How to develop a unique CR profile

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

How to develop a unique CR profile

Over the last few years, John Elkington's metaphor of the Triple Bottom Line has proved a sustainable definition for corporate responsibility. But too often management cannot understand how it can be applied or, companies try to apply their CR approach and policies to the TBL concept, when they should actually be doing the reverse and applying the TBL to their company.

It's important to realise there is no "one-size-fits-all" CR policy and any company that thinks otherwise should be aware that such an approach would be damaging to CR initiatives in many ways, rather than these initiatives creating value for companies.

Here are six top tips to developing a unique CR profile for your company, using the Triple Bottom Line metaphor and a framework called the "18 Ps":

1. Responsibility: People - Planet - ProfitA company should specify which responsibilities it has, or wants to take up actively, on each pillar of the TBL and, what the relationship is between People and Planet on the one side, and Profit on the other. With non-financial responsibilities, it should establish if it's best to place an emphasis on either People or Planet and what the balance between the different pillars is.

2. Philosophy: Purpose - Principles - PragmatismThere should be a clear philosophy behind an active engagement in CR that guides corporate action. Part of this philosophy is the purpose or mission of the company: why does the company exist? Also, a company should make explicit the values that the company's built on and wants to pursue (principles). Third, the business case of CR for the company should be made clear in a pragmatic way. The European Corporate Sustainability Framework (ECSF) may be instrumental in determining the dominant CR philosophy by specifying the nature of the ambition a company has with CR: is it compliance-driven, business case-driven, community-driven, or innovation-driven?

3. Inclusivity: Priority - Participation - PartnershipThe notion of inclusivity refers to the importance of the inclusion of CR into the company's activities and to the practical organization of CR. Priority means that CR should be part of corporate agendas in terms of the strategic agenda, but also in a more practical stance such as agendas for meetings, communication and planning within and between the company's departments. CR should be an integral part of doing business and corporate behaviour.

4. Development: Progress - Perspective - PerformanceIn the development of its CR profile, a company should show the progress made in the process of realizing the CR profile in order to keep engaging people inside and outside the organization. It should make clear what the long-term perspective is by communicating a clear vision or ambition. Also, to enable further development, it's necessary to develop measures (preferably informed by stakeholder expectations), to set ambitious but not unrealistic goals, and to monitor the company's performance on these measures.

5. Integration: Product - Process - ProfileHere, it's the scope of CR within the company that should be determined. In terms of products and processes, the question is if CR is about bringing a sustainable product on a niche market or about integrating sustainability into all business processes (so that the regular products are produced in a responsible way). Or should the company be striving to profile itself on a company-level with CR through which it can for instance build a brand name based on CR?

6. Accountability: Personnel - Proprietors - PublicFinally, CR is about being willing and able as a company to account for CR initiatives and be held accountable for the claims it makes. A company should decide if and to what extent it wants to account for its actions internally and externally. It should also determine which instruments lend themselves best for these purposes.


Excerpted from "Developing a unique CR profile" by Lars Moratis and Sacha Mulder, Netherlands CSR Academy, in the April/May 2006 issue of Corporate responsibility Management.

Blogged on 8:11 AM by Upay

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