An ancient Chinese proverb – “May you live in interesting times” – comes to mind as I sit down to sum up our most recent corporate responsibility progress.  It is interesting for the sheer diversity of issues and events. 

Not so long ago, I was watching a live webcast of President Obama launching “Change the Equation” – a new public-private initiative to promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education.  AMD’s innovative “Changing the Game” program that teaches youth through game development will be a prominent aspect of this new White House initiative, and it was an honor to be among the leading companies the president recognized for stepping up to the challenge of improving our nation’s educational programs. 

It is a bit jarring to juxtapose preparing the young minds of tomorrow with the subject of my meeting that immediately preceded the White House announcement – conflict minerals.  AMD is co-chairing a multi-stakeholder process to develop consensus policy positions for the implementation of the new U.S. law on conflict minerals.  What are conflict minerals you might ask?  This summer, Congress passed a provision in the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act that requires U.S.-based public companies to report their efforts to exclude any of four metals (tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold) if they are sourced from illegal mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or surrounding countries.  This is a war torn area, and illegal mining of these minerals has been linked to funding the conflict and the associated human rights violations.  While the products that AMD designs are several links of supply chain away from mining, as a leader in corporate responsibility, we nonetheless felt we had to take action.  By working with non-profit activist groups, socially responsible investors and other companies, we are helping to work out the policies that we hope will ultimately reduce the suffering of the Congolese people. Read the rest of this entry »

A just-released Boston College Center/Reputation Institute study of public perceptions of U.S. companies’ social impact indicates that in the eyes of the American public, businesses overall are more socially responsible than a year ago.

Johnson & Johnson tops the rankings in the Corporate Social Responsibility Index with a score of 82.67 that puts it in the excellent category along with The Walt Disney Company, Kraft Foods Inc., Microsoft, PepsiCo and Apple, all earning scores above 80 (using a 100 point scale). To be included in the CSR Index 50 this year a company needed to rate above 72.52, an increase of more than 3 points from 2009. The top 25 companies all rated at or above 75 in this year’s study compared to 2009 when only the top nine companies scored that high.

The Corporate Social Responsibility Index was developed by researchers at the Carroll School of Management’s Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College in conjunction with the Reputation Institute to understand how companies’ reputations are affected by public perceptions of performance related to citizenship (the community and the environment), governance (ethics and transparency) and workplace practices. Rankings in the CSR Index are based on a survey conducted in January and February 2010 of 7,790 online consumers in the United States.

» View the 2010 CSRI 50
» View the complete 2010 Corporate Social Responsibility Index report
» View the 2009 CSRI 50

I came across a book the other day that I just had to pick up and peruse.  Its title was “Social Entrepreneurship for Dummies”.  My first thought was, “Wow, it’s nice to see that corporate citizenship is becoming mainstream enough that one aspect of it can be included in the For Dummies series!”  The For Dummies series is known for its fun paperback introductions to various subjects, ranging from medieval history to personal finance. This book included what the series has become known for:  cute graphics, icons, humorous text and plenty of bad jokes!

“Social Entrepreneurship for Dummies” begins by providing a basic definition for the term “social entrepreneur”:  someone who uses business principles to address a social or environmental problem. This is true, but it’s often a lot more complicated than that. However, the authors address this by going into more detail in definitions and descriptions further along in the book.

The book is part textbook and part how-to primer, and is divided into four sections:

1. an introductory section that explains what social entrepreneurship is and discusses current trends in social entrepreneurship;
2. a section that helps the reader create a social enterprise by suggesting potential focus areas for generation of social change and providing information on how to get started (fundraising, brand creation, etc.);
3. a section that gives details on how to keep your social enterprise growing once it’s been established; and
4. a section that provides guidance on how to successfully manage the social enterprise long-term.

A key feature of the book is that the chapters do not have to be read in order. In addition, there’s a quick-start guide that identifies the specific chapters to read if you want to get your organization off the ground immediately.

All in all, I think this book is an important indicator of the growing visibility and development of corporate citizenship as a field.  Being part of such a well-known book series illustrates the belief that the general reading audience should be learning about social entrepreneurship, and more broadly, corporate citizenship.

Recently, I came across a story about a collaborative initiative led by IBM that immediately caught my attention and made me want to know more.  The scale, the points of connection to business problems and an important policy issue, and the pace of proposed implementation all impressed me as significantly different from how work around social issues tends to proceed.

This initiative so clearly reflects what we talk a lot about: strategy and alignment in our work.  Alignment between business strategy and the interests of society can be difficult to execute. Companies cannot be all things to all stakeholders and there is much debate about where the primary obligation should lie.  To realize corporate citizenship goals most successfully, companies must select the social interests most relevant to their stakeholders and the future well-being of their business.

IBM and five partner companies—AT&T, Bank of America, Citigroup , Pfizer, and UPS—who collectively award nearly $150 billion in contracts to small businesses each year, agreed to collaborate to standardize and simplify the application process required for qualified small- and mid-sized U.S. suppliers.  For those of you with college-bound children, think of this as the “Common App” for small business.

To facilitate this, the participating companies are establishing a free, public website, www.supplier-connection.net, created and maintained by IBM through a grant of more than $10 million from the IBM International Foundation.   Small vendors complete the single, streamlined electronic application form once to seek approval to become suppliers to any of the participating large companies.  Once through the process, approved small businesses can connect more easily to these large businesses to sell goods and services.

This initiative struck me as noteworthy for several reasons.  First, the unemployment rates in this country are hurting all of us.  Of course people without jobs feel this most acutely, but businesses are facing the social expectation (and sometimes political or community pressure) to create jobs while continuing to preserve profits.  This is extremely difficult for any business in a down economy.  The scale of these large companies increases the expectations exponentially.  In recent history, small businesses have historically been considered the engines of job creation, with the Small Business Administration and others estimating that as many as two-thirds of new jobs have been born in small businesses.

According to recent Gallup Polls, public confidence in big business is at historic lows.  At the same time, small businesses are enjoying among the highest levels of positive perception they have seen and continue to be lauded as potential engines of job growth in our economic recovery.  Despite the high confidence and trust enjoyed by small business, small business owners polled in the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index in the third quarter of this year showed record pessimism about their prospects over the next twelve months along all six dimensions measured.  Experiencing related but different pressures, this group of big companies led by IBM is making a strategic decision to offer small business a boost.  It is easy to imagine this solution being applied to different problems.  It will be interesting to see the outcome of this initiative, but here are the key positive social impacts that we can identify in this strategy:

1. It is collaborative on many levels, bringing partners to the table that have a collective interest in solving the same problem.  The partners know that the best environment for the conduct of their business, is one in which small business thrives.
2. The strategy aligns with a business function (purchasing) that is central to the companies’ success.  As such, it can be a sustainable activity in the businesses that adds value to the communities in which they operate and to the companies themselves.
3. It addresses a significant social/economic issue that affects the operating environment AND the interests of all of us in society—job creation.
4. In terms of the reciprocal reputation benefit, the value to small businesses in getting approval and contract revenue from these big firms is a great “good housekeeping seal of approval,” and the big companies can legitimately claim and quantify their contributions to economic growth by tracking the progress of their smaller partners.

As a technology and services company, IBM has pulled together what appears to be a solid and smart strategy that amplifies its core business strengths. IBM has selected partners that can contribute to solutions, and it has committed significant resources. For all of these reasons, this is a strategy worth watching.

There are many other examples of companies that are collaborating to address important social issues. Feel free to share your story here.

No company is immune to a reputational crisis, but what we learned in our Sept. 1 webinar is that some companies are better prepared to mitigate and address challenges that are thrown their way. It was also clear that corporate citizenship has a relevant and tangible role in helping address these crises and practitioners in this field need to be involved long before the CEO comes running down the hall in an emergency. Authentic communications about the good work a company is doing feeds a “goodwill bank” of public opinion. A company known and respected for its mission, values and good work has a true advantage in leveraging corporate citizenship initiatives even when the company and brand are being challenged.

In today’s multi-media age, companies are being watched constantly. Consumers are experiencing events as recorders of history and social media allows for nearly instantaneous reporting. We’ve seen companies’ “golden hour” for crisis response turn into a “golden minute.” Unfortunately, we’ve also seen well-respected institutions continue to fail as they are unable or unwilling to look at situations honestly.

In the Center’s webinar on this topic, Mike Lawrence of Cone LLC illustrated how the best crisis management is a commitment to crisis preparedness. He showed us how corporations can monitor for early warning signs and empower employees to be aware and prepared to recognize risk. While no company volunteers for a crisis, how it responds exemplifies what a brand stands for and can have a lasting impact on reputation in ways a marketing campaign cannot.

Jet Blue has been faced with several crises that have seriously jeopardized the brand of a company trying to “bring humanity back to flying.” Jenny Dervin told us how severe weather conditions created hostage-like situations as planes were literally frozen to the tarmac for hours. However, Jet Blue responded to these crises by explaining, apologizing and asking for forgiveness in a candid and authentic way. Their CEO and communications team used traditional and social media to deliver an unscripted, transparent message to past and future customers that reduced the crises’ impact on their bottom line.

Members can view the On Demand webinar to learn more about how to:

• Manage your issues so they don’t turn into crisis — what Mike Lawrence called the “Secret Sauce” for mitigating crisis
• Communicate commitments and good deeds during and throughout a crisis
• Build and feed your goodwill bank through daily engagement so that you can cash it in when you need to
• Accept responsibility without accepting blame

Our next webinar, “How your Citizenship Affects Your Reputation,” takes place Wednesday, Oct. 6 at noon ET. Click here to learn more and register.

At this afternoon’s White House meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, President Obama will make an announcement about a new jobs-training initiative, “Skills for America’s Future,” designed to retrain workers for jobs that are in demand.

This new initiative is intended to help better align community college curriculums with the demands of local companies.

So far five major private employers — Center members Accenture, PG&E and McDonald’s, along with Gap Inc. and United Technologies — have been named as partners, in part to build on existing training programs they already run.

Read more about the initiative in this New York Times article, “White House Plans Job Training Partnership.”

Another day, another corporate citizenship ranking, but unlike most awards and lists, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) provides asset managers with quantifiable benchmarks to manage sustainability portfolios.

The recently released 2010 annual review comes with significant changes. Forty-eight companies will join the World Index, while 46 firms will be deleted based on a through analysis of corporate governance, risk management, branding, climate change mitigation, supply chain standards and labor practices.

For the 12th consecutive year Unilever leads the Food & Beverage sector and Gavin Neath, Unilever’s SVP Sustainability, calls this performance “remarkable” and a “unique achievement” for the company. Notable deletions include a company that has faced significant corporate crisis over the past year, Toyota Motor, and prominent oil company Royal Dutch Shell.

Companies ranked in the DJSI have a commitment to long-term shareholder value and are monitored daily for risks and current critical issues. Quick review of the top ranked companies in each sector presents a clear who’s who of global citizenship leaders, including the following Center members:

View the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes here.