CSR360

Hi all,

I help corporations listed on the stock exchange to overcome their online communication challenges and their next year’s budget for communication is not looking as healthy as it has been in the last 5 years.

How much do you think that the credit crunch will impact companies budget next year? Is the CSR budget going to be affected at all? If so, how badly?

Keep up the good work,

Alvise

Really interesting question that one. I think that companies who have fully committed to CSR in a structured way will continue to see its benefits as the belt tightens. Those who indulge more superficially might, on the other hand, push the panic button. John Willman in the FT wrote a good article about this: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/807fa3aa-4a47-11dd-891a-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=e1440094-270d-11dd-b7cb-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

The message from Stephen Howard, CEO of BITC, is also worth looking at: http://www.bitc.org.uk/news_media/corporate.html

Cheers,

Colin

Really interesting topic guys. I think it would be foolish to say that budgets are not going to be tighter in pretty much all areas of business over the coming months and years but as Roger says, it very much depends from company to company.

Take a business like Marks and Spencer for instance. They have obviously taken CSR and listening to their stakeholders very seriously and made it an integral part of their business. For them, it’s not an added extra it is just the way they do business. After all, this is how CSR is supposed to operate.

Jo

right,

I think that now, more than ever, you guys need to make a point and “lots of noise” with as many companies as possible as those who didn’t embrace the idea might, in these difficult times, find it hard to join in unless they see the real benefits of it.

From David Halley
A key element in companies’ response to the uncertain economic climate in terms of their CSR practice and investment will be the degree to which they see responsible business practice as being critical to the sustainability of success, and therefore not to be lessened, or whether, as can sometimes be the case, whether they view CSR as essentially philanthropy, and therefore subject to budget adjustments. It will be our job to reinforce the former point of view in the coming months.
David.

I agree on your views. However, as always happens, there is an opportunity in any crisis. The financial system will need to recover trust from the public and from what I have seen in Sout America these weeks, there are new efforts and initiatives to communicate and separate “good"from “bad” institutions. Governments are, also, becoming a good partner for creating communication processes at the financial industry level…
In times of uncertainty, information and communication is the key. Probably our challenge is to be creative enough to discover the niches and act consistently as part of the solution (helping recovering trust, based in communicating real CSR is key...)

Looking at it from Russia: companies here are divided, on one hand, by having to cut costs (some of the big players are heavily affected by the crisis because of overextending on borrowing); on the other hand, by their need for global markets and funding.

In order to attract foreign investment or make acquisitions abroad, Russian companies will now have to overcompensate for markets’ caution by demonstrating even better standards of governance, transparency, environmental management.

So I would argue that as long as the financial system recovers and that business with Russia (or anywhere else) continues, then Russian companies will understand that they have to do more on corporate responsibility than ever before, precisely because the international investment community will remain unconvinced by anything less.

My full argument on: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/08/opinion/edhorowitz.php

Brook.

PS Good luck to CSR360!

Think CSR is at a crossroad and we will have two different streams of reaction caused by the present crisis: on the one hand many businesses will downsize their csr activities as a cost cutting measure, but at the same time pressure from society and politics will grow on companies and business at large to change their “habit” and their role not being any longer pure profit-making-entities but taking their role as good and responsible corporate citizens serious reflecting the factual impact they have on society (even if they deny having any impact, or stating: That’s not ourbusiness) and the positive impact they potentially could have towards sustainability, well being and social cohesion.

interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/16/observer-good-companies-guide-1

Great article! This also links very well to a research study done by BITC, which shows a statistically significant link between effective management and governance of environmental and social issues and financial performance.

The study can be downloaded via this link: http://www.bitc.org.uk/resources/publications/value_of_corp_gov.html

thanks for the info!
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Great! useful information.

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