A see-through world

What makes a responsible company? It's a fair question. Terms such as CSR, sustainability and corporate citizenship are on everyone's lips these days. Even so, there is often a sense that they mean different things to different people.

But sometimes an issue cuts through. As the world economy attempts to put itself back on its feet, somewhat bloodied and bruised after the experience of the last couple of years, transparency is suddenly the buzzword du jour.

Our annual study of consumer views of CSR across 30 countries asks people to say what they consider to be the most important thing a company could do to be considered socially responsible. Treating employees fairly still tops the list, but behaving transparently and ethically is coming up hard on the rails – it was named spontaneously by just 8% of our global sample of consumers in 2005, 10% in 2008 but 20% this year. In the wake of the economic crash, when lots of apparently sound businesses turned out to have feet of clay, consumers increasingly want the whole picture about the companies they deal with, warts and all.

This is backed up by a Business Week survey of the world's top 100 brands, as Sustainable Life Media reports. Trust and transparency top the list of consumer concerns in 2009. The piece also makes the point that as well as expecting companies to keep them fully informed of what they're up to, consumers are quite prepared to use the opportunities the internet affords them to make sure that, when a company falls short, everyone knows about it.

We also share the assessment here that water use is going to be a big, big issue for companies over the next decade – and increasingly, one of the issues on which consumers will be expecting them to be transparent and lay their cards on the table. Water emerged as one of the most pressing issues in our survey of sustainability experts around the world at the end of last year, and our 15-country study of consumer views on the issue revealed that 72% considered water pollution to be a 'very serious' issue and 71% felt the same way about fresh water shortages.

Responsible water use is, in one way or another, a pressing issue for all sectors, not just heavy industry or beverages – and the way companies handle it is likely to be a litmus test of how they respond to the challenges of an increasingly see-through world.

New Global Water Certification Program Responds to Water Worries

Water sustainability is a major emerging issue and one that affects a huge number of people. Climate change is expected to lead to increased drought, while a growing (and in some parts of the world increasingly prosperous) population puts increasing pressure on scarce water resources. The BBC notes that the malnourishment of more than 800 million people is associated with a lack of water to grow their food, while water-borne diseases affect more than half of people currently occupying the world’s hospital beds. Safe, clean drinking water is a luxury that more than one billion people have to do without.

The World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, is an annual meeting where experts, practitioners, leaders, and decision-makers get together to focus on the world’s most urgent water-related issues. Held August 16-22, this year’s meeting brings together perspectives of scientific, business, policy and civic sectors from around the world to explore the theme of access to water in the face of uncertain availability coupled with growing demand.

One solution to the problem of unsustainable water use, put forward at the summit by a group of leading business, social development and conservation organizations, is the development of a new voluntary global water certification program. The Alliance for Water Stewardship has been created to develop best-practice standards for managing water responsibly and to recognize responsible corporations, farming operations, cities, and other water users through certification, similar to the certification of sustainably harvested wood by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Certified companies and other water users would need to meet standards on environmentally sustainable as well as socially beneficial water use.

We've been finding for a while that people around the world are becoming increasingly worried about water- and are indeed more concerned about it than about other high-profile environmental problems like climate change or species depletion. So surely companies that take the issue of sustainable water use seriously deserve to be recognized? A recognized system of certification would make it easier for consumers to make ethical choices, and would benefit companies that recognize just how precious this finite resource really is.