Introduction
to Corporate Social Responsibility
By Katie
Orr
Co-Chair, WIIT Export Promotion and International Finance Section
On February 23, 2006, Christine Briscoe and Cressida Slote were the featured speakers at the Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) brown bag luncheon, the first in the CSR Series hosted by the Export Promotion and International Section. Christine, a WIIT Board member, works in the International Business Development Section at the Embassy of Canada. Cressida works at the U.S. State Department developing strategies for U.S. government assistance to Eastern Europe and Eurasia. They partnered to start a CSR consulting firm called Sustainable Strategies. Sustainable Strategies provides such services as: assessment of an organization's operations and recommendation of CSR strategies to pursue; development of CSR branding strategies; and formation of alliances with other organizations committed to CSR. The brown bag was held in the offices of Baxter International, Inc.; for the second year in a row Baxter has been named on the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World list.
Christine and Cressida noted that increasingly organizations are incorporating CSR into their core mission, realizing that they also can reap financial benefits by pursuing CSR activities over and above what has traditionally been involved in their philanthropic programs. The speakers discussed the components of CSR best practices, such as code of ethics and environmental performance. They pointed out that companies can be placed somewhere on the CSR continuum - from a company that views itself as responsible for meeting on the minimum legal standard required to one that views itself as driven by the mission of improving societal and/or environmental conditions. They provided illustrations of companies that excel in those particular CSR best practice areas.
There is a proliferation of similar CSR standards by various international bodies that can lead to different reporting approaches. This makes it extremely difficult to make comparisons between companies. Many commentators have called for consistent global CSR standards. Another difficulty is the lack of established CSR enforcement or policing bodies.
The trends indicate that in the not-to-distant future, the leading companies will be those that provide goods and services and reach customers in a way that address poverty, climate change, resource depletion, globalization and demographic shifts.
To find out more about CSR and the work that Sustainable Strategies does, please contact either Christine at c_briscoe@yahoo.com or Cressida at cressidaslote@yahoo.com.
For further information
about the upcoming CSR series, please watch for the flyers or contact the
Section Co-Chairs -- Katie Orr at KatieOrr@aol.com
or Jawaher Benhaddou at Jawaherben@yahoo.com.
Click here to photos of this event.