Employee Volunteering – If it’s so important, why aren’t we all doing it?

By Andrea Grace Rannard

Employee volunteering is widely acknowledged as an integral component of a company’s CSR activity. Yet, many companies don’t integrate it into their operations by giving staff time off to volunteer. And, for those companies that do, not all staff utilise it. So, do we take employee volunteering that seriously?

According to the 2010-11 Citizenship Survey, 25% of people volunteer on a monthly basis (1). If a company is a microcosm of wider society, then regardless of the formalised mechanisms to foster a culture of volunteering, people will not always engage with it.

Some companies are concerned that establishing a policy will result in huge uptake and adverse impact on core business. However, this can be refuted on two accounts: First, for any responsible employer, community investment via employee volunteering is core business. Second, offering employees time off to volunteer is a marathon rather than a sprint. For example, the FSA, who integrate volunteering into appraisals, offer employees up to 27 days of volunteering leave a year. Yet, only 20% of the workforce is engaged (2)

The main reason cited by people for not volunteering is a lack of time (3). So, perhaps addressing this barrier by formally allowing staff time off to volunteer will go some way in demonstrating a company’s commitment to CSR and employees without the fear of 100% workforce engagement.

Browsing through a company’s CR report, it is obvious that volunteering is a useful mechanism to report employee engagement and community impact. Yet, despite the importance of capturing outputs, there appear to be mixed feelings about embedding employee volunteering into operations, for example through appraisals and volunteering leave days.

From a company perspective, adapting HR procedures to implement new volunteering policies can involve significant resource. If the demand from staff isn’t explicit, why make company-wide changes?

Of course, employee volunteering arrangements can be made on an informal basis between employees and line managers, not necessitating formal procedure. The output remains the same – employees volunteer. Also, an informal approach may make volunteering more attractive.

However, as with any activity a company takes seriously – whether it is promoting diversity or sustainable procurement – formalisation is helpful to embed a company-wide culture and demonstrate commitment. Creating formalised channels for volunteering can also ensure a more robust data capture system, supporting wider CSR reporting. This includes generating personal case studies that bring reporting to life.

Another benefit of having a policy on volunteering is that it helps reinforce the company’s brand and reputation. Allowing volunteering leave can also make the company an attractive place to work, forming part of a wider portfolio of employee benefits such as training, pension and healthcare provision.

Finally, there is significant evidence to support the engaged employer argument (Gallup 2006, CMI 2008,MacLeod and Clarke 2009) including reduced staff turnover, higher levels of productivity and profitability, fewer sick days, increased levels of innovation and improved morale. (4-6)

References

(1) Department for Communities and Local Government (2011) Citizenship Survey: 2010-11

(April 2010 – March 2011, England), Statistical Release Number 16

(2) Corporate Citizenship (2010) Volunteering – The Business Case: The benefits of coporate volunteering programmes in education

(3) National Centre for Social Research in partnership with the Institute for Volunteering Research (2007) A National Survey of Volunteering and Charitable Giving 2006-07 (Helping Out)

(4) Gallup (2006) Gallup Study: Feeling Good Matters in the Workplace

(5) Kumar, V. and Wilton, P. (2008) ‘Briefing note for the MacLeod Review’, Chartered Management Institute

(6) MacLeod, D. and Clarke, N. (2009) Engaging for Success: enhancing performance through employee engagement

Cracking the CSR Codes Puzzle

By Dr Wayne Visser

Part 5 of 13 in Wayne Visser's Age of Responsibility Blog Series for 3BL Media.

Looking back, we can see that the 1990s were the decade of CSR codes – not only EMAS, ISO 14001 and SA 8000, but also the Forest Steward Council (FSC) and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Certification Schemes, Green Globe Standard (tourism sector), Corruption Perceptions Index, Fairtrade Standard, Ethical Trading Initiative, Dow Jones Sustainability Index and OHSAS 18001 (health & safety), to mention just a few. But all that was just a warm up act when we look at the last 10 years, when we have seen codes proliferate in virtually every area of sustainability and responsibility and all major industry sectors. So much so that in the A to Z of Corporate Social Responsibility, we included over 100 such codes, guidelines and standards – and that was just a selection of what it out there. To illustrate the point, here is a sample of what has been thrust onto corporate agendas since the year 2000:

The Carbon Disclosure Project; Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation; GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines; Kimberley Process (to stop trade in conflict diamonds); Mining and Minerals for Sustainable Development (MMSD) Project; UN Global Compact; UN Millennium Development Goals; Voluntary Principles on Human Rights; FTSE4Good Index; Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS; Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Business Principles for Countering Bribery; Publish What Pay Campaign; Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development; London Principles (finance sector); AA 1000 Assurance Standard; Equator Principles (finance sector); Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI); Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil; Global Corruption Barometer; UN Convention Against Corruption; UNEP Finance Initiative; UN Norms on Business and Human Rights; World Bank Extractive Industries Review; AA 1000 Standard for Stakeholder Engagement; EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; ISO 14064 Standard on Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Verification; Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change; Bribe Payers’ Index; UN Principles for Responsible Investment; ClimateWise Principles (insurance sector); UNEP Declaration on Climate Change; UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME); Bali, Poznan and Copenhagen Communiqués (climate change) ... and many, many more.

No wonder companies are suffering from code fatigue and audit exhaustion. It is the supreme paradox of the Age of Management – companies are pressured to standardise their efforts on sustainability and responsibility, while stakeholders and critics (myself included) remain unconvinced that this approach identifies or addresses the root causes of the problems we face. Many of the institutional failures over the past 20 years have, I would argue, been systemic failures of culture, rather than bureaucratic failures of management; they have more to do with a prevailing set of values than a particular set of procedures.

The latest in this code-mania is ISO 26000 on Social Responsibility. I have suggested before that ISO 26000 is like a teddy bear – something cute and fluffy, which may help companies sleep better at night, but nothing like the grizzly bear that we really need to shake business out of their CSR complacency. Of course, it is unfair of me to make so light of a five-year international process of negotiation involving over 90 countries, which managed to reach some measure of agreement on such tricky issues as human rights and fair operating practices. But I really do believe that, as a non-certifiable guidance standard that promotes a strategic approach to CSR (rather than a transformative CSR 2.0 agenda), ISO 26000 may prove to be more of a damp squib than a big bang.

Having said that, I must give ISO 26000 its due – as a foundation document that encapsulates the international consensus on social responsibility, it is to be applauded and recommended. Its greatest achievement – and what I expect may prove to be its most enduring legacy – is the way in which it broadens the scope of CSR, first beyond big corporates to any organisation, and second beyond an exclusive focus on philanthropic community development to incorporate six other core subjects, namely organisational governance, human rights, labour rights, the environment, fair operating practices and consumer issues.

Besides this, countries like Denmark are ignoring ISO’s strong declaration against ISO 26000 certification schemes and have begun developing their own certifiable national standard, DS 26000. I expect consultants will also increasingly offer ISO 26000 compliance auditing services, irrespective of whether these are sanctioned by ISO. The fact is that business, governments and civil society alike want standards on social responsibility with ‘teeth’. A decade of weak standards without sanction, like the UN Global Compact and AA 1000, as compared with tougher certification schemes like SA 8000 and the Forest Stewardship Council, have taught us where real value lies.

I believe that the codes-based approach, which I call Strategic CSR in an Age of Management, fails on three counts. First, the incremental approach of CSR, while replete with evidence of micro-scale, gradual improvements, has completely and utterly failed to make any impact on the massive sustainability crises that we face, many of which are getting worse at a pace that far outstrips any futile CSR-led attempts at amelioration.

Second, CSR is, at best, a peripheral function in most companies. There may be a CSR manager, a CSR department even, a CSR report and a public commitment to any number of CSR codes and standards. But these do little to change the underlying growth-and-consumption model that fuels environmental degradation and social disruption.

Third, the ‘inconvenient truth’ is that CSR sometimes pays, in specific circumstances, but more often, it is still uneconomic. Of course there are low-hanging fruit – like eco-efficiencies around waste and energy – but most of the hard-core CSR changes that are needed require strategic change and massive investment, which the markets don’t support.

So where does this leave us? I have argued so far that the Ages of Greed, Philanthropy, Marketing and Management have brought us to a point of crisis in CSR. Specifically, CSR is failing to turn around our most serious global problems – the very issues it purports to be concerned with – and may even be distracting us from the real issue, which is business’s role causal role in the social and environmental crises we face. In the rest of this blog series, I will explore what a different approach – CSR 2.0 – may look like.

About the author

Dr Wayne Visser is Founder and Director of the think-tank CSR International and consultancy Kaleidoscope Futures Ltd. He is the author of thirteen books, including The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business (2011), The World Guide to CSR (2010) and The A to Z of Corporate Social Responsibility (2010). He is the author of over 180 publications (chapters, articles, etc.) and has delivered more than 170 professional speeches on in over 50 countries in the last 20 years. In addition, Wayne is Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, Visiting Professor of Sustainability at Magna Carta College, Oxford, and Adjunct Professor of CSR at Warwick Business School, UK.

I Am Fat and It Is Your Fault!

By Alicia de la Peña

In 2006, the Mexican Institute for Public Health warned that, despite persistent poverty levels, the country was facing an obesity pandemic. (National Institute of Public Health, 2010). High rates of malnutrition among the poorest people in Mexico still exist, but a change in lifestyle patterns - leading families to eat more processed foods, engage in less physical activity and consume more edible oils and sweetened beverages - has resulted in rates of obesity comparable to many developed countries. (Popkin, Adair, & Wen Ng, 2011)

It is true that each individual is responsible for what he or she eats. But children have less choice - they eat what their parents give them. And parents argue that they cannot afford to provide for a healthy diet. For example one litre of milk in Mexico costs about $1, the same as three litres of soda which tastes better and is more widely available. With a minimum wage in Mexico of less than 5 dollars a day, is it surprising that families are buying more soda than milk?

As consumers, we expect that food and beverage manufacturers apply the highest ethical - that the products we purchase are fresh and pure; that we are charged a fair price for these goods; and that they are made available to us where and when we require them. But, increasingly, we expect marketers to go beyond this – to also take on responsibility for our consumption behavior. As a result, some self-regulatory bodies, food marketers and advertising agencies have begun to take action on health issues. (Mueller, 2007)

The Mexican government has also begun proactively regulating companies that sell processed foods such as sodas, chips and cookies. The advertising and food industry has, in turn, developed several of the new standards – like the PABI Code (2007). (PABI CODE, 2007). There have also been efforts to legislate against the sale of foods and drinks of low nutritional value in schools. As a result we now have smaller versions of the products with lower calories, but still aimed at children.

Is this an adequate solution? I believe that besides the regulatory measures and changes in product size and ingredients, we have to educate consumers - to make them co-responsible of their behavior and teach them to make healthful choices. Otherwise, we will end blaming the government for our bad choices (which is not untypical in Mexico) and expecting the public health system to take care of increasing numbers of Mexicans with diabetes and heart disease.

References

PABI CODE. (2007). Recuperado el 17 de Feb de 2012, de Self regulation advertising code of food and beverages aimed to the children: http://www.e-consulta.com/blogs/educacion/imgs_10/codigo_pabi.pdf

National Institute of Public Health. (2010). Recuperado el 17 de Feb de 2012, de http://www.insp.mx/noticias/nutricion-y-salud/1200-crecen-sobrepeso-y-obesidad-infantil-en-mexico-11-al-ano.html

Mueller, B. (2007). Just where does corporate responsibility end and consumer responsibility begin? The case of marketing food to ids around the globe. International Journal of Advertising, 26(4), 561-564.

Popkin, B. M., Adair, L. S., & Wen Ng, S. (2011). Global nutrition transition and the pandemic of obesity in developing countries. Nutrition Reviews, 70(1), 3-21.

Broken Promises: BP’s slide backwards into Promotional CSR

By Wayne Visser

Part 4 of 13 in Wayne Visser's Age of Responsibility Blog Series for 3BL Media.

By 2000, John Browne, then-CEO of BP, felt the company had earned enough sustainability kudos to risk a major rebranding. The company reportedly spent $7 million in researching the new ‘Beyond Petroleum’ Helios brand and $25 million on a campaign to support the brand change. When Browne justified the exercise by saying ‘it’s all about increasing sales, increasing margins and reducing costs at the retail sites’, perhaps more people should have tempered their expectations. Certainly Greenpeace wasn’t duped, concluding at the time that ‘this is a triumph of style over substance. BP spent more on their logo this year than they did on renewable energy last year’.

Antonia Juhasz, author of The Tyranny of Oil (2008), was similarly sceptical, claiming that at its peak, BP was spending 4% of its total capital and exploratory budget on renewable energy and that this has since declined, despite Browne’s announcement in 2005 of BP’s plans to double its investment in alternative and renewable energies ‘to create a new low-carbon power business with the growth potential to deliver revenues of around $6 billion a year within the next decade.’

Sceptics notwithstanding, Browne had earned his new title as the ‘Sun King’ and his reputation was not only being earned with green stripes. BP was also one of the first companies to declare their support for the Publish-What-You-Pay campaign. But success or failure is all about timing. If Browne had been a politician and had retired in 2003 after two four-year terms of office, he may still have been covered in glory, with his Sun King crown firmly in place. After all, he had turned BP into an oil major – perhaps even a competitor for Exxon Mobil – by creating a lean, mean, green machine. Instead, he hung onto power long enough to face the consequences of his own legacy of cost-cutting and rhetoric. As a result, between 2004 and 2007, the proverbial chickens came home to roost. Browne was left tarred and feathered.

On 23 March 2005, when an explosion and fire at BP’s Texas City refinery killed 15 workers and injured more than 170 others. An investigation into the accident by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) ultimately found over 300 safety violations and fined BP $21 million – the largest fine in OSHA history at the time. In 2007, in a separate settlement related to the explosion, BP pleaded guilty to a violation of the federal Clean Air Act and agreed to pay a $50 million fine and to make safety upgrades to the plant. Two years later, in 2009, OSHA imposed an additional $87 million in fines, claiming that the company had not completed all the safety upgrades required under the agreement and alleging 439 new ‘wilful’ safety violations.

In March 2006, BP was found to be criminally liable for a corroded pipe on Alaska’s North Slope that leaked 200,000 gallons of oil. In August of the same year, another leak appeared and the entire Prudhoe Bay operation had to be shut down. During the investigation, a federal grand jury subpoenaed records from a Seattle engineering firm that had been hired by Alaska to evaluate BP's pipeline-maintenance record and uncovered a draft report that was highly critical of BP, but somehow turned into a final report that was largely complimentary. Member of Congress, Rep. Jay Inslee, concluded that BP had made a ‘wilful, conscious decision’ to ‘quash that information from the public’.

By the time of Browne’s undignified exit into the wings of BP history in 2007, he was widely criticised for the dual crimes of greenwashing and instilling a cost-cutting culture that was the root cause of BP’s spate of safety and environmental incidents. Even the new CEO, Tony Hayward, a year before taking over, admitted that BP had ‘a management style that has made a virtue of doing more for less.’

After taking over, Hayward quickly showed that he was not one for green rhetoric. Less than six months into the job, he announced BP’s plans to invest nearly £1.5bn ($2.3) to extract oil from the Canadian wilderness – the so-called Alberta tar sands – an action which earned it a Guardian newspaper headline as ‘the biggest environmental crime in history’. Greenpeace claims that it takes about 29kg of CO2 to produce a barrel of oil conventionally, but as much as 125kg for tar sands oil. It also believes the production threatens a vast forest wilderness, greater than the size of England and Wales, which forms part of one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks.

Two years later, Hayward’s apparent ‘back to the petroleum’ strategy gained momentum when BP announced that it had shut down its alternative energy headquarters in London, accepted the resignation of its clean energy boss and imposed cuts in the alternative energy budget - from $1.4bn (£850m) in 2008 to between $500m and $1bn in 2009. Bizarrely, Hayward used this occasion to stress that BP remained as committed as ever to exploring new energy sources. No wonder Grist journalist Joseph Romm responded with an incredulous rant: ‘Seriously, they gut the program and claim it is "reinforcement" of their commitment. Perhaps BP stands for "Beyond Prevarication" or "Beyond Pinocchio”.’

All of this history – the story of Browne, of Hayward and of BP – was like a dress rehearsal for the main event. I am referring of course to the catastrophic 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. That is covered in more detail in my book, The Age of Responsibility. For now, many questions remain unanswered: Will BP’s reputation recover? Will this prove to be the worst environmental disaster in history? Will we look back on the Macondo blowout as the inadvertent tipping point that ushers in a new low-carbon future? Students, professors and CSR wonks will study this case for years to come. But for the purposes of this blog, it is simply the latest drama in the BP saga – the story of a corporate leader in Strategic CSR, which managed to dethrone itself become a poster-company for Promotional CSR in an Age of Marketing.

About the author

Dr Wayne Visser is Founder and Director of the think-tank CSR International and consultancy Kaleidoscope Futures Ltd. He is the author of thirteen books, including The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business (2011), The World Guide to CSR (2010) and The A to Z of Corporate Social Responsibility (2010). He is the author of over 180 publications (chapters, articles, etc.) and has delivered more than 170 professional speeches on in over 50 countries in the last 20 years. In addition, Wayne is Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, Visiting Professor of Sustainability at Magna Carta College, Oxford, and Adjunct Professor of CSR at Warwick Business School, UK.

Tracing Corporate Social Investment (CSI) Milestones in South Africa

By Greer Blizzard

2012 marks the eighteenth year of democracy for the ‘new’ South Africa – a country still navigating its way through the unique political, economic and social turmoil of its birth, while accepting the shortcomings inherent in its colonial and apartheid past.

Corporate Social Investment (CSI), a far more widely used and accepted term in the South African context, has been around for many years. As a broad concept it was introduced in 1972, when Meyer Feldberg called on local business leaders to support the communities that surrounded their operations and from where they drew the majority of their workforce.

Since then, this dynamic landscape has seen many challenges, yet continues to grow as cooperation between government, NGOs, the private-sector and individuals moves from confrontation to collaboration and responsibility – albeit a slow and far from perfect process.

In 1992, in an effort to support corporate South Africa, the Institute of Directors approached Professor Mervyn E. King to create a corporate governance solution for business. This resulted in the establishment of the King Committee on Corporate Governance, which in 1994 launched the first King Report that marked the institutionalisation of corporate governance in South Africa.

In 2002 the King II Report was published, which included a far-reaching section on integrated sustainability reporting, setting out specific reporting, accounting and auditing guidelines for non-financial matters. Although voluntary at the time, the Johannesburg Securities Exchange requested that listed companies comply with the King II Report recommendations, or explain their level of non-compliance. This subtle pressure was seen as a turning point in the formal life of CSI.

These shifts in the corporate world paralleled changes in the newly elected democratic government, with the intention of bridging the traditional economic gap between black and white South Africans. The first move saw the launch of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) in 1994, followed by many transformations in an evolving effort to create a supportive, stable and economically profitable environment.

In 1996 the RDP was replaced with the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) macro-economic policy and further in 2000 by the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) commission, chaired by former politician and new leading black businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, which released a report highlighting the need to establish guidelines to ensure greater black participation in the economic future of the country.

This in turn led to a revised Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Strategy, a precursor to the B-BBEE Act 53 of 2003. The period November 2005 to February 2007, saw three sets of B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice published, each setting various frameworks for the practical implementation of the B-BBEE Act, including a score-card system which supports the implementation of the following seven pillars:

1. Equity Ownership
2. Management
3. Employment Equity
4. Skills Development
5. Preferential Procurement
6. Enterprise Development
7. Residual Element/Corporate Social Investment

As a result of these two key legislative frameworks, the concept and application of Corporate Social Investment in South Africa, has become very closely aligned to the advancement of ‘black’ (African, Coloured and Indian) people and their more formal participation in the economy.

In 2014 when South Africa celebrates its 20th year of democracy, it will undoubtedly acknowledge the huge undertakings achieved and will most certainly highlight the steps going forward, as many more (listed) companies engage with Corporate Social Investment - not just as a ‘marketing add-on’, but as a fully integrated business strategy, giving it respected time on Board agendas.

Give a Man the Means to Fish

From Paternalistic Charity to Venture Philanthropy

Part 3 of 13 in Wayne Visser's Age of Responsibility Blog Series for 3BL Media.

By Dr Wayne Visser

Give a man a fish and he will eat today. Teach a man to fish and he will eat tomorrow – or until his nets break. Invest in a man’s fishing business and he will feed himself and others for a long time to come. This is what it means to shift from paternalistic charity to venture philanthropy. It is an evolution that is important to root in a long and varied cultural tradition of philanthropy.

Confucius (551-479 BC) said: ‘When wealth is centralized, the people are dispersed. When wealth is distributed, the people are brought together.’ Hence, ‘a man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, desiring attainment for himself, helps others to attain.’ When asked, ‘Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?’ he replied, ‘Is not reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others’.

This so-called Golden Rule, which we find in all the world’s major religions, has come to represent the very essence of charity. In fact, the word charity derives from Latin caritas, which meant preciousness, dearness, or high price. However, in Christian theology, caritas became the standard Latin translation for the Greek word agapē, meaning an unlimited loving-kindness to all others. Hence, in St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, we read, in the King James Version of the Bible, of ‘faith, hope and charity’. Of course, it is not only giving that is important, but also the nature of giving. There is a Jewish proverb that says: What you give for the cause of charity in health is gold; what you give in sickness is silver; what you give after death is lead.

Islam also has a strong tradition of charity. Zakāt, or alms-giving for the purposes of alleviating poverty and helping those less fortunate, is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The practice is generally in the form of an annual tithe or tax of 2.5% of an individual’s wealth, including money made through business, savings and income. The zakāt must also be above an agreed minimum (called nisab), which is said to be around $2,640 or the equivalent in any other currency. As important as the collection of zakāt in a community is its fair distribution among the needy. Another form of charitable action is sadaqah, which literally means ‘righteousness’ and refers to the voluntary giving of alms or charity. These ancient traditions are considered to be a personal responsibility for all Muslims, practiced out of love for humanity, to ease economic hardship for others and eliminate inequality.

There are numerous other religious and cultural variations on the theme. Philanthropy in Latin America typically revolves around asistencialismo, which is charitable giving for poverty alleviation. Out of dedication to their religion, education and culture, Bulgarian communities raised donations to build churches, schools and cultural centres called chitalishta. In India, Gandhi’s trusteeship concept was adapted and applied to welfare acts. In Mexico, the Raramori, who still live in the mountains of the state of Chihuahua, use the expression korima, which means ‘to share’ resources in times of stress. In Southern Africa, ubuntu is the practice of humanism based on the collectivist notion that ‘I am a person through other people’.

So much for the roots and cultural traditions of philanthropy. Upon these foundations, the great philanthropists, ancient and modern, built their charities – from Rockefeller and Carnegie to Gates and Turner. The more interesting question, I think, is whether there is anything new and transformative about charitable giving?

One concept that has generated a lot of excitement is ‘venture philanthropy’. Seemingly, it has origins in another HBR article, ‘Virtuous Capital: What Foundations Can Learn from Venture Capitalists’, by Christine W. Letts, William Ryan and Allen Grossman in 1997. Their basic message was that corporate foundations can be more effective if they ‘develop hands-on partnering skills’, for which venture capital firms offer a helpful benchmark: ‘In addition to putting up capital, they closely monitor the companies in which they have invested, provide management support, and stay involved long enough to see the company become strong.’

Since then, the debate has raged about what venture philanthropy is and whether it is plausible, ethical and desirable. After all, if the venture capitalists are treating their donations as an investment with expectations of a financial return, then is it philanthropy, or just business? And is it feasible to expect charities like community development organisations to generate a financial return in the first place? And what about the distinction between venture philanthropy and social enterprise, or social business?

So what do we know? There are basically three models of venture philanthropy. The first is traditional foundations practicing high-engagement grantmaking. The second is organisations which are funded by individuals, but all engagement is done by professional staff. Examples cited include the Robin Hood Foundation in New York City and Tipping Point Community in the San Francisco Bay Area. The third is the partnership model, in which partner investors both donate the financial capital and engage with the grantees. An example is the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund in San Jose, California.

Without getting heavily into the venture philanthropy debate, I do believe that – as with strategic philanthropy – it is symptomatic of the shift in our approach to tackling society’s most intractable problems. What we have seen is that traditional charity has been, for the most part, invaluable in bringing about alleviation of social and environmental distress, but rather ineffective in achieving resolution of the problems themselves. The need for pure philanthropy, irrespective of its strategic alignment to donors, will always be there. There will always be emergencies, crises and urgent problems that don’t link conveniently to business interests.

Venture philanthropy, on the other hand, recognises that we need ways to scale up solutions, and one way is to link business with a social cause, and provide the capital it needs to be effective. Hence, I regard venture philanthropy as one of the transition tools that we need as we move to the Age of Responsibility, not least because it brings creativity and scalability to the table. It is one of the critical enablers that is facilitating the social enterprise revolution, which is discussed in more detail in later chapters.

About the author

Dr Wayne Visser is Founder and Director of the think-tank CSR International and consultancy Kaleidoscope Futures Ltd. He is the author of thirteen books, including The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business (2011), The World Guide to CSR (2010) and The A to Z of Corporate Social Responsibility (2010). He is the author of over 180 publications (chapters, articles, etc.) and has delivered more than 170 professional speeches on in over 50 countries in the last 20 years. In addition, Wayne is Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, Visiting Professor of Sustainability at Magna Carta College, Oxford, and Adjunct Professor of CSR at Warwick Business School, UK.

When passion takes over logic: Mugs vs. disposable cups

By Yelena Novikova

CSR and sustainability professionals are frequently prepared to go the extra mile when designing a solution. It is taken as a given that they have to, if the company aspires to be best in class. Yet, do we really have to? Or can the determination to be CSR-innovative make it easier to miss obvious, simple and more functional solutions?

These were the things I was thinking about sitting at a lecture hosted last June by the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). One highly respected CSR manager was talking about his experience of dealing with the issue of coffee cups when he worked in Italy. Seeing that employees drank impressive amounts of coffee (it being Italy after all!) and hence generated mountains of plastic-cup waste, he decided to do something about it.

The obvious solution was to have a policy that everyone must use a ceramic mug. However, the speaker’s research concluded that it took more energy to produce and continuously wash a ceramic mug than it did to produce a disposable paper-cup option that only requires one initial wash. However, Martin Hocking’s energy-based evaluation of reusable and disposable cups shows the reusable cup would use less energy than the plastic one after only 39 uses/washes with an efficient dishwasher [1].

I believe the company in question ended up using polystyrene foam cups, which was the logical - and yet not instantly obvious - solution. Here is some of the statistical evidence on the matter [1]:

• It takes 198 kj of energy to produce polystyrene foam disposable against 278 kj of primary energy required for single wash in a low energy efficiency countries; hence, there is no point at which a ceramic cup is preferable;
• Also, while ceramic mugs recover practically no energy during the recycling process, polystyrene foam and paper-cup alternatives recover 76 kj and 166 kj of energy per unit respectively.

The answer seems clear-cut. Nevertheless, digging a little deeper suggests a more ambiguous conclusion. For instance, since energy efficiency of dishwashers plays a pivotal role in Hocking’s calculations - and the Energy Label for electrical appliances has been available in Europe as early as 1995 [2] - perhaps it is more a case of choosing the right dishwasher than the right mug.

Furthermore, a recent study found that the average ceramic mug is used over 2,000 times [3]. That is four times the 500 uses that Hocking suggests as the threshold beyond which its high fabrication energy becomes unimportant [1]. We can conclude, therefore, that in a corporate environment, ceramic mugs may very well be an energy sustainable solution, not to mention all the aesthetic, cultural and recycling-related benefits it may also offer.

The point really is not to champion to cause of ceramic mugs, but to challenge the idea that CSR pioneers and innovators always have to dig deep. Sometimes the intuitively simplest answers are also the correct ones. And sometimes digging deeper just means finding the roots.

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[1] Martin Hocking, “Reusable and Disposable Cups: An Energy-based Evaluation”, Environmental Management Vol. 18, No. 6, p. 894, 896, 899

[2] http://www.energy.eu/

[3] http://en.brinkwire.com/2082