “BP journalist” to cover the spill and its consequences in Louisiana.

Read the complete article here:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/bp-sends-fake-journalist-cover-gulf-spill.php

The UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2010 Live Webcast

Fabian — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:52:10 +0000

The UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2010 is starting in a few days and everyone will have the possibility to watch via a live webcast.

It will be interesting to see what actual messages will be coming out of this summit other then for everyone to support and promote the Sustainability movement. But lets see and be surprised hopefully. This is the link to the webcast and the Twitter hashtag is #GCLS2010 if you are looking to keep up to date via Twitter. Or watch the whole summit here in the embedded window below once it has started.

Is It Enough To Be Green? What About Being Good?

Fabian — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:52:40 +0000

This is an interesting article raising an interesting question seem from an advertising perspective.

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I’ve got a big problem with green marketing. It seems like “green” is the buzzword of today much like “Made in the USA” was the mantra after the tragic events of 9/11.

Whatever the social commentary is at the time, companies will figure out how to tailor their message to it — it’s part of what fascinates me about the power of advertising. But while you could easily find out if something was Made in the USA (and companies would be pretty foolish to falsely claim it), that is not the case with being labeled green.

Read the complete article here:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=129782

BP television ad blitz is giving them an even bigger headache!

Fabian — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:04:00 +0000

BP is not a good place to work for at the moment that is for sure. And know they have even have the guts to splash out over 50 Million USD for PR advertising to limit the negative publicity. How much can one company get wrong? It seems there are no limits……

Here is the beginning of the article on CNNMoney:

BP’s new television ad campaign featuring apologetic CEO Tony Hayward is an expensive and probably ineffective bid to rehabilitate the energy giant’s image, according to ad experts. BP (BP) began running TV ads Thursday featuring Hayward as he apologizes for the disaster and takes “full responsibility for cleaning up the spill in the Gulf. We’ve helped organize the largest environmental response in this country’s history.” The company is also running print ads in newspapers including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Washington Post.

Read the complete article here:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/03/news/companies/bp_hayward_ad/index.htm?postversion=2010060316

CSR / PR Fail: BP sends fake journalist to cover up the spill

Interesting article: Why are companies sharing their CSR / Sustainability innovation?

Fabian — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:33:35 +0000

Innovation is such an important part of Sustainability / CSR that it is often seen as a necessary evil I found. This article here outlines an interesting example of how this could be strength for companies innovating in this Sustainability / CSR field.

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Intellectual property is something Softchoice understands. As a provider of IT solutions, the company lives in the world of competitive advantage created through ideas. So why is it providing free tools for sustainability reporting with its new Corporate Social Responsibility report?

“We’re a knowledge-based organization, and we want to do our part to foster sustainable business practices” says Melissa Alvares, Sustainability Programs Manager at Softchoice. “When we began our green journey, we struggled to find resources and tools. Our goal with this report is to help other companies by sharing our story and some of the practices we’ve developed along the way.”

In short, enabling others to fast track their sustainability learning will help build Softchoice’s brand as a green leader. But will it boost the bottom line?

Read the complete article here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-stoiber/sustain-enable-why-are-co_b_584214.html

Interesting article: The caste system and CSR in India

Fabian — Thu, 20 May 2010 06:54:19 +0000

A very interesting article on a topic that is a great example of the cultural perspective and its relation to CSR.

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India is the largest functioning democracy in the world, yet the systemic perpetuation of caste discrimination enforces inequality at the level we would expect under authoritarian regimes. Although caste discrimination was officially banned by the Protection of Civil Rights Act of 1976, the caste system is still entrenched in Indian society. Social division based on caste dates back to 3,000 years ago and is debated to have its roots in the ancient Hindu religious structure, which demarcated five main strata of society with Brahmins at the top and “untouchables” and tribal people at the base. In modern Indian society, the lower castes are officially documented as Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC). Untouchables came to be referred to as such from the belief that they are polluted or dirty, hence not to be associated with, but are now commonly referred to as Dalits.

Read the complete article here:

http://csr-asia.com/weekly_detail.php?id=12033

A critical analysis of the latest Walmart Sustainability Report

Fabian — Wed, 12 May 2010 17:26:55 +0000

This is a really good analysis of the third sustainability report by Walmart. Critical but also objective. A good read.

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This week, Walmart released its third sustainability report. Since Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and our team in Bentonville, Arkansas, works daily with Walmart, we want to share our thoughts on the environmental portion of the report. Because we don’t take money from Walmart – or any of our corporate partners – we can be candid about what’s working and what’s not.

This is our fifth year working with Walmart, and throughout that time we’ve been pushing the company hard to take aggressive goals and to be transparent about its results – clearly disclosing progress and the data to back it up. With this report, it is evident that the message is starting to sink in.

Read the complete article here:

http://blogs.edf.org/innovation/2010/05/11/show-me-the-metrics-walmart’s-sustainability-report-released

Interesting blog post and discussion on the problem with current CSR reporting

Fabian — Tue, 11 May 2010 11:26:35 +0000

Yesterday Mallen Baker, an CSR expert with many years experience, kicked of another interesting discussion about the problems that CSR Reports are not being read by many people as they are intended for and that this type of reporting is still not engaging enough for the ordinary person to want to know more about the CSR / Sustainability practices of a company. The system of CSR reporting is broken he concluded and we need to do something about it.

Then Elaine Cohen, also a seasoned CSR expert, gave her opinion by disagreeing with Mallen Baker about the statement of a ‘broken system’ and numerous other points.

And then it went on and on……. In any case here is the link to the blog post by Mallen Baker for you to make up your own mind on this really interesting discussion.

Why CSR Reporting is still ugly

Interesting article: Three Reasons Why Health is the Next Sustainability Issue for Companies

Fabian — Sat, 08 May 2010 09:14:31 +0000

Companies now really need to watch which topics they are addressing when they want to gain stakeholder recognition. This is an interesting article about the aspect of health as a topic companies especially in the retail sector need to be aware of. The most interesting development is also the recent publication the PepsiCo Health Report instead of a CSR Report. This is the link to the health report: http://www.pepsico.co.uk/health To get you started on this topic here is the first part of the article on GreenBiz outlining why health as a topic is important for business.

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A decade ago, few people would have thought that major banks, retailers or Internet companies would need environmental strategies. Yet today, they do — Bank of America has promised to invest $20 billion on sustainability initiatives over 10 years, Wal-Mart’s aggressive environmental efforts are well known and eBay, while selling second-hand stuff, touts the idea of sustainable consumption.

This is largely because expectations of business are always rising. To pick another example: When I was a kid, we didn’t think about how or where or under what conditions our sneakers or T-shirts were made. Now brands that sell footwear or apparel maintain expensive and extensive efforts to monitor their supply chains, to avoid possible scandal around child labor or unsafe factories. Just as Nike or Gap do.

So what’s the next big issue that companies need to worry about?