Some straws in the wind about the way businesses’ approach to CSR is evolving during the downturn. A colleague who attended this sustainable business conference last week tells me that there were two distinct approaches in evidence among the companies represented there – well-established CSR departments with significant numbers of staff and large budgets, but also some small, senior teams with no earmarked money to spend who are dispersed and embedded within other functions. In the latter case, the lack of budget explicitly for CSR is because it has (so it’s claimed) been fully integrated into the company’s core strategy.
This sounds like an enlightened approach and should mean that CSR starts to emerge from its ghetto. Presumably, though, the businesses represented at last week’s conference are ‘the converted’, who are sold on the merits of CSR already. The same could be said for the companies who participated in Business in the Community’s Corporate Responsibility Index released last week.
It found that nine out of 10 participants are having ‘substantive discussions…at board level’ about CSR, investment in people and long-term sustainability. BITC's Stephen Howard himself acknowledges the paradox that this apparent success for CSR within businesses comes at a time when many commentators have been highlighting the lack of effective board-level oversight in many companies. His explanation is that, while CSR has indeed made it onto the boardroom agenda, in reality it’s still disconnected from discussions about strategy and operational issues.
Perhaps the very fact that we can still talk about CSR as a ‘thing’ that companies need to do gives the game away – for most companies, it’s still not really seen as central to the core purpose of their business.
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