Depending in what the objectives for any given year is, top executives of companies parrot themes such as 'customer', 'quality', 'safety' or 'people' as being priority. Return to shareholders is always the underlying key so that doesn't require emphasis. In a way these are what the external audience essentially want to hear. The same can be said of government. Each year's budget provides allocation for different sectors and though figures for the revised Annual Development Programme (ADP) suggest otherwise, the 'top-most priority' as stated is education, health and agriculture. The emphasis is what the general populace usually wants, hence the parroting.
Responsibility, whether it be in government or private sector, is always a nice-to have, friendly neighbourhood type of concept. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was never conceived of by businesses. It evolved from a genuine concern about what sort of footprint companies are leaving in their trail and environment that should ideally be dealt of by them. Too often, the word 'environment' is solely understood as something to do with ecology. And that which can be seen such as factories spewing untreated smoke and discharging effluents, makes for good headlines. Quite rightly so. The air we breathe and the water we consume or use, has to be free from chemical additives beyond that perfectly balanced and generated by nature.
Therefore, paper manufacturers go the extra mile to state how much of their pulp is from harvested forests, how much from recycling. The vendetta against over-use of plastic is being met in two ways: forcible replacement with bio-degradable ingredients or simply a small but effective tax. Therefore, any shopping bag, that too recyclable, has to be bought, albeit at a reasonable cost. Recycling has its own issues of safety, efficiency, convenience and cost. The benefits are salutary. Scandinavia has worked it out so well, that after recycling they have a surfeit of waste that they now are open to exporting.
If businesses were really held accountable, each sector could and should combine efforts with competitors to ensure their footprint impact is mitigated. Some solvable issues are glaringly obvious, others not so. This is where CSR thinking requires depth and breadth of knowledge and experience. We've come a long way from the CSR days of philanthropy. Indeed, the word 'Corporate' has been quietly dropped by die-hard perfectionists leaving 'Social Responsibility' (SR) as a stand-alone concept that embraces everyone, not just businesses. It comes from an understanding that pooling resources for more efficient and better supervised spend leads to focus, efficiency and effectiveness. Management experts prefer suitcasing marketing spend as a percentage of turnover. That may or not be appropriate. However, when it comes to Social Responsibility it's the amounts rather than percentages that are highlighted. If Responsibility were to have been key to business sustainability, this spend wouldn't have to be debated simply because SR delivers over a time and prevents major damage to the bottom line and reputation after a major mishap.
This is partly due to a somewhat lackadaisical approach and inept handling of SR. Though the United Nations has a separate Environment Programme, bureaucracy and complex implementation and measurement criteria take a toll on productivity. So when Ericsson, facing declining profits, sends the head of Responsibilty packing and lumping the department under marketing and communications, the death knell rings sombre. Charting the footprint impact is the first stop along the road and if this isn't a core skill it should be. In Bangladesh, it's difficult to fathom a real estate company's intentions behind sponsoring a golf tournament under the SR banner. As complex is why paper manufacturers and furniture makers aren't held accountable for scientific harvesting of forests and afforestation. Bottled water selling companies should be held accountable for harvesting rain water and telco operators for safe disposal of cell phones and redundant towers. That just scrapes the surface.
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