Back To Basics

I went to the National Press Club a few weeks ago for a Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) awards ceremony. PRNews gave awards to companies and their agencies that successfully protect their interests while protecting the interest of others.

In the morning before the awards ceremony I was finalizing my acceptance speech should I be the winner (I did not win) and began to wonder why companies get awards for being a ruling body AND being morale? It’s funny when the public sees companies and people as accountable for different things. Shakespeare and the Bible teach us ruling bodies and morality do not go together. In the aftermath of Bush, Alan Moore’s theme in his comic book Watchmen, “the watchmen need to be watched,” is so relevant. Corporations, too, “aren’t invulnerable” and need to be held accountable.

CSR is loosely defined by those companies that enforce a philosophy and practice of People/Planet/Profit, triple bottom line. Others refer to it as Stakeholder Capitalism and maintain that a corporation should balance all those that have interest in or a relationship with the corporation: customers, employees, financiers, suppliers, communities, society at large, and shareholders.

Now, 25 years after Watchmen takes place, we ‘re living in a time where it is simply unacceptable for companies or leaders to be solely focused on a single, unbifurcated notion of profit and imperialism. It does seem that CSR is suddenly as stylish as long wavy curls, but there is a long legacy of CSR before it became an actual term.
Let’s look at Cadbury, a company founded by Quakers who are pacifists. During World War I, more than 2,000 of Cadbury’s male employees joined the Armed Forces. Cadbury supported the war effort, sending warm clothing, books and chocolate to the soldiers. Cadbury supplemented the government allowances to the dependents of their workers. When the workers returned, they were able to return to work, take educational courses, and injured or ill employees were looked after in convalescent homes.

Cadbury built the idea of morale + profits into their Corporate DNA.

CSR should be indistinguishable part of the corporate structure as it was with Cadbury. And after doing a little research, some really smart people created a business structure called a BCorp. Sister of the SCorp and Corp. BCorps are companies with “Higher purpose. Higher standards of accountability, transparency, and performance. These leaders across the United States have created profitable, competitive businesses while taking care of their employees, community, and environment.”

I suppose the next step is for companies to do good because any other way is unacceptable or illegal. For now, CSR is better than nothing for those enterprises that want more than the land next to theirs CSR, and may just be a form of feel good advertising and marketing.
Learn more about becoming a BCorp.