REMARKS TO CSR EUROPE CONFERENCE DINNER, BRUSSELS, APRIL 17TH 2013 – DAVID GRAYSON Jane Nelson and I had many debates about the IMPACTS of coalitions. We knew whatever we wrote, we would disappoint some good friends and colleagues! Either some coalitions leaders who might feel we had been too harsh, too critical; or some CR experts and commentators who might feel we had been too generous, too positive! We concluded: we are both “glass is half-­‐full” people! All too easy with benefit of hindsight and a 2013 vision, to condemn coalitions for not being bolder. Yet that is to forget just how radical, even insurrectionist, it felt in those early years of the pioneer coalitions. Coalitions have promoted disruptive innovation! I speak from the perspective of creating one of the first social enterprises and local development agencies back in 1980 in the North East of England, and of working since 1980 at the interface between business, Civil Society and the public sector in various local, national and international forms, in a variety of public-­‐private-­‐community partnerships. Not that we knew any of that language back then! Indeed, rather like Moliere’s M.Jourdain in the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, pleased to discover he had been speaking prose all those years, I was delighted all those years later, to discover that I been doing social enterprise all that time! IMPACTS We should celebrate the achievements of organisations like CSR Europe. Let me pay tribute to the long-­‐term leadership of Viscount Davignon; to the energy and enthusiasm of those first young activists: Jan Noterdaeme and Ann Vandenhende; to early chairs like Alan Christie, and Frank Welvaert – here tonight – and most recently Celia Moore. Impact of corporate responsibility coalitions Coalitions have had an important impact in four main ways: raising awareness and making the case for responsible business; helping companies to embed responsible practices into their core business operations and value chains; developing common visions and agendas for action, including brokerage; and providing platforms for collective action to drive scale and more systemic impact. Raising awareness and making the case: Coalitions have been at the forefront of making the business case for corporate responsibility through publications, conferences, presentations, case studies, dialogues, media coverage, ‘seeing is believing’ project visits, and increasingly through social media and cause-­‐related or social marketing and advertising. They have commissioned academic research and analysis by financial institutions to provide better data and empirical evidence on the links between corporate financial performance and environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. Several have supported the creation of indices and launched independently-­‐judged award 1 programmes, such as the Maala Index for corporate responsibility in Israel. A number of coalitions have been effective at providing public platforms for corporate CEOs, senior executives and political leaders to act as vocal champions and advocates for corporate responsibility, not only within their own companies and industry sectors, but also more broadly. WBCSD for example has developed both written statements signed by leading CEOs and opportunities for individual executives and politicians to speak publicly to widespread audiences about the business case and the societal need for voluntary corporate responsibility and sustainability. Personally, I am delighted at the way CSR Europe has made ageing and demographic change, an integral part of your CR agenda. Helping companies to embed and spread responsible practices: Coalitions have developed a wide variety of practical guides, frameworks and tools to help corporate executives develop corporate responsibility policies, management systems, incentives, metrics and measurement processes, and to implement public disclosure and reporting practices. They have also codified and disseminated good practices through a variety of benchmarking tools, case studies and award programmes. In some cases they have provided hands-­‐on advisory services and technical assistance in helping companies find solutions to difficult social issues. As Jan Noterdaeme put it to me during a long and very helpful conversation for the book, last summer, “the best of the coalitions have been incubators, laboratories for those wanting to shift the dominant model from short-­‐term shareholder value to long-­‐term stakeholder-­‐value;… {they have shown} the new materiality of social, environmental, human rights, ethics for an increasing number of companies; and they have encouraged new generation of CEOs, business leaders, managers, intrapreneurs.” A number of coalitions engage and train specific individuals or teams within companies, ranging from strategic leadership programmes for senior management teams to practitioner-­‐focused training for sustainability or corporate responsibility professionals to employee volunteering and engagement support for mainstream employees. Some corporate responsibility coalitions have helped to spread good practices by influencing the thinking and programmes of traditional business representative organizations, such as chambers of commerce, institutes of directors, sector trade associations, employers federations, and small business organizations, which can reach thousands of companies. The field-­‐building coalitions, which have developed networks through local partners around the globe, have been particularly effective in engaging more companies in more countries. CSR Europe has played a prominent role, helping to create several of the national coalitions here tonight. Developing common visions and agendas for action: Some coalitions have developed strategic blueprints or roadmaps for action on corporate 2 responsibility and sustainability that have subsequently been used by thousands of companies and in some cases by governments and other stakeholders to inform their strategic direction on these issues. Examples include WBCSD’s Vision 2050 project; BITC’s Visioning the Future; CSR Europe’s Enterprise 2020 for smart, responsible, inclusive growth; NBI’s National Energy Efficiency vision; and Instituto Ethos’ Platform for an Inclusive, Green and Responsible Economy. Driving scale and systemic impact through collective action: Coalitions have had an important and arguably growing impact, in supporting more systemic and transformative solutions by providing platforms for companies to work collectively on a specific issue or set of issues; and in some cases, also by enabling companies, governments and civil-­‐society organisations to work together. Such collective action platforms are able to leverage more resources, skills, influence and political attention to address particular social, economic and environmental priorities than any one actor could achieve alone. Some of the coalitions that have been particularly effective at convening collective action platforms are BSR, WBCSD and IBLF with their industry-­‐specific initiatives and public–private partnerships. Some coalitions have also facilitated new forms of collaborative governance and collective self-­‐regulation, in addition to leveraging business resources through collective action. This has enabled the scaling of corporate accountability and transparency through creating a more level-­‐playing field and encouraging leaders in a particular country or industry sector to set a bar for self-­‐regulation above legal compliance, in the hope that their competitors and suppliers will follow suit. Examples include the Equator Principles for project finance by banks; and the International Council on Mining and Metals. In many cases, business-­‐led coalitions have also helped to achieve greater scale and systemic impact by influencing the policies and programmes of governments, both nationally and regionally. NBI in South Africa, for example, has influenced government policy in areas ranging from education and housing to skills development, tertiary education and energy efficiency. Some coalitions have also been effective in engaging with stock exchanges and other financial actors to create a multiplier or scaling effect. In Israel and Brazil, for example, the coalitions have helped to develop stock exchange indexes to drive and scale more responsible business practices. Coalitions have also increased the awareness, capacity and, in some cases, influence of civil society organisations, academic institutions and intermediaries that are able to scale impact through their own channels and communities. In several countries, such as South Africa and Northern Ireland, business-­‐led coalitions have also contributed directly to national reconciliation and nation-­‐building; and there is obviously huge potential now for this also in countries like Liberia and Myanmar. CRITICAL FRIENDS Jane Nelson and I also set out, however to be critical friends to the coalitions. The world faces multiple crises: the on-­‐going financial crisis, a global sustainability crisis, a crisis of trust and legitimacy for many business and other institutions, 3 and a global governance deficit. “Why,” asked one distinguished academic we quote in the book, “if these coalitions and the corporate responsibility movement have been so successful, is the Financial Times running a series entitled ‘Capitalism in crisis?’” What was good or good enough in the past, will no longer do! We need a radical step-­‐change in Corporate Responsibility and, therefore, in the corporate responsibility coalitions! My impatience with the slow progress in business and in business-­‐led coalitions, is exceeded only by my impatience with the glacial rate of progress in business schools and in the lack of leadership from governments. Coalitions need to: • Show more leadership in setting the agenda – of course being like Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt and towards the Promised Land: always looking ahead but also regularly looking back to make sure they are still following! • Think outside the box: be prepared to merge; manage subject or industry specific networks; align with major coalition; outsource some thought-­‐
leadership to management consultancies, think-­‐tanks, business schools; and/or brigade (airline alliances / joint marketing groups). Be prepared to partner – which is why it was good to hear in the General assembly that CSR Europe plans to expand its partnerships with organisations like Transparency International, the IIRC, and Junior Achievement-­‐Young Enterprise. • Ask themselves some searching questions – what we call our Fit for the Future diagnostic; • and consider an extended remit: what we have called an Agenda for Action. I was mentally ticking off the elements of the new CSR Europe 2013-­‐15 work plan against this Agenda for Action, during the General Assembly! MAXIMISING COALITIONS SCALE AND IMPACT NEEDS ACTION BY OTHERS TOO! Companies already active in numerous coalitions should be mapping the coalitions they are involved in; the history of each membership (awards, board membership / chairmanship, leadership teams etc); who is now championing each coalition inside the company; and the rationale for continuing membership. This might lead them to define each coalition they are in membership of, as: (i) historic – no real, on-­‐going justification for membership; (ii) passive – part of licence to operate, supporting newer companies, part of good corporate citizenship; (iii) reactive, tactical rather than strategic engagement; (iv) reactive, tactical but membership has potential: locally or internationally (eg there are good opportunities for members of the company’s Senior Management Team (SMT) and / or high-­‐flyers to be involved in the coalition as part of their continuous professional development. There may be opportunities for company employees to build their personal networks, gain governance experience and to 4 get confidence in working with other business leaders; or (v) strategic coalition for the company: it is operating in a key market, or otherwise offers significant opportunities for the company. There may, for example be opportunities for company personnel to be involved in the coalition’s work which is of strategic interest to the company, and justifies company SMT involvement. Multinational companies looking to collaborate with other businesses, as well as with NGOs, public sector and international institutions on issues such as the Food-­‐Water-­‐Energy Security Nexus can learn from and build on the work of the business-­‐led corporate responsibility coalitions. One practical tool is to build an internal network of company employees serving on coalitions’ boards / active in coalitions to share learning and experience, and to build capacity to optimise inputs both for their company and for coalitions, and to build on this for their other collaborations. GOVERNMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS Like the EU should be self-­‐confident and assertive in asserting demographic legitimacy to help co-­‐
create a national or an EU-­‐wide framework to promote the enabling environment for corporate responsibility. The results might be: critical mass of businesses espousing CR and committed to practising major political parties broadly supportive Government-­‐initiated or supported national CR strategy for encouraging one or more centres of excellence promoting CR and identifying/ disseminating good CR practice range of Civil Society organisations working with business to improve the Social, Environmental & Economic Impacts of business supportive business media. Sadly, I recognise that it is not common nowadays for a Brit to praise the European Commission – but then Ich bein ein Europäer. I think we all owe a great debt to Pedro Otun and Tom Dodd for the brevity, clarity and internal, intellectual consistency of the last EU Commission Communication on CSR in 2011. I am delighted to see Tom here this evening. Tom, thank you for all your hard work and dedication. CSR’s loss is the gain of DG Research and Innovation and EU policy on the bio-­‐economy! It is a fitting tribute to Tom and his colleagues that the governments of Chile, Peru, Colombia and a number of central American countries are using the EU Communication as the framework for the development of their own strategies to promote Corporate Responsibility. But we need to press ahead. I welcome yesterday’s Commission proposals for the equivalent of the Danish CR Reporting legislation to comply or explain why not. I 5 believe that is a perfectly reasonable approach – it will be a brave board that says “the management of our Social, Environmental and Economic Impacts has no relevance for the future of our business.” But if they truly believe that, I would like to hear a board say so – and then investors, employees, customers, suppliers and communities can make their own decisions about whether they want to do business with that business! There are incidentally two parallel developments which I believe coalitions like CSR Europe and the NPOs could champion which would help to maximise the impact of CR reporting. This would be to endorse the idea of a Board Mandate; and to encourage member companies to become proactive in trying to change the composition of their Share register, so that they are actively recruiting stewardship investors, as proposed by the Centre for Tomorrow’s Company. CONCLUSION One of the happiest years of my life was 1977-­‐78 when I was a student here in Brussels at the IEE, ULB. My flat-­‐mate then was a fellow Cambridge law student – Chris Vajda. I was delighted to see Chris appointed last year as the British judge on the ECJ. We have seen a remarkable evolution over the last 35+ years in European jurisprudence and governance that people like Chris now have to deal with. I see CR coalitions and the enabling environment for CR as part of much wider evolution in thinking and practice about global governance. There is an important new Global Solution Networks research programme, led by the Rotman School of Management, Toronto. I very much like their emphasis on the importance of individual citizens – especially those who have “grown-­‐up digital” – and their emphasis on them, in addition to governments, business, organised Civil Society in a connected, global social media-­‐informed age-­‐ is important. There are similar messages in the new book by Moses Naim: “The End of Power;” and in the US National Intelligence Council NIC Global Trends 2030 report and specifically their fourth scenario of “Non-­‐State World”. They don’t actually mean states disappearing but rather sharing power with other non-­‐state actors. The focus which Jane and I have, is particularly on the contribution of business into such Global Solution Networks – whether that is the thought-­‐
leadership/ideas supporting roles with global elites that a Klaus Schwab/World Economic Forum plays; or Unilever’s Paul Polman convening business inputs into what comes after the Millennium Development Goals for Ban Ki Moon. I have ranged widely tonight: • highlighted the historical contribution of coalitions but also challenged coalitions now to up their game 6 •
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suggested that is much the responsibility of member companies as of the boards and senior management teams of coalitions on their own argued the coalitions is part of a much broader enabling environment for responsible business and that this is part of the acquis communautaire for a market economy and a functioning, democratic society – and we should see Corporate Responsibility coalitions as part of the emerging global governance for the 21st Century. We all face an existential challenge, summed up in the question posed by WBCSD: how will nine billion people live reasonably well within the constraints of One Planet by mid century? At the end of our book, we quote Paul Hawken: When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. I think it is time we all felt our pulse! 7