Thirty years ago, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) could easily have been dismissed as a consultancy-led fad or a do-gooding side show, but it looks increasingly like the idea of companies meaning, at least seeming, to be good is here to stay. The lobby of Marks & Spencer’s head office in London is not untypical of the current climate with big corporates. A giant electronic ticker describes progress against what they call ‘Plan A’ – a set of 100 worthy targets that they are committed to achieve over the next five years – help give a better education to 15,000 children in Uganda, save 55,000 tonnes of carbon every year, recycle 48m clothes hangers, convert 20m garment to Fairtrade cotton, the list goes on and to help achieve it every store has a dedicated ‘Plan A’ champion.
M&S is only one of many businesses world-wide keen to promote their good behaviour through their websites, their annual reports, their product marketing and their staff recruitment activity. The pressure from legislators has also increased – the 2006 Companies Act, for example, requires public Companies to report on social and environmental maters and the Economist reports the number of global executives ranking the issue as rating a ‘high’ or ‘very high’ priority rising from 30% three years ago to just under 70% in three years from now. ‘Doing well by doing good’ has become the expected and normal way that large organisations are behaving and, as ever, what is common practice in larger businesses is increasingly being taken up by smaller ones.
