Category: Corporate Social Responsibility

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about Corporate Social Responsibility but there was an interesting article entitled Cleaning Up in yesterday’s Sunday NY Times magazine by Rob Walker for the Consumed section.

As this article demonstrates, CSR is not just about companies doing good works. At it most effective and sustainable level, its more about designing and executing corporate strategies that address some of society’s more adaptive challenges.

Hindustan Lever’s Lifebuoy campaign, however, is not philanthropy; it’s business. Throughout its long life, the antibacterial soap has been positioned as a health-and-wellness product: a 1902 ad in Harper’s promised “this wonderful cleanser and purifier” was “the enemy of dirt and disease.” That “core proposition” remains, says Punit Misra, the marketing manager who oversees Lifebuoy and other skin-cleansing brands for Hindustan Lever. Perhaps the most significant change to the product itself in recent years has been the introduction of smaller, and thus cheaper, bars: a half-size, 50-gram bar, for five rupees (about two ounces, for roughly 12 cents), was introduced in the early 1990s. (The small-package approach is now used by many companies in developing markets.) More recently, the packaging was made “more contemporary” by replacing the “strapping young man” on the package with an image of a couple and their children, Misra says.

And five years ago, the company introduced a campaign called Swasthya Chetna or “Glowing Health,” which, boiled down, argues that even clean-looking hands may carry dangerous germs, so use more soap. It began a concentrated effort to take this message into the tens of thousands of villages where the rural poor reside, often with little access to media. “Lifebuoy teams visit each village several times,” Manwani said in his speech, using “a glo-germ kit to show schoolchildren” that soap-washed hands are cleaner. Manwani says this program has reached “around 80 million rural folk” and added that “sales of Lifebuoy have risen sharply.” The small bar has become the brand’s top seller. Continue reading Sunday NY Times – Cleaning Up: A brand shows its social responsibility to the poor – by selling to them.

In today’s New York Times, Matthew L. Wald reports that the Sierra Club has negotiated a deal with Kansas City Power and Light, a Midwest electric company, “to take steps to cut carbon dioxide output by the amount that a new plan will produce.” The plan includes buying hundreds of windmills and undertaking a major conservation program.

Following on my recent post BusinessWeek – Hugging the Tree-Huggers, this is another example of the previously unthought of convergence of social sector activists and corporate interests to try to solve some of the planet’s most significant challenges. Continue reading NY Times – Sierra Club cuts Deal with Kansas City Power & Light

Another interesting article about the convergence of interests between corporate executives and environmental activists appeared in the March 12th edition of BusinessWeek.

Hugging the Tree-Huggers by John Carey leads off with a story about the recent mega takeover of Texas utility TXU Corporation and the importance of the public support for the transaction by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The TXU takeover is a sign of a remarkable evolution in the dynamic between corporate executives and activists. Once fractious and antagonistic, it has moved toward accommodation and even mutual dependence. Companies increasingly seek a “green” imprimatur, while enviros view changes in how business operates as key to protecting the planet.

A visit to the homepage of Environmental Defense Fund while writing this post revealed the  congratulatory headline: “Global Warming Victory: We brokered a buyout in Texas that will lead to a cleaner energy future.” (article)

Continue reading BusinessWeek – Hugging the Tree-Huggers

The March 2007 issue of Fast Company presents the Fast 50, a list of companies that are using innovative technologies and strategies to solve some of our planet’s biggest challenges.

The opening essay was written by Andrew Zolli, a consultant and futurist with Z + Partners and he does a great job in highlighting the evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility. Entitled Business 3.0 – The oblivious capitalist’s days are numbered, Zolli’s essay starts by citing Milton Friedman’s September 13, 1970 New York Times Magazine essay wherein the Nobel Prize winning economist argues that “the one and only social responsibility of business (is) to engage in activities designed to increase it’s profits.” Free-market, laissez faire economics at it’s finest.

Thankfully, today some business leaders see opportunity, competitive advantage and economic benefit in innovative strategies that can help save the planet.  Zolli writes:

Well ahead of slower-moving governments, companies of every size and in every part of the world are now waking up to humanity’s impending and interlocking crises, and the vastly lucrative rewards that solving them might bring

As with the Industrial and Information Revolutions before them, the protagonists in the “Eco-Innovation” Revolution will take the field with new approaches, ideas, and technologies that will upend our notions of production, consumption, wealth, and invention.

Zolli provides some interesting ideas for consideration: waste accountability leading to design for low cost disassembly; the LOHAS (“lifestyles of health and sustainability”) $227 billion market made up of consumers who are willing to spend a 20% premium on “clean, green products over nonsustainable alternatives”; and biomemetic and organic technologies such as Lotusan Paint and BAE Systems’ Synthetic Gecko. Zolli writes:

These products share one trait: They will win in the marketplace. Not because they’re eco-friendly or warm and fuzzy or have a Ben & Jerry’s seal of approval. They’ll win because they deliver better, cheaper, and more profitable results.

Seeking a competitive advantage through green and sustainable strategies is not really at odds with Friedman’s profit maximization model. Integrating social responsibility with corporate strategy can be good for business and for the future of our planet.

Technorati tags: Corporate Social Responsibility, Milton Friedman, sustainibility, Fast Company, Fast 50, Andrew Zolli, LOHAS