Transform executive development to build Corporate Responsibility leadership

In the foreword of “Authentic Leadership,” author Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, writes, “We need …people of the highest integrity, committed to building enduring organizations. Leaders, who have a deep sense of purpose and are true to their core values. We need leaders with the courage to build their companies to meet the needs of all stakeholders, and who recognize the importance of their service to society.” 

Corporate responsibility has always been about values and value creation. Yet in an economy where corporate acquisitions and layoffs of tens of thousands of workers are more the norm, and serving the greater good often is a distant second, few CEOs have successfully transformed their strategic thinking or how their organizations do business along the lines that George espouses. Why?

Product supplier offers small businesses, consumers gift cards for old equipment

Office Depot recently launched an electronics trade-in system that pays customers to recycle their old small to medium-size electronics. The project is powered by services and product-support provider NEW Customer Service Cos. and is intended to both help the environment and people and businesses affected by the economic downturn, the company said.

Critical steps in solving a trillion-dollar problem

Executives across the globe are very aware that the costs of corruption go far beyond fines and a temporary impact to reputation. Indeed, the costs are multifaceted, long-lasting and tragic.

Some corporations, like Enron, implode under the weight of malfeasance, taking employee livelihoods and pensions with them; while other companies, such as Tyco, survive but are substantially re-organized. Governmental agencies like Fannie Mae, as well as government contractors and suppliers such as BAE and Halliburton, see years of billing and business-development activities subjected to official inquiries. Employees become reluctant to stay with or join companies implicated in corruption scandals.

Sustainable website management part of technology company's larger green program

As millions of tennis fans visit the U.S. Open tennis tournament website in the next two weeks to check on the fates of Venus Williams or Rafael Nadal, IBM is operating the site with 54 fewer servers than it did two years ago, in an efficiency push reflected in the company’s larger green initiatives.

Companies that take corporate social responsibility (CSR) seriously—and their numbers are increasing—have to find ways to map large amounts of disparate data to large numbers of disparate stakeholders. As companies struggle to answer to these stakeholders, difficulties arise in collecting, processing, and publishing the desired information. Professionals who have dealt with substantial compliance or risk management initiatives understand the difficulties of trying to coordinate programs historically handled on a massive number of spreadsheets.

As with areas of corporate compliance and risk management, technology can play a critical role in making sense of CSR data.

Vendor execs offer views on GRC, CSR, sustainability applications

With the complex and overlapping GRC, CSR and Sustainability software markets shifting faster than the latest regulation or stakeholder campaign, CRO engaged C-suite officials from the top application providers and solicted their advice on what clients need to do, how the vendors’ companies can help them, and what the next “big things” will be. Their answers on a broad range of pertinent issues follow.

Corporation’s role in mitigating risk to attract investor assets

A great deal of attention has been focused lately on the idea of socially responsible investment (SRI). According to an annual report from the Social Investment Forum, approximately $1 of every nine under professional management in the U.S. is involved in SRI. Assets under management linked to SRI in the U.S. alone reached $2.71 trillion by the end of 2007. This number represents 18 percent growth from since 2005, compared with 3 percent growth across the broader investment universe, according to the same report.

Today's CR as a business strategy includes integrated development, philanthropy abroad

While globalization often has been a very powerful force for poverty reduction, too many countries and their people have been left out. This has generated significant international opposition over concerns that globalization has increased inequality and environmental degradation, with international business—notably American multinational corporations—being blamed, and sometimes targeted by activist organizations and movements.

How to attract environmental staff when Western-educated talent looks for new challenges

For decades, U.S. and European corporations have been importing talent--programmers from India, researchers from China, and many other permutations of competence and geography. But in sustainability, Western-trained talent will reverse the tide, as individuals increasingly seek opportunities to work in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries and other developing nations. To win the war for this increasingly valuable human resource, Chief Responsibility Officers (CROs) of multinationals and domestic companies operating in those countries must understand the dynamics of this movement of environmental talent--and they must act strategically to tap into it.