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?