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It is our first guest post here at Max 
Gladwell and we are excited to be contributing to the thought leadership here.
So why we chose this topic is that a surprisingly small percentage of the general public knows that a corporate conversation around sustainability even exists, let alone that they can participate in it. This is despite the fact that many of the largest companies are spending considerable resources to become socially responsible and publicize those efforts. We discussed some aspects of this in our recent special report Social Media is Advancing the Sustainability Dialogue.
Grail Research recently released a study highlighting the fact that most consumers have no idea that companies like HP, Cisco, The Gap, Microsoft, Nike and General Mills are socially and environmentally responsible companies. Which was exactly the point of our paper as well – companies need to be doing a better job of communicating the good works that they are doing, and getting ongoing stakeholder input, for a variety of reasons. Silvia Springolo of Grail Research says it very simply “The low awareness of these initiatives raises huge questions because companies are spending so much money on them. And while green qualities are very important to consumers, they are not being communicated effectively.”
Recently, Deron Triff, CEO of Changents.com has been working to bring awareness of this gap by challenging people to match Fortune 100 companies with their CSR achievements via a 5-question CSR quiz. The winner receives 100,000 consumer impressions of their Ad (benefiting a company or a favorite non-profit) on the homepage of Changents.com. Take the CSR quiz now and see what you know – I know it was illuminating for me.
And if companies are spending so much time and money on these initiatives, it begs the question – why do we know so little about them? If we are serious about wanting to change the world, then these stories need to be a part of the dialogue. Companies are putting tremendous effort into compiling CSR reports, but at the end of the day who really reads those reports? More recently, separate CSR websites are starting to emerge – who visits them?
Sustainability is such an important topic that the stories about corporate efforts need to be part of the companies’ overall communications, and companies need to start enabling dialogue with all of their stakeholders. Conversations amongst a relative few in government, NGOs or other third parties won’t adequately address the various problems we face. We believe social media is a catalyst for enabling these conversations as more companies try to figure out how to engage with stakeholders in this new world that demands transparency and crowd sourcing to solve our most intractable problems.
It’s important that we get more people talking – this conversation needs to move mainstream and engage with more people where they are instead of trying to get them to specific CSR communications. Let’s face it very few people read CSR reports much less specific CSR communications. They need to be a part of regular corporate communications and not a separate stream if we are going to truly embed this in mainstream culture, engage more people in the discussion, and inspire the change we want to see in the world.
Please help to continue this dialogue – would love to hear your thoughts!
Beth Bengtson, Partner, SDialogue
9 responses so far ↓
1 Sustainable Competitive Advantage « Greening the Inner-city // Nov 23, 2009 at 10:28 am
[...] 5:27 pm (Green Business) Tags: CSR, sustainability There is a good post over at Max Gladwell on the importance of ongoing sustainability and CSR dialogue. Shouldn’t sustainability be one of the very few sustainable competitive [...]
2 Jess // Nov 24, 2009 at 8:32 am
I agree with this completely. As with most issues, sustainability is all about framing. It should absolutely be part of the external dialogue, especially when the company is already having those difficult conversations internally. Not only do corporate sustainability initiatives matter to consumers, they can also be used as a tool to attract potential employees – but only if communicated effectively. Companies need to start incorporating CSR as a part of their brand.
3 tempo dulu // Nov 24, 2009 at 7:38 pm
action is needed more than dialogue. Too much talking is annoying and doesn’t fix anything. Electric cars now!
4 Global Patriot // Nov 28, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Sustainability programs need to be talked about, and the dialogue should be ongoing – instead of one article or advertisement, make it a story, as any project worth talking about occurs over a long period of time – let people know the history, and keep them informed along the way – an easy thing to do using social media.
5 fishing organizations // Dec 11, 2009 at 7:45 am
I think that talking is essential to moving us closer to sustainability. The key is to not get so caught up in talking that we fail to act.
The talks must only go on until we find a set of adequate means by which we can make our nation more sustainable. Once those means are determined, all talk must cease and action must prevail. We don’t need to figure everything out first; as long as we are moving down the road, we can worry about the potholes as they come.
6 Al // Dec 23, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I agree – companies need to use more of their advertising budgets to let the world know about their sustainability programs. I just learned that JohnsonDiversey, a company with operations in 175 countries, has just announced that it will assess the carbon footprint of every product they make and make this information available to the public. JohnsonDiversey is the same company that last month announced a tripling of its emissions reductions commitment by 2013. Here is more in depth detail about the company’s plans: http://bit.ly/jdaction
7 Beth Charette // Jan 18, 2010 at 7:17 pm
I am totally committed to sustainability.
However, the visible leaders of the sustainability movement shame me in front of my family and friends every day.
For example, both Al Gore and John Travolta (so-called public eco-leaders) live personal lives with respect to energy use footprints that are obscene.
Al’s Tennessee home heating and cooling bill alone for 2008 exceeded $30,000.
Travolta’s five jets use more energy in a month than my grandmother used in her lifetime.
What I am saying is that when Gore speaks at Copenhagen, and I attempt to pass his message on, I come from people who look to behavior first to judge sincerity. The rest is just money.
So, my grandmother said to me that she would limit her energy expenditure to 80% of Al Gore’s or 70% of John Travolta’s, and just like these “phonies” claim the title of FRIEND OF THE EARTH.
What do I say to my grandmother?
She has a valid point. When people worth over 100 million dollars ask my grandmother to sweat in the summer and freeze in the winter, they don’t seem to have any shame at all in terms of their own behavior.
Don’t they “get it?”
After all that preaching, last week, Travolta with his jet plane being fueled in the background said, “Well, we gave it a good try, but it is now too late to save Mother Earth.”
Geez, where do people like this come from?
8 Jess @ Openly Balanced // Jan 19, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Beth,
Your grandmother has a point. But since when have we come to accept that we should only act with integrity if famous people are acting with integrity? If we used the actions of those in the limelight to justify our own behaviors, where would we be?
Yes, they are acting hypocritically. We “normal people” can use that as an excuse, or we can use it as further incentive to step up as leaders on these issues.
9 Blogdun // Jan 25, 2010 at 6:15 am
Yes, they are acting hypocritically. We “normal people” can use that as an excuse, or we can use it as further incentive to step up as leaders on these issues.
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