PHA-Exchange> Social butterflies : McDonald's, Nestlé et al are rushing to get the latest business fashion accessory: a conscience

[UNNIKRISHNAN P V (Dr)]

Social butterflies 

McDonald's, Nestlé et al are rushing to get the latest business fashion accessory: a conscience 

Felicity Lawrence 
Monday August 19, 2002
The Guardian 

Recent wet weather and the heat generated by preparations for the Johannesburg summit on sustainability have proved the perfect breeding conditions for a new species of corporate creature. Suddenly hatching out like fashionable butterflies at every seminar on development are directors of corporate social responsibility - or CSR, as they might write it on the T-shirt. 
The must-have accessory for the CSR pack is a newly published company report on their employers' social performance, dressed up with colour photos of happy poor children in the developing countries where they do business, and arty close-ups of wild flowers which they will most definitely not be endangering by their activities. 

The vogue for social responsibility in business has been around for some time - wearing, in the main, environmental clothes. But just going green was so-o-o early 90s. The anti-capitalist protests in Seattle made companies realise that they would have to do more to preserve their reputations. 

In the past year, McDonald's, Rio Tinto, Nike, Nestlé and British American Tobacco have all produced "sustainability reviews" or CSR reports covering such issues as human rights, labour conditions and environmental impact. 

McDonald's chief executive, Jack Greenberg, in his company's first social report in April, shared his vision of "how McDonald's will make the world a better place". Not much mention of nutrition, but lots of litter initiatives. 

Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck-Lemathe says his initial "sustainability review" is an effort to "describe our impact on the wellbeing of people and the planet". 

Sustaining turns out to be a key part of the Nestlé business: "More than one million jobs were sustained by the Nestlé Group." Employment stats may not quite match your definition of sustainability, but how about this for a commitment to development? A large proportion of Nestlé factories are in developing countries even though less than a third of its business is, the report boasts. (Does the phrase "cheap labour" spring to mind?) Nestlé's statement on baby milk, meanwhile, reads like a list of promises not to do all the things campaigners have previously accused them of. 

Rio Tinto, controversially included in the British delegation to Johannesburg - not least, according to international development secretary Clare Short, because of its "very bad history" - declares: "We recognise that our business can accelerate social change." 

The trendsetters are bold enough to own up to their sins. BP, which has been ahead of the pack on CSR, wants you to know that it has killed five people in Papua New Guinea by mistake but that it "deeply regrets the suffering of all the people involved" and will not rest until it stops killing people by mistake. 

A key part of CSR is to subject yourself willingly to the tirades of NGOs and campaigners. This is called dialogue with stakeholders. It may be painful but you can always say you don't agree with them at the end. The most uncool thing is to have to admit that "UK stakeholder inputs cannot be described as fully representative", as BAT's first ever social report did last month. The report declares "there is no such thing as a safe cigarette" and accepts "the popular understanding that smoking is addictive", but this fine display of self-flagellation came even though hardly anyone had spoken to its authors. "There was significant non-participation by government, pressure groups, health organisations and family and youth groups," it notes somewhat ruefully in a section on reporting limitations. Those nonparticipants were, it seems, uncertain about BAT's motives. 

It is impossible not to be cynical about this latest fashion. It is no coincidence that the list of companies leading the way with CSR reporting reads like a roll call of the anti-capitalists' pet hates. 

But while some of it is clearly greenwash - sophisticated PR aimed at anticipating and then deflecting broader criticism - the notion of CSR reporting represents a genuine effort to consider the wider role of business in civil society. 

And even if companies only start doing it because they see the writing on the wall, then if auditing their performance on the environment or equal opportunities, say, stimulates them into drawing up policies to improve that performance, should we dismiss it completely? 

One of the problems is that CSR reporting is so random. Some of it is independently audited, some of it not. Some of it covers a whole gamut of issues, some of it highlights only the areas with which the companies doing the reporting can feel comfortable. 

The Department of Trade is in the middle of a major overhaul of company law. Directors currently have a legal duty to put a business's shareholder interests first; any consideration of the social impact of its activities looks likely to remain voluntary. The government could take the opportunity to make CSR reporting mandatory. If it were universal and independently verified, there might not be so much temptation to pull the wings off the butterflies. 

++++++++++++++Forwarded By:

Dr. Unnikrishnan PV
Co-ordinator: Emergencies & Humanitarian Action, OXFAM INDIA
E-mail: unnikru at yahoo.com 
Mobile: 91 (0) 98450 91319
 
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