gearing up: from corporate responsibility to meaningful impact national environmental partnership...
TRANSCRIPT
Gearing Up:
From corporate responsibility to meaningful impact
National Environmental Partnership Summit, May 2006
Question: Are voluntary initiatives likely to make a significant difference in the world?
Answer: Not if they continue to operate in isolation of mainstream governance systems.
“The key challenge for business – and for governments – is now to work out how to drive the current generation of responses to such challenges as climate change… to the necessary scale.”
Millennium Development Goals
By 2015, the world will:– Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.– Achieve universal primary education.– Promote gender equality and empower women.– Reduce child mortality.– Improve maternal health.– Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.– Ensure environmental sustainability.– Develop a global partnership for development.
Megatrends
Geo-politics
Poverty/Hunger
Disease
Ecosystems Under Pressure
Changing Demographics
Terrorism
Urban Influx
Non-renewable Resource Depletion
Wall Street Expectations
Emerging Economies
Rising Standard of Living
Instant News
Globalization
6.3 Billion and Counting
Industry Issues
ReputationRevenue Transparency/Corruption
“Resource Curse”
Climate Change
Carbon Constraints
Human Rights
Post-production Legacy
Finite ResourceBase
Activist Campaigns
HIV/AIDS
Urban Air PollutionCross-border
Legal Liability
Security
Eroded Trust
Deforestation
Water Pollution
Water Supply
Stakeholders
Investors
Customers
Financial Institutions
NGOs
Employees
Business Partners
CompetitorsMedia
Multilateral organizations
Communities
Governments
Complexity
Investors
Customers
Financial Institutions
NGOs
Employees
Business Partners
Competitors
Governments
Media
Multilateral organizations
Communities
Geo-politics
Poverty/Hunger
Disease
Globalization
Ecosystems Under Pressure
6.3 Billion and Counting
Changing Demographics
Terrorism
Urban Influx
Non-renewable Resource Depletion
Wall Street Expectations
Emerging Economies
Rising Standard of Living
ReputationRevenue Transparency/Corruption
“Resource Curse”
Climate Change
Carbon Constraints
Human Rights
Post-production Legacy
Finite ResourceBase
Activist Campaigns
HIV/AIDS
Urban Air PollutionCross-border
Legal Liability
Security
Instant News
Eroded Trust
Deforestation
Water Pollution
Water Supply
Progress?
Climate Change
ObjectiveIPCC: 60% reduction of GHG emissions from 1990 levels
Success DuPont: Beat its 65% reduction target
Bigger PictureGlobally: GHG emissions have increased 9% from 1990 levels
Progress?
HIV/AIDS
ObjectiveMDGs: Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
SuccessDaimlerChrysler SA: care and treatment for employees and family - 23,000 covered
Bigger PictureLess than 10% of 6M people in poorest nations receive necessary ARVs
Progress?
Corruption
ObjectiveOECD: Combat bribery in connection with international business
SuccessBP: Under anti-bribery policy, 165 dismissals and 29 contract terminations in 2003
Bigger PictureWorld Bank study shows overall deterioration in control of corruption
Corporate Social Responsibility – Hitting Limits
– Too peripheral from core business
– Too isolated from one another
– Too disconnected from wider systems
Corporate Social Responsibility – Hitting Limits
Gearing Up
– Market solutions
– Corporate leadership
– Wider collaboration in ‘progressive alliances’
– Leveraging capabilities
– An enabling environment – pre-conditions for scale
– Civil society organizations bring credibility
– Responsible lobbying
Gearing Up
Gearing Up
1st Gear: 3rd Gear: 5th Gear:
Compliance Partnership Re-engineer
Who is involved
Stakeholder Engagement
CR Activity
Business Case
Key Drivers
PR & legal departments
‘Traditional stakeholders’
Philanthropy
Unclear
NGO’s, media
CR experts / CEO’s
2-way dialogue non-traditional
Incremental improvement
Risk/reputation management
NGO’s, leading businesses
Senior Execs / Boards
Progressive alliances
Business models/systems
Long-term business case
Governments
Gearing Up
Which gear are we in today?– Who is engaged?– How well are efforts linked to wider governance frameworks?– What is the impact to our core business?
Where do we want to be by 2010?– Which gear do we want to be in?– What are the barriers to change? How can we overcome them?– How can we co-evolve wider governance frameworks?
How can we achieve scale?– What system-level changes are required?– Do scale-focused progressive alliances exist?– Who needs to offer what incentives to foster innovation?
Conclusions
– ‘Corporate Responsibility’ has made achievements in narrowly defined areas, but currently lacks the capacity to deliver real progress on key sustainable development challenges.
– Governments remain central – as conveners, facilitators, and in setting a course and developing incentives.
– Business can bring fresh perspectives, test new policy frameworks, evolve innovative and more efficient models, and transfer skills and technologies.
– …but trust will only come with greater transparency and engagement.
“…the world’s environmental problems will get resolved, in one way or another, within the lifetimes of the children and young adults alive today. The only question is whether they will become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease, epidemics, and collapses of societies.”
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond
The Future