Open Road

Thursday Oct 18th 2007

CSR - Cynical Social Responsibility?

A piece in the Times recently suggested that there is a joke going around corporate social responsibility that the C stands for cynical.  Apparently this is ‘an indication of our mistrust of the growing number of ways that companies compete to look good’.

See:

Is the bottom line helping this mother and child?

And:

Guidelines: how to ensure that companies are really doing good

In the same piece, a researcher from Ethical Consumer magazine is quoted as saying: ‘CSR is all too often an ethical figleaf in response to increased activism and consumer awareness.  On one level, giving money to good causes is great, but I am uncomfortable linking the idea of donating to good causes and buying a product.  It distracts people from the real issues.’

The Times was talking about a Unicef campaign to eradicate tetanus in the developing world that is supported by a donation by Procter and Gamble.  For every packet of Pampers nappies sold in the UK from October to December last year, P&G donated enough money for a tetanus vaccination.  The initiative funded 7.4 million vaccinations.

This is a good illustration of a far wider debate.  Unfortunately the debate is often very badly informed and its nature will end up damaging the prospects for what everyone wants to see – responsible corporate behaviour.  This would be a huge shame.  So why are some of the sceptics about CSR inadvertently undermining responsible corporate behaviour?

Wednesday Oct 17th 2007

Pakistan: A General Meltdown

Don’t be fooled, the latest chapter in the story of Pakistan is, at root, a simple and age old tale: a desperate man is doing all he can to hold on to power.

Tuesday Oct 9th 2007

Crimes and follies

From Napoleonic master-strategist to complete ass in a month.  It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for puir wee Gordie.

Almost.

But no, let us put aside the brief flicker of pity.  Let’s concentrate instead on how richly deserved it is that the Prime Minister should have the contents of the media chamber-pot emptied over his head.  In all the mess over the election that never was, there are two particular elements which have had insufficient attention and which shout ‘guilty’ from the roof-tops.

Monday Oct 1st 2007

An autumn general election?

Writing in the Times, Peter Riddell has advised the Prime Minister not to make a decision on the date of the election in the heat of the party conference season. Riddell urged Mr Brown to remember that during the annual love-in of the conference circuit, “The atmosphere is too combustible for rational decision-making.”

Wednesday Sep 26th 2007

A Browner Shade of Blue

Gordon Brown’s first speech to Labour Party Conference as Prime Minister was most certainly long. The oration, which lasted a whopping hour, was met with a four-minute standing ovation from Party delegates, pleased to the point of distraction, no doubt, that for the first time in ages there wasn’t the usual Blair versus Brown carping.