SAP Global Survey: AccountAbility's Steve Rochlin

 [Steve Rochlin from his photo file]

Quite recently, I learned that "Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was more than just a platitude. It is an emerging category. Large companies are employing staff to work on it full time. CSR professionals are forming networks where they share information, insights and resources. Increasingly, they are using social media to further their goals.

Is CSR just some form of new do-good tokenism used by large enterprises to hide their vices between a thin veil of good behavior?  There are certainly some cases of that. But, at  the recent SAPphire gathering in Orlando, I attended a roundtable of nearly 30 people from such diverse groups as Kimberly-Clark and the Carnegie Council. While there was a high level of passion expressed by participants, there was clearly a level-headed and pragmatic approach to it. These were people who wanted to move the needle on enterprise behavior toward people and the planet.

It was the most interesting event I attended at SAPphire, not counting the Eric Clapton concert.

This was due, in no small part, to the workshop's co-leadership of SAP's James Farrar, VP for corporate citizenship and Steve Rochlin, North American head of Accountability, an international nonprofit that partners with business to promote CSR. He has built a career on the issue of corporate citizenship.

I asked Steve to describe what CSR is and is not and to describe how social media is being used to generate a global CSR conversation. He also explains why CSR is good business.

1. Exactly what is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and who cares about it

 

In plain terms, CSR asks companies to be accountable for good, bad, or indifferent impacts their actions have on the environment, to communities, employees or people. What constitutes “good” or “bad” is subject to negotiation between companies and stakeholders-- groups, individuals, and communities who could be significantly affected by the way a business behaves.

CSR asks business to report transparently on both the harms and benefits it creates for the environment, individuals, and communities. And finally, it asks business to contribute positively to improve environmental sustainability, the development opportunities of low income individuals, and the overall quality of life. CSR expects a company to make these efforts in ways that can actually benefit its own competitive position.

2. How do you respond to the cynic's viewpoint that CSR is just lipstick on a greedy, smoke-spewing dragon? In other words, some folks argue that CSR lets a company say all the right things while continuing to conduct irresponsible activities in the name of profit?

The problem is that there’s no consensus on CSR's definition. So this does, in fact, leave room for companies to make CSR an exercise in PR or worse. There are too many examples of companies giving a few thousand bucks to a charity, then paying in the low six figures to advertise how great they are for giving the money. My favorite story is of a funeral home that promised an elementary school a brand new computer center if it made sure to encourage the kids to send the grandparents their way when their time was up.

Too many try to make CSR about giving a few pennies here and there. But it’s not about that. As our name underscores, accountability is at the core of CSR. What exactly do we expect companies to be accountable for in the way they treat the environment, communities, customers, employees, and shareholders?

Do companies share enough with us about their performance? Do they transparently report on what they are up to? Do they listen to criticism and work to improve? Do they give their most important stakeholders—the individuals whose lives could really be affected by the corporate decisions—some kind of voice and influence?

3.  Tell me about AccountAbility. How did it get started and why? How has it emerged? What does the head of AccountAbility do on a typical day--assuming you have typical days?

In 1995, a group of really visionary folk saw that the relationship between business and society was changing. They predicted that companies would be pressured to issue annual “CSR” reports documenting their environmental, social, and economic impacts.

They envisioned the proliferation of independent, global efforts to establish “standards” or codes of conduct for companies to adopt on everything from climate change, to human rights, to labor practices, and dozens of other issues. They said, “we’re going to need an organization that is always looking around the corner, seeing what’s coming, helping us prepare to meet it, and not letting us get too complacent or self-satisfied about what the rest of us are up to.” They created AccountAbility. We work to be innovative, but clear-eyed and practical. We try to make CSR work by really getting at the heart of what we hold business accountable for, and what others in the world need to be accountable for too. It’s not all one-way and dumped on business. We need mutual accountability, shared responsibility and ways of working collaboratively.

So we designed frameworks and tools. With IBM and The Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship we founded the Global Leadership Network (GLN) , a network of about 40 companies collaborating to define the terms of performance excellence for CSR and then demonstrate leadership. The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and the United Nations Global Compact is involved as well. We have networks in China, Brazil, and India. We use an online, interactive, web platform to help companies self assess, plan CSR strategy, and benchmark.

We do a lot of work with companies to help them build collaboratively designed strategies with stakeholders. We’ve worked with SAP, GE, Nestle and many others on this. We designed one of the leading systems to assure — or verify — these CSR reports I mentioned earlier. It’s called AA1000. We partner with Fortune International and others to rate the accountability of the largest 100 corporations in the world. And we rate countries on how well they create a business climate that allows companies to be competitive and responsible to the environment and communities. Finally, we help companies, “non-governmental organizations (NGOs),” and governments partners to solve tough problems. So there is no typical day for me.

4. How does social media come in? What Social Media projects has AccountAbility started or participated in? Are you considering blogs, Twitter, FaceBook or online video?

In addition to our GLN, we are just finishing a worldwide wiki process to update our AA1000 standard on assuring — or verifying — CSR reports. We struggled with this at first, but got the hang of it, and it is been just a great and powerful process to use the power of social media communities to make vital improvements in this standard.

Third, we’ve just created a relationship with OpenDemocracy. It is a leader in creating blogs and other content vehicles to promote discussion on globalization and strengthening democracy. We often guest-post on OpenDemocracy and we host them in our offices.

We also have a Facebook account.

Fifth, SAP has supported a fascinating effort we’re leading with Web 2.0 analyst RedmonkBusiness for Social Responsibility (BSR) on Web 2.0 on the sustainable enterprise and the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) are helping to lead this as well. Among the things we’re doing is having debate and dialogue via a wiki platform. Those interested should email me and I’ll be happy to send you an invite.

5. Why has AccountAbility opted to embrace social media at this time? Where are you going with it?

Social media tools could be a veritable godsend for those working to advance a progressive vision of the relationship of business to society. And since this vision bolts squarely onto big challenges like climate change, biodiversity, energy policy, poverty, access to education, human rights, food and hunger, disaster relief and recovery, access to medicines for poor people, health and quality of life, and numerous other concerns, these tools could be a godsend for work on these specific issues too. But too many of us are playing the role of late adopters (if not out-and-out skeptics). We think that too many working on these issues have overlooked the power of social media.

We need to catch up and we need to help others catch up too.

6. Can you give me a good example of a company that has changed an activity because of CSR?

Oh, there are too many to mention. I get excited when I see companies like IBM using CSR as a vehicle to enhance R&D. It’s led to some truly profound initiatives like the World Community Grid , which gives supercomputing power to AIDS researchers, voice recognition technology for the elderly and disabled, and an SME toolkit for entrepreneurs in low income communities.

I look at General Electric, which has created a whole business model called ecomagination designed to help customers reduce energy consumption and greenhouse emissions. I look at cement manufacturer CEMEX which has created a new business model to help poor people get affordable housing and sell ready-mix bags of cement to markets they never thought about before. I look at Shell Oil helping to provide innovative, sustainable alternative energy solutions to poor, rural communities.

I look at Dow Chemical, British Telecom, Nokia, and so many others who are making big commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. I look at the network of major companies joining Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights to make sure the rights of workers in supply chains are protected.

There is just so much that’s going on.

7. Can you give me a great AccountAbility CSR success story?

Our Responsible Competitive Index inspired the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to enter into an agreement with us to improve its performance. They see this as part of their effort to become one of the top 10 most competitive countries in the world.

We’ve helped one of the largest companies in the world design the first, worldwide human rights policy in its industry. We have a partnership to help revive the garment industries of poor countries now that World Trade Organization-imposed purchasing quotas have been lifted.

We manage a partnership of over 70 organizations that include WalMart, Levi Strauss, Nike, CARE, Oxfam, the World Bank and others. This work has helped save some good jobs and created conditions to prevent sweatshops in countries like Bangladesh and Lesotho. 

We have helped another top 100 company to acknowledge that it must take seriously the potential health impacts of one of its signature products. We’ll be facilitating a series of dialogues on what it can do over the next few months. We also helped a very famous apparel brand avoid a mistake that would have been devastating to its reputation. Its marketing team got too aggressive and was about to launch a major campaign about become “carbon negative.” We showed them that this would be a very problematic idea. I’m proud to say we have many other examples.

8. From an enterprise perspective, where's the ROI in CSR?

I have a love-hate relationship with this question. It is absolutely clear that CSR can generate top-line revenues for a company. It can inspire innovation. It can support new product development. It can open new markets and reignite moribund ones. It can acquire customers. It can recruit and retain employees. It can enhance brand and reputation. It can reduce costs. It can mitigate risks by protecting the so-called “social license to operate.” It can help raise share price.

Or it can do none of these things. Or it can do the exact opposite.

People approach CSR like the movie Field of Dreams. “Build it and they will come.” That doesn’t work for CSR. In fact, it just about doesn’t work for anything a business does. Very few experience the dream where you launch a product that sells itself.

Any company whether B2B or B2C in any industry can generate ROI from CSR. But that company has to be smart and strategic. It has to identify what the most material social and environmental issues are. It needs to assess what kinds of investments will produce what kinds of returns.

Most companies don’t do this. They see CSR as a type of PR. It’s not. It is fundamental and core to the business. Or they see CSR as a “do-gooder” exercise of “giving back.” This drives me crazy. Don’t “give back.” Understand what you are accountable for. Think strategically about how responding to your accountabilities can actually drive business success.

9. You seem to be in a triangulated alliance with Redmonk and SAP? Why do they work so closely with you? Can you name some other AccountAbility allies?

Well we did work with SAP to help it build a CSR strategy, identify material social and environmental issues, and engage with key stakeholders. Out of this we brainstormed an opportunity to look into Social Media as a potential driver of responsible business performance. Redmonk has a great reputation as an industry analyst that uses social media creatively. And it has begun to look into sustainability issues in a big way. It’s been a great partnership all the way around.

10. Additional Comments?

We’re learning that social media puts some amazing tools at our disposal. Whether we use them to construct the kind of society we all want to live, work, play, and do business in is up to us. We’d love to connect with those interested in applying these tools to advance the responsible performance of business.

--