Profiting from corporate social responsibility: Part 2
by Andy Wright
In my last post I concluded that socially responsible brands can help society prosper both from an individual and business sense. Business has to prosper for leaders to take CSR seriously and integrate it as part of core strategy.
So who are the brands trying to adopt socially responsible strategies?
Here is a brand with an example of CSR as the bedrock of their strategy. Innocent aims to leave things a little bit better than they find them. They use natural ingredients, sourced responsibly, delivered in sustainable packaging. Water is of course essential to their business as well as being a key societal issue with the effects of ‘el nino’. Therefore, Innocent has made water a fundamental part of their ethical strategy. They share profits with development organisations across many continents working to preserve the sustainability of water. They’ve just blogged about success in a recent project here. This year has also seen them promoting the ‘Big Knit’ to help keep older people warm and healthy in Winter.
Strategies like these also help to enhance employee satisfaction as well as the development of a strong external community.
As mentioned before, Walmart hasn’t always been a good corporate citizen. Walmart is in a position of extreme power and influence, not just because of the size of their organisation but also because of the hold they have over suppliers and product manufacturers.
Walmart now requires its suppliers to reduce packaging and is trying to boost sales of items like energy efficient light bulbs.
The company has also announced the conception of a sustainability index. The index is a long-term strategy to offer transparency around the companies they work with. It’s got a long way to go before it can impact on helping consumers make product choices, displaying that information in-store and making a difference to society, but it’s a start and signals an important precedent to other retailers and suppliers across the globe, which can only be a good thing.
In 2006, Mount Franklin Water (a part of Coca-Cola Amatil) forged a corporate partnership with the National Breast Cancer Foundation. While they donate money to the organisation each year (not actually a significant amount), they help to raise awareness of the work of the organisation by changing the colours of their bottle caps to pink. But they also align their company values and activities with those of the NBCF. They’ve funded programs that help to improve the lives of women with breast cancer, as well as using marketing budgets to generate awareness of these programs.
Society benefits from raised awareness, funding of a charity and programs to improve quality of life for cancer sufferers, at the same time as Coca-Cola Amatil profting from Mount Franklin’s position as the number 1 bottled water brand in Australia – in great part due to the introduction of the pink caps – a strong differentiator in a crowded marketplace.
However, pink should not be seen as a license to print money – or an easy way to be perceived as socially responsible. There are many cases where ‘pink’ is a controversial issue as it stretches to biscuits, chocolate, and alcohol. All of which have connections to the cause of cancer. Kris Frieswick at The Boston Times sums this up excellently. The difference for many of the referenced companies in the article is that their support of ‘Pink’ isn’t at the intersection of their business and relevant society. Hence consumers call it for what it is, the pink version of Greenwashing. But, the responsibility really lies with the charities who should value their brands appropriately as the brands themselves would in their own licensing negotiations.
There’s a very fine line to be trod when it comes to CSR. Indeed, I’m sure some of the examples above may be disagreed with. Overall, I think it’s common sense. Be authentic, transparent and put back in what you take out. But make it relevant to the society your business operates in, the same way you would a new product or service. That way revenue generation, reputation or sustainability will be considerably more socially acceptable.
Please add any comments you have below this post along with any examples of good or bad corproate citizens that you’ve come across. I look forward to reading and responding…
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