Could it be that Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is Good” mantra is turning on its head for a more noble, “Greater Good is Good”?

Maybe.

On February 10, New York will join six other states that over the last two years began to permit businesses to incorporate as “benefit corporations,” a classification that allows companies to legally build “doing good” into their for-profit business models.

Benefit corporations are required to create positive social and environmental impact, and in exchange, benefit from expanded legal considerations of stakeholders beyond purely financial interests. And it’s not nonprofits or tax-exempt businesses that are incorporating, but for-profit entities, like Patagonia Inc., who have made social benefits paramount.

This is not just warm and fuzzy talk in a CSR report. These companies are required to report on their performance towards achieving social impact targets (which they are mandated to clearly specify in the bylaws) in an annual audited report.

What would Gordon Gekko say to this new legal structure that allows companies to consider social benefit over profit? My guess is he’d be utterly baffled since his worldview is grounded in the belief that it is a zero sum game where somebody wins and somebody loses.

Sorry, Gordon, but greed as a business model is about as out-dated as your insanely large 1980s cell phone.

mtorres CSR CSR, Gordon Gekko, Patagonia

Recently one of my colleagues posted here about the importance of narratives to be successful in investor communications.   This piece makes a great case for employee engagement as a driver of shareholder value.   

Whether talking to investors, or customers, for the narrative to be relevant and authentic, it must match the stakeholders’ own experience with the Company…it is at the heart of the distinction between brand and reputation.   

From an investor perspective, delivering on the promise requires operational and financial performance…which ultimately boils down to every employee understanding the mission and their individual roles in making it happen.  

I often remind clients that Citizenship begins at home (for CSR clients) and that turnarounds begin at home.  Let’s add shareholder value to that list.

cwinters Investor Relations CSR, Investors, Storytelling

I am working with a client on a program to help celebrate their code of commitment, and bring it to life as a vibrant part of their culture. This is serious, important work….and I commend them for their desire to not just talk the talk, but to really walk the walk, and celebrate their colleagues who are living by their code, every day. Together, we are taking this project very seriously. Because living up to your Code of Commitment is serious business.

Lately, the discussion around CSR — which in its best embodiments begins with a code of commitment — has been very scholarly, serious and perhaps even a tad preachy. I’ve read pieces by smart people who admonish HP for not “living their code” and as a result, ousting their CEO who didn’t live up to the standards. I wrote recently about CSR being part of the 5 Commandments for brands. I’ve advocated that CSR should report to the CEO. And with 20 years in this business of reputation management, I suppose I’ve even been a tad preachy from time to time.

Last week, I visited a camp for children with cancer. Talk about finding perspective.

I went there with a client that is developing some new philanthropic programs as part of its commitment to CSR. They are not overly interested in how to get credit, generate publicity or engage their stakeholders. They want to help. It isn’t about being responsible…it is about being real.

As I entered the camp, I read a sign that said “Some people care too much; I think they call it LOVE.” I watched these kids “Sing You In” to camp, get a lanyard and race off to swim lessons. I forgot all about criteria for CSR, reputation management and employee engagement. And I remembered the many moments in these two decades when my company, and my clients, have provided me the opportunity to simply do something good…just because we can.

Responsibility. Trust. Transparency. All big concepts today….but not bigger or more important than REAL.

cwinters CSR Code of Commitment, corporate responsibility, CSR, HP, trust

Our CEO sent me this great piece about the 5 Commandments for Brands in the post-crash economy that was posted by Fast Company.

At its heart, the piece suggests that brands must help consumers achieve balance – defined as a move toward simplicity – and must be trustworthy. In fact, much of the piece reads like a primer for how to approach CSR.

One of the things I love about this piece is its simplicity – one of the core values it recommends for brands, by the way. And for me it crystallized a concept about CSR that has been on my mind.

I recently had a discussion with a colleague who is an expert in consumer marketing, and to her, CSR is all about branding, with a heavy emphasis on cause.

For me (and many of my co-contributors to this blog), CSR is all about reputation…about engaging employees and building a culture, about growing your business (and its value) and about earning the trust of key stakeholders in government, community, industry and the consumer marketplace.

It could be that when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But I think that what this really means is that we are both right.

At MWW Group, we’ve always advocated a total stakeholder approach. As CSR continues to drive further convergence of corporate reputation and brand, this approach will be more important than ever.

cwinters CSR Balance, CSR, Fast Company, reputation

In the world of business media, there are rankings and ratings and lists galore. Carreen just wrote about one.

Marc Gunther at GreennBiz.com now tells us that Underwriters Laboratories, an non-profit organization that helps set standards and provides certifications, in partnership with Greener World Media (publisher of GreenBiz), is taking on the difficult task of creating and launching a sustainability rating system.

I’m excited to see what the ratings and standards look like. Because Gunther is absolutely spot on: “This is a big deal because it could help bring credibility and clarity to the very crowded and confused business of sustainability ratings, rankings and eco-labels.”

For many sustainability or green ratings and rankings, the methodologies are always a little shaky. They seem easily gamed through voluntary reporting, they allow for omission of key elements of sustainability, and the results never seem to really stack up. It never seems “right” when an oil company tops a list of “green” companies. As such, it undermines the business value of sustainability when it seems you can get the credit without doing the hard, long work. A widely accepted, credible and comprehensive point system will begin to force out the posturing and the true leaders on sustainability will rise to the top.

msacks CSR, Sustainability CSR, rankings, Sustainability

It isn’t often a company makes headlines for writing a philanthropic check. But Walmart decided to go big. Two billion dollars big in cash and food to fight hunger.

This isn’t a simple, though extraordinary, act of charity. It’s smart CR. Walmart is taking some ownership of an issue that can be addressed through its core business and is in a substantial position to do something about.

It has an astronomically large consumer base, many of whom (judging from the data in the article) rely on food banks. Such a gesture is about connecting with the communities in which Walmart operates, and Walmart operates just about everywhere. The company also has “donated the services of its staff to help food banks improve lighting and refrigeration, and develop ways to increase the amount of fresh food on their shelves.” So, it’s about coupling the bills with the skills.

Mike Sacks can be reached at msacks@mww.com.

msacks CSR corporate responsibility, CSR, Target, Walmart

Corporate Social Responsibility – or any derivation of the term – can be confusing. Experts debate its value, its inherent meaning, its application to real life. There isn’t a well-established consensus on what it means for a company to be a “responsible” one. Unfortunately, it being the right thing to do doesn’t suffice. It must be more strategic than altruistic; must contribute in some way to the bottom line. And too often flashy cause marketing campaigns or big check writing masquerade as CSR.

But the April cover story in the Harvard Business Review tries to get us closer to common interpretation.

The quick rundown on an extensive (and full read-worthy) article: Its thesis is that the best measure of corporate responsibility is based on “internalizing” what the authors refer to as “externalities.” Externalities in this case are defined as impacts a corporation has on the world that they have until recently not been held to account for. These can be things like pollution, or obesity issues for snack makers, as examples.

The reasons to do so are threefold:

• The growing scale of companies and the commensurate impact
• Improved measures and sensors for gauging that impact (can’t claim ignorance)
• Heightened sensitivity of stakeholders (increasing transparency of information)

When stakeholders – consumers, NGOs, government, etc – find an externality they feel the corporation could take greater internal responsibility for, there are mechanisms to force that responsibility. Government regulation, consumer boycotts and protests, labor strikes etc.

Basically, for CSR and its subsequent affect on corporate reputation, it is far better to take responsibility than be made responsible.

And it is this key distinction where reputations are made.

We at MWW counsel our clients in a similar vein – that a hodgepodge of philanthropy, volunteering, and other good works do not create CSR. If they don’t connect to business or truly matter to stakeholders, then they might be nice things to do, but not necessarily responsible things. But if done through a consistent framework with all the consideration given other elements of business strategy, CSR helps identify efficiencies, creates competitive advantage, engages consumers and customers, and oh yeah, helps solve big problems.

Mike Sacks can be reached at msacks@mww.com.

msacks CSR CSR

What can you do with an old brand?

Even new media companies face that dilemma in Twenty Ten – AOL and MySpace, for example. Struggling to stay relevant, both companies are searching for a leg up in the brand wars.

AOL and MySpace both have a similar challenge – recovering from being the eclipsed top dog in their sectors. It’s too easy for many critics to say their time has passed, but with some smart acquisitions, sharpened brand management and a serious socially-responsible corporate outreach program, they could each recapture market share and relevancy.

Generally this involves buying or merging with an up-and-coming company first, and then setting out to freshen the brand with a high-visibility communications/PR project, preferably of the CSR persuasion. Both of those companies could take acquisition lessons from Xerox, which just merged on February 5th with the IT giant ACS. ACS is a terrific growth story, a global company with a 21st-Century business model and reputation for being well-managed and fast-moving. With one fell swoop Xerox made itself newly relevant and cutting-edge, and I’m sure their branding and CSR programs will follow.

Xerox is a known and trusted brand that defines the duplication and printing business – but their name and their image needed a new infusion of immediacy and impact, and ACS gave that to them. AOL and MySpace could do the same with one smart acquisition — and they’re probably looking as we speak.

David Langness can be reached at dlangness@mww.com.

dlangness CSR, General Corporate, Sustainability, Uncategorized AOL, CSR, MySpace, reputation

This quote from a young Haitian man featured in an Associated Press article headline describes his and his country’s dependence on tourists to meet their basic survival needs. Those needs have existed for years, but were profoundly exacerbated when the 7.0-magnitude earthquake befell his country last month.

Certainly, life is fragile. As Abraham Maslow introduced with his Hierarchy of Needs, the most basic level of human existence is based on meeting needs necessary for survival. This includes the need for water, air, food and sleep. Many Haitians never took those needs for granted and since the earthquake hit, those needs have been severely magnified.

Three days after the earthquake, one of the largest foreign investors in Haiti, Royal Caribbean Cruises, detailed its plans to help. With a solid corporate social responsibility framework already in place, the global cruise line launched its relief program and announced a minimum of $1 million in humanitarian aid. The company coordinated with its existing charitable partners Food for the Poor, Pan American Development Foundation, in addition to its own Haitian foundation, the Solano Foundation.

Royal Caribbean laid out its plans to continue cruise ship calls to its private beach in Labadee, Haiti, complete with deliveries of food, water and other necessary provisions on each stop. The brand outlined how it would support its Haitian employees and their families, and how its cruise guests could contribute to the cause. On top of all that, a Haitian United Nations representative endorsed Royal Caribbean’s plans and fully supported the continuation of cruise ship calls, highlighting their positive economic benefits for the country.

Royal Caribbean covered its bases, activated existing crisis protocols, engaged with its charity partners and committed significant financial support to the cause. The brand put its commitment to Haiti into action.

But more proactive stakeholder engagement and education was needed. Even with all the efforts to do the right thing, the cruise line’s reputation came under fire when people learned calls to Labadee would continue. As in any highly-emotional situation, critics jumped to conclusions because they simply didn’t have the proper context, they didn’t know the whole story.

Mainstream news organizations reported the information, which elicited a very negative response with many comments on mainstream online news outlets. Bloggers and advocacy groups criticized the company. Pictures were painted of tourists lounging on the private beach sipping pina coladas and jet skiing while just 60 miles away people suffered in Port-au-Prince.

This tragic situation reinforces the important role a sensitive, responsible and quick 360-degree stakeholder engagement strategy is to sustaining corporate reputation, especially in highly-emotional scenarios. It’s a reminder that even when great measures are taken to do the right thing, unfortunately doing the right thing often isn’t enough to protect reputation.

Not only do crisis protocols need to be in place, polished and ready to activate at any minute, an organization’s plan must include immediate steps to inform all of its important stakeholder groups of what it’s doing and why it’s doing it to mitigate any misinformation or ill-informed opinions that may be formed simply due to lack of awareness.

There are those who saw the bigger picture and defended the brand. They pointed to the very important role Royal Caribbean and its competitors actually play in facilitating the kind of sustainable tourism that will help a developing nation like Haiti not only recover from this tragedy, but actually grow stronger for the future.

Arthur Applbaum, a Harvard professor of ethics, told the Associated Press that while it shows … “moral sensitivity to be disturbed by the thought that one is vacationing on the beach when others are suffering nearby … it also shows insufficient moral reflection to think that proximity makes a moral difference. The people of Haiti are suffering whether you take your beach vacation in the Dominican Republic or in Hawaii,” he said, “and it is a failure of the moral imagination not to be equally troubled in Waikiki.”

In emotionally-charged situations, brands must take into account the big picture, while remaining exceptionally sensitive to extreme tragedy. The young Haitian man’s quote, “Without this, we don’t eat,” puts everything into perspective. This is the point around which Royal Caribbean’s decision to continue responsible Labadee port calls with a heavy emphasis on aid to Haiti must be based upon. It is the most basic level of human need and is a huge opportunity for the brand not only to deliver aid in this time of tragedy, but also to take the lead role in building a stronger future for Haiti and its people.

Matt Averitt can be reached at maveritt@mww.com

maveritt Crisis Communications, CSR Crisis Communication, CSR, Haiti

One of the trends of 2009 that is sure to continue in 2010 is the emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility as a critical element of success for organizations of all sizes. And while history has shown the tendency to seek a silver bullet – CSR = philanthropy, or more recently, CSR = “GREEN” (a topic for an entirely different post, I think) I am pleased to see more companies and more clients taking a substantive approach to CSR that is comprehensive, authentic and pardon the already over-used word, SUSTAINABLE.

People are taking notice of citizenship, on Main Street and in the media — Target’s commitment to education and its communities (full disclosure – an MWW Group client), Starbuck’s Shared Planet and Best Buy’s eco-responsibility platform come to mind. Recently, Chipotle’s support of the “real food” and “slow food” movements was enough to score them the holy grail of PR – an Oprah endorsement.

All great issues. All authentic to the brand and the business. Makes you feel good about spending your hard earned dollars there, doesn’t it? That’s the idea.

That’s why I am so disappointed that so few of the leaders in CSR talk about CSR as it related to workplace, culture and employees. Clearly, some of them are thinking about it, and even building their programs with employee input. A Fortune magazine article about Best Buy tells me that their entire platform was created because it was meaningful to employees – long before it was meaningful to customers. But it is more than that…

Citizenship and responsibility begin at home. You can’t be a good corporate citizen – no matter how well you treat the planet or support the arts – if you haven’t created a culture of citizenship within your organization….responsibility to and for your employees is key to the sustainability and authenticity of your “Citizenship Story” – and the ability to sustain communities is rooted first and foremost in the creation of good jobs for its residents. And in this era of high unemployment and mistrust, I thought I had found someone who “GETS IT” when I started reading about the Coca Cola Live Positively platform….defined as living positively for their people, their products and their planet. BINGO.

Except that PEOPLE is defined as the customers who buy and drink Coca Cola products…not the people who make them, sell them, deliver them or discover them. What a missed opportunity – to make this platform meaningful to the employees, who go to work every day in the face of public outcries against soda in schools and the big bad soda companies. And what a missed opportunity to engage and activate those employees to demonstrate and communicate the values of Coca Cola in their interactions with their colleagues, business relationships and in their communities.

If you want to be a “good citizen” what could be more important that your interaction with employees, and your inclusion of them in your external CSR story.

Citizenship isn’t just about the big external programs – it is about the careers you create, and the opportunity for people to sustain their own lives. It is about a reputation earned through the word of mouth in the community – which often begins with the words of your employees. Citizenship begins at home. Or it can’t be sustained for long.

Carreen Winters can be reached at cwinters@mww.com.

cwinters CSR, Employee Engagement citizenship, CSR, Employee Engagement