There are some interesting voices around questioning the value of certain corporate responsibility initiatives. Dan McQuillan, and his collection of thoughts on Slideshare, is probably onto something.
I showed Dan’s slides to a friend who has worked in CSR and human rights (for large corporates) for over ten years, who tends to agree…
“… especially his point that stakeholder engagement flatters companies (and some NGOs) by thinking that they are at the nexus of something exciting and worthy of attention (in most cases, not)”
Internal (employee) doubts about corporate responsibility are also real – albeit rarely leak outside of the organisation.
It’s an issue worth tackling – but it can only happen from the ‘outside-in’. Companies who care about doing good, strangely enough, only stand to benefit.
Which does not mean that organisations should throw out their ‘CSR babies with the bath water’. There needs to be greater distinction between organisations addressing real social/environmental issues as part of their core beliefs, versus those caught up in compliance-led ratings and marketing puffery.
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