Your company aspires to be a good corporate citizen and you have a critical role in meeting that aspiration. The Center’s 2½ day Institute on Corporate Citizenship is what you need to equip yourself with the information and tools to understand and contribute to your firm’s success. Register now to attend our Jan. 18-20 session of the Institute on Corporate Citizenship in Miami and you will: Read the rest of this entry »

Tough economic times are putting a strain on the European Union these days. Recent reports out of Berlin have German chancellor Angela Merkel calling for a stronger political union in Europe to overcome the bloc’s debt crisis, which she called “maybe Europe’s most difficult hours since World War II.”

Amid the financial struggles, the executive body of the European Union, the European Commission, recently published a new policy on corporate social responsibility that recognizes the role that CSR or corporate citizenship can play in an economic recovery. In explaining Read the rest of this entry »

While in New York recently, I encountered firsthand the early stages of the protest occupation of Wall Street. The protest against “the 1 percent” who have the most is conducted on behalf of “the 99 percent” who have less and less. OccupyWallStreet.org is an ostensibly leaderless movement that seems to have been conceived by the nonprofit creative collective, Adbusters. The one thing participants claim to have in common is that they “are the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.”

Among the images that present the contrasts between these percentages, one of the most widely reported was of the group of affluent citizens attending a cocktail party on the balcony of the legendarily exclusive Cipriani’s during the first week of the protest (now into its third week). Attendees were filmed sipping champagne, looking down on the thousands of protesters, and even snapping photos of the throng with their smartphones. That moment has been compared in the press to the Roman circuses and the comparison is sobering given how apt the analogy seems and how the Roman era ended. Read the rest of this entry »

Center member Abbott Laboratories made news recently, earning well-deserved praise in a Fast Company story on its work with Partners in Health to fight malnutrition in Haiti.

“All too often, corporate philanthropy involves dropping a wad of money on organizations that are doing work on an issue that the corporation ‘cares’ about, and then saying goodbye,” wrote Fast Company Assistant Editor Ariel Schwartz. “But sometimes, corporations actually bring their know-how and human capital to bear on a problem, in addition to just giving money. The global pharmaceutical company Abbott is taking the second path, focusing on long-lasting initiatives that can grow local economies in struggling areas. Case in point: Abbott’s work to combat severe malnutrition in Haiti.” Read the rest of this entry »

As the Fourth of July holiday approached, discussions of our national heritage and celebration of the American spirit were ubiquitous. Among the many inspired quotes that I heard over the weekend was one from Robert F. Kennedy who was paraphrasing the playwright George Bernard Shaw. “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why … I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

Corporate citizenship professionals are often asked why their firms should make investments in the community and environment – and there is then often a scramble to find a financial return justification. It is neatest when we can do well by doing good, but that is not always possible. Sometimes the return on community investments is not immediately quantifiable (on the quarter) and sometimes returns are purely social. They may create a more welcoming or more manageable environment in which the business can operate, but the firm might be just as profitable without having made them. Read the rest of this entry »

A group of corporate citizenship professionals and academics from around the world gathered at the Carroll School of Management recently for a symposium sponsored by UPS, “Forecasting the Future: Non-financial Reporting for Global Companies.”

The Global Education Research Network symposium hosted by the Center for Corporate Citizenship opened with a panel titled “Looking at the Big Picture of Non-Financial Reporting.” Moderator Brad Googins, associate professor at the Carroll School, was joined by Steve Lydenberg, partner, Strategic Vision, Domini Social Investing, and Michael Sadowski, vice president, SustainAbility Inc. Googins asked the pair of experts to roll out a crystal ball and give their take on where CSR reporting is headed. Read the rest of this entry »

The origins of Target’s corporate responsibility philosophy began many years ago out of a modest-sized department store called Dayton’s Dry Goods. At that time, our founder, George Draper Dayton, proclaimed that our business must maintain “the higher ground of stewardship.” It was at that moment when Target’s reputation for dependable merchandise, fair business practices, and a generous spirit of giving was born. Ever since then, we’ve taken that philosophy and expanded on it—we not only believe we must maintain “the higher ground of stewardship,” but we also believe we are Here for Good.

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