Changing the World - One Leader at a Time

By Dr Wayne Visser

Quest for CSR 2.0 Series No.12

We face a crisis of leadership. Our global challenges loom large and clear, but we seem to lack leaders who can make change happen at a scale and speed that match the size and urgency of the problems we face. In an attempt to understand this leadership impasse, I’ve done some research with the University of Cambridge’s Programme for Sustainability Leadership on how change happens. In this blog, I’ll briefly outline some of our conclusions.

Let’s start with what kind of change we’re talking about. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, observes that companies that went from being ‘good to great’ did not rely on revolutions, dramatic change programs or wrenching restructurings. ‘Rather, the process resembled relentlessly pushing a giant flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.’

So we’re talking about catalyzing and scaling up change. And for this change to be successful, leaders need to foster and entrench new values, culture, incentives, rules and resources. In Accenture and the UN Global Compact’s 2010 survey, 54 percent of CEOs felt that a cultural tipping point on sustainability is only a decade away—and 80 percent believe it will occur within 15 years, so perhaps we are nearing a moment of infectious change. Meanwhile, at the organizational level, leaders must catalyze change for sustainability through a suite of actions, including innovation, empowerment, accountability, closed-loop practices and collaboration.

We found that effective sustainability leaders are good at promoting creativity in business models, technology, products and services that address social and environmental challenges. Sustainability leaders also implement structures and processes for good governance, transparency and stakeholder engagement.

Accountability does not have to be all about structures and controls however. Collins believes great leaders foster a culture of discipline, saying “When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls.” According to Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of G.E., “Enron and 9/11 marked the end of an era of individual freedom and the beginning of personal responsibility. You lead today by building teams and placing others first. It’s not about you.”

The best sustainability leaders adopt principles of cradle-to-cradle production, internalizing externalities and extending these principles to the supply chain. Sustainability leaders also build formal cross-sector partnerships, as well as innovative and inclusive collaborative processes such as social networking (Web 2.0). Betty Sue Flowers, co-author of Presence, poses the challenge as a question, saying, “We know a lot about heroic action because that’s in the past of leadership. But how do you have leadership in groups across boundaries, multi-nationally?”

At the people level, leaders catalyze change for sustainability by providing a compelling vision, encouraging long term thinking, making strategic investments and promoting intergenerational equity. Immelt says “every leader needs to clearly explain the top three things the organization is working on. If you can’t, then you’re not leading well.”

Ray Anderson, the late CEO of Interface, saw this as a process of inclusion, saying, “For Interface, sustainability is broader than before: sustainability reaches out to embrace people, processes, products, place, the planet and profits—we now know that none can long be afforded allegiance at the expense of the others.”

Sustainability leaders have to deep knowledge and skills and provide opportunities and resources for appropriate action. This embraces Robert Greenleaf’s notion of servant leadership. He explains that “It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The best test is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”

Transformational sustainability leaders also focus on creating a culture and structure that provides peer support and encouragement and recognizes achievement. Immelt says, “Today, it’s employment at will. Nobody’s here who doesn’t want to be here. So it’s critical to understand people, to always be fair, and to want the best in them.”

In the end, I believe the best leaders are effective storytellers. And they realize that we need a new collective story. As I wrote in Beyond Reasonable Greed, “each time the world changes – when civilizations rise and fall, when new scientific theories challenge our understanding of the universe, when technological innovation reinvents our lifestyle, when political revolution breaks down the old structures of society, or when a global crisis threatens to destroy our planet – humanity is forced to let go of some of its most cherished beliefs in order to create a new mythology to guide its collective psyche.”

We are at just such a fulcrum of change, and the beliefs we need to challenge and modify are many. Maybe it is our belief in the beneficence of the “invisible hand” of the market. Or our belief that a global political deal is all we need to solve the climate crisis. Or that that business has the power to act unilaterally in bringing about a more sustainable and responsible future.

If my experience of living through the political changes in South Africa has taught me anything, it is that change is systemic. It happens because of millions of small actions by millions of people all over the world, some coordinated, some diffuse. Yes, change also happens because of bold leadership, but it always needs an enabling environment, a society or an organization that is ready to change.

Change is something organic. It is worth remembering that the largest living thing in the world is a honey mushroom in Oregon – an interconnected fungus measuring 3.5 miles across. It is said to be 2,400 years old and takes up 2,200 acres (1,665 football fields), with the small mushrooms visible above ground representing only a tiny proportion of its real girth and substance. I think change is something like that too: spread out, interconnected, growing where the ground is most fertile ground and often invisible.

Source

Welcome to this international dialogue, Quest for CSR 2.0, with Dr Wayne Visser, pioneering author, academic and social entrepreneur. The dialogue, hosted by CSRwire Talkback, is based on his groundbreaking book, The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business. For the next several weeks, Dr Visser will summarize the main points and key lessons of each chapter of his book, exploring why CSR 1.0 has failed, the 5 Ages and Stages of CSR, the 5 Principles of CSR 2.0 and how to make change happen. Readers will be invited to share their views on each posting. This exciting new series is co-published by CSRwire and CSR International.

Original link on CSRwire

Top 40 Sustainability Books for 2010 - Part 1

By Wayne Visser

In 2009, I worked on a project for the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability (CPSL) which resulted in the publication of The Top 50 Sustainability Books[1]. The book draws together some of the best thinking over the last 50 years and more on the most pressing social and environmental challenges we face as a society.

For The State of Sustainability Leadership Report 2011 just published by the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability, I took a fresh new look at books, this time focusing on 2010. The Cambridge Top 40 Sustainability Books of 2010 list was compiled by CPSL with input from its Senior Associates. We selected those books which we believe are most relevant for today’s leaders. Comparing this list to our Top 50 books, we can observe a number of changes:

• The ‘All Time Top 50’ list included a fairly balanced coverage of social and environmental issues. By contrast the ‘2010 Top 40’ list is heavily skewed towards environmental challenges, and dominate by climate change.
• The Top 50 contained numerous treatise on capitalism and globalisation, while the Top 40 (in the wake of the financial crisis) has shifted almost exclusively to a focus on the economy.
• The Top 40 also has a much stronger emphasis on business responses and creating change. In fact, it is altogether a more pragmatic list, with titles that contain words like ‘plan’, ‘how to’, ‘strategy’ and ‘guide’. This shift to action-orientation is a positive development, as is the increase in the number of female authors (28%, as compared with 17% for the Top 50), although the gender imbalance remains worryingly low.

Among the books on our Top 40 list that have been creating a real buzz are Tim Jackson’s Prosperity Without Growth, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level and The Prince of Wales’s Harmony. Jackson’s book revives a much older debate about ‘economics for a finite planet’, led since the 1970s by the likes of former World Bank economist Herman Daly (Steady State Economics and Beyond Growth). Jackson restates the challenge starkly: "Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must." While others like Jonathon Porritt (in Capitalism as if the World Matters) argue for ‘smart growth’ instead of ‘dumb growth’, the global financial crisis has given Jackson’s more uncompromising zero-growth position a renewed resonance.

Wilkinson and Pickett’s The Spirit Level, subtitled ‘Why More Equal Societies Always Do Better’, is a highly complementary companion to Jackson’s book. Using a plethora of data and analysis, the authors build a case that countries should focus on equity rather than growth in order to create healthy societies. In countries of equal overall wealth, argue Wilkinson and Pickett, less equal societies suffer more social ills – shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; higher rates of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction; poorer relationships between socio-economic classes; and higher environmental impacts through resource consumption. The book has created some controversy, and some dispute the authors’ arguments. Nevertheless, its message is timely and urgent.

Harmony is an entirely different book, which looks at social and ecological problems through a more aesthetic and philosophical lens. The Prince of Wales, together with Tony Juniper & Ian Skelly, range far and wide across the intellectual and practical territory of sustainability, questioning many widely held beliefs and modern assumptions about nature and society. The book reveals The Prince’s deeply held perspectives on the interconnectedness of life, and illustrates how this can be (and is being) applied to secure a more sustainable future. Far from being retrogressive or Luddite in its approach, this beautifully presented and data-rich book proposes combing the best of modern science and technology with the wisdom of traditional ways, in order to restore the balance between humans and nature.

Harmony has now been made into a documentary film, which premiered on NBC in November 2010. It follows the great tradition of other educational films over the past ten years, such as The Corporation (2003), Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), An Inconvenient Truth (2006), The 11th Hour (2007) and The Age of Stupid (2009), to mention but a few. In 2010, two new films that continued this tradition were Carbon Nation, which is described as “an optimistic (and witty) discovery of what people are already doing, what we as a nation [America] could be doing and what the world needs to do to prevent (or at least slow down) the impending climate crisis”[2], and GasLand, which is an investigative documentary about the “trail of secrets, lies and contamination”[3] behind the natural gas drilling boom in the United States.

I look forward to hearing your views and suggestions about what books and films are pushing the envelope in 2011.

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[1] Visser, W. & CPSL (2009) The Top 50 Sustainability Books. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing.

[2] IMDB, The Internet Movie Database – www.imdb.com

[3] http://www.gaslandthemovie.com

Video: Ellen Weinreb on Trends in the Sustainability Jobs Market

Ellen Weinreb is Founder of Sustainability Jobs. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she discusses the sustainability jobs market. The interview took place in San Francisco on 16 September 2010.

The Era of "Leading Big" on CSR Dawns: Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan

By Wayne Visser

“This world has tremendous challenges. The challenges of poverty, of water, of global warming, climate change. And businesses like ours have a role to play in that. And frankly, to me, that's very appealing.” So said Unilever CEO, Paul Polman, in a 2009 interview with McKinsey. He went on to say, “We have every day, in our business, about two billion consumers that use our brands, and so [there is] a tremendous opportunity. And if we do the right thing, we can actually make major progress in society.”

This drive to make a major difference seems, if anything, to have got bigger over the past year. At least, that’s the impression you get from Unilever’s new Sustainable Living Plan, which it launched last week. In it, they committed to double the size of the company, while halving the environmental footprint of their products, sourcing 100% of their agricultural ingredients sustainably by 2015 and helping 1 billion people out of poverty.

Commitments like that are what Sandy Ogg, Chief HR Officer for Unilever, calls “leading big”. Speaking to Polly Courtice, Director of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership earlier this year, he said, “There’s so much going on now in the world that if you don’t have amplification and time compression, then it doesn’t rumble. So I call that leading big. You can’t let it drool or dribble out into an organisation like ours and expect to have any impact.”

Jim Collins, author of Built to Last and Good to Great, calls it having a BHAG – a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. And Unilever is certainly not the first. In 1994, Interface’s CEO Ray Anderson committed to become the first "restorative” company in the world (giving back more than they take) and by 1996, outdoor clothing company Patagonia was only using organic cotton. More recently, Wal-Mart has committed to zero waste and 100% renewable energy; Coca-Cola has pledged to become water neutral; and Tesco plans to become carbon neutral.

The fact of the matter is that without “leading big” on sustainability and responsibility, CSR efforts no longer have any real credibility. That’s because there is overwhelming data to show that past efforts – CSR 1.0 approaches – have failed to reverse problems like biodiversity loss, carbon emissions, income inequality and corruption. Instead, continued unsustainable and irresponsible production and consumption has meant business is still more part of the problem than the solution.

“Leading big” is absolutely essential if we are break this pattern of CSR ineffectiveness. When people ask what CSR 2.0 really means, there are two ways to answer. One is to say that it is about a more systemic approach to CSR, one that tackles the roots of the problem, by applying the principles of creativity, scalability, responsiveness, glocality and circularity to the DNA of the business, namely through value creation, good governance, societal contribution and environmental integrity.

The second answer, which is far simpler and no less true, is to say that the dual ‘acid test’ of CSR 2.0 is admission and ambition. Companies have to be prepared to face up (and ‘fess’ up) to their impacts; to admit that they are still a long way from being truly sustainable and responsible; even to concede that they are part of the problem. And then companies have to show their ambition, their willingness to set bold, audacious targets that will reverse the negative social and environmental trends.

In today’s world of low-trust and information overload, only bold leadership on CSR will inspire action and build credibility. Unilever and others are pointing the way and deserve our congratulations and support. They also require our unrelenting scrutiny, to ensure that “leading big” is not simply “talking big”, but rather “acting big” – making real change happen at scale and at pace.

Author in the spotlight: Elaine Cohen interviews Wayne Visser

Snapshot

• Age? 39
• Born in? Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
• Married? Nope
• Kids? Nope
• Live in? London
• Educated at? Universities of Cape Town (South Africa), Edinburgh (Scotland) and Nottingham (England)
• Favourite movie? Brazil (1985, Director Terry Gilliam)
• Favourite musician? Johnny Clegg (South African)
• Favourite CSR report? Patagonia's
• Favourite flavor ice cream? Ginger
• Favourite non-CSR book? Shantaram (Gregory David Roberts)
• Favourite CSR book? Cradle to Cradle (McDonough & Braungart)
• If I could, I would ... Be a full-time writer

Of all the books you have written on corporate responsibility, which do you feel is the most important in terms of the message you were trying to convey?

The new one, The Age of Responsibility: CSR 2.0 and the New DNA of Business (out 18 February 2011). Not only does it fundamentally challenge business and the notion of CSR - for example, it starts by stating that CSR has failed and should either be killed off, or reinvented - but it is written in an narrative style that I think makes it an easy read, with lots of fascinating cases and stories of 'the good, the bad and the ugly' of corporate sustainability & responsibility.

Which book did you personally enjoy writing the most?

The first one, Beyond Reasonable Greed (co-authored with Clem Sunter), mainly because I used lions and elephants as a metaphor for unsustainable and sustainable companies. It was fascinating researching the traits of both species, and it was fun creatively applying the analogy to business. It was also very forward looking and together with my co-author we developed two future scenarios for business: 'Oases in the Desert' and 'Plains of the Serengeti'. We even ended up with 'leophants' - those companies in between.

What made you decide to publish Landmarks for Sustainability? Which landmark is the most significant in your personal view?

The idea behind Landmarks, which I wrote for the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, was to capture the seminal events that have shaped the sustainability agenda over the past 20 years (although we also included a timeline of landmarks that goes back almost 100 years). There are certain corporate events - like Shell's Brent Spar fiasco, McDonald's McLibel trial, Nike's supply chain wake-up call and Enron's collapse - that most people in CSR have heard about, but they don't have the facts and figures at their finger tips. Likewise for positive breakthroughs in transparency, fairtrade, poverty alleviation and so-on. We also decided to make it highly visual (lots of photos) and readable (bullets, feature boxes, etc.) to make sure busy people could dip into it easily. For me, the most significant landmark event was the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005, because it shows us the extent to which all our other CSR and sustainability efforts are failing at a catastrophic scale.

The Top 50 Sustainability Books has a similar look and feel to Landmarks for Sustainability. Was that deliberate?

Yes, it was another book for the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership and it was designed to be a highly accessible reference book. This time, however, we focused on ideas rather than events that have changed the sustainability world. Many people working in sustainability have heard about these classic books, but do not have the time to read them all, so we decided to provide short synopses, with key messages, pull-out quotes and extracts from interviews I did with many of the authors. I think it is a great guide to the most important thinking in sustainability over the past 50 years and more.

In The World Guide to CSR, what surprised you the most as you received contributions from all around the world?

The first surprise was the diversity of submissions - not just the usual suspects among the G20, but also countries like Armenia, Bangladesh, Iran, Iceland, Liberia, Peru, Romania and United Arab Emirates. The second and most delightful aspect was learning how each country's cultural tradition has shaped CSR practices, in some cases (such as in Azerbaijan, Turkey and India) with these influences having evolved over centuries.

Having now completed your world CSR tour, what are the most important insights you bring back with you?

There are so many insights: the fact that a lot of the most important social innovation is taking place in developing countries (like India), that awareness and expectations of CSR are higher in places like Brazil than in the UK, that many non-OECD countries and companies are still stuck in the CSR Ages of Philanthropy and Marketing, that Europe and America is mesmerised by the Age of Management, and that very very few companies anywhere recognise that the concept of CSR - and the larger industrial model of shareholder-driven capitalism - is fundamentally flawed and will never solve the problems it claims to be most concerned about.

How useful do you feel The A to Z of Corporate Social Responsibility remains? It was published a couple of years ago but the jargon has moved on. Do you plan a second edition?

In fact, a second edition came out this year (2010) - a paperback version with updated content, including additions on the global financial crisis and ISO 26000. Beyond this, I don't feel that the underlying concepts or the core codes and standards have changed fundamentally. It remains highly useful as a searchable reference book, especially since it is also out in an e-book version.

Beyond Reasonable Greed was an early book on the subject of corporate responsibility. Did people understand your message? What sort of reactions did you receive? Have companies traded in their fangs for tusks?

The timing for the book was perfect, as it came out just when the Enron and Worldcom scandals were hitting the headlines. So I think the message was intuitively understood, but it was not seriously acted upon. To use the language of the book, we saw the emergence of many 'leophants' after 2002. What is different, comparing this with writing The Age of Responsibility almost 10 years later, is that today there more lion corpses on the slab to dissect (like Lehman Brothers) and a number of genuine elephant companies to learn from (like Interface), as well as any number of injured leophants (like BP) that are getting left behind.

What do you feel Corporate Citizenship in Africa added to the CSR equation in South Africa? Do you feel the CSR message is understood by leading businesses in SA?

The book did a number of things. First, I would say that it was a book about Africa, not just South Africa, but it did point out the general lack of academic research on CSR beyond South Africa and Nigeria. Second, it confirmed our suspicion that most research on CSR in Africa was qualitative, with little or no country-comparative data. And third, it showed that research on CSR in South Africa was also quite skewed, largely towards business ethics. The question of whether CSR is understood by leading businesses in SA is different. The answer is unequivocally 'yes'. That is the interesting thing about many developing countries - businesses know that they can't succeed in societies that fail; often the business case is much clearer and the moral case much stronger.

Making a Difference is a call to action for individuals to leave a meaningful legacy. How would you describe your own personal legacy as you wish to see it?

Making a Difference, which is based on my PhD research, is not only about leaving a legacy, but also about what gives us deep satisfaction or meaning in our work as CSR practitioners. It turns out that motivations vary according to different leadership styles or change agent types - whether you are more of an expert, facilitator, catalyst or activist. As for my source of meaning, I most closely fit the expert type and derive my greatest satisfaction from being a thought leader (if indeed that's what I am) and inspiring others through ideas.

How much of your overall time do you spend writing/editing books on CSR?

Writing goes in waves, although considering that I have written and edited 11 books over the past 8 years, there have not been many periods when I am not writing. I suppose if I had to guess, I'd say I spend about 20% of my time actually writing, but probably 50% of my time is spent doing explicit or implicit research on which the books are based. Lately, a lot of the rest of my time has been spent sharing my thoughts and ideas with others, through teaching, workshops, training and various networks.

Which book gave you the most personal satisfaction and why?

I think that would be Business Frontiers, as this was my first independently authored book. In fact, it is a collection of my writings on social responsibility, sustainable development and economic justice over more than a decade, so it was very satisfying to see those collected together in one place. In addition, it allowed me to publish some of my more creative writing on the subject - with chapters like Holistic Business, The Corporate Battle for Hearts & Minds, Future Images Beyond the Information Age, Connecting Earth & Sky, Tree of Life, and even a poetic parable called Quest for Gold.

Which book about CSR have you not written yet?

There are many I have not written, and in fact I turn down book projects fairly regularly now. The more compelling question is, what am I passionate enough about to want to put in the blood, sweat and tears required to turn it into a book? I'd like to write up my CSR Quest world tour as a kind of travel book with a CSR twist. I'd also like to do a book on Purpose-Inspired Leadership, as well as writing a business parable (i.e. fiction book) that captures the lessons of CSR but never mentions the word. And I'd like to do a book calledSmart, Sustainable and Inclusive, which tackles the macro-level of economics and culture, rather than the micro-level of companies and CSR.

You are also somewhat of a poet and have published a collection of poems? Is this an insurance policy in case CSR doesn’t work out ….. ?

Were it but so! No, not really. Poetry is just my way of expressing a deeper level of myself and being a bit creative (alongside my dabbling in painting, sketching and photography). It is probably my most authentic voice, but poetry is seldom the stuff of fame and fortune. It's a very personal and subjective hobby, which I do primarily for myself. If the words resonate with others - as they do seem to on occasion - then that's a bonus and I am delighted.

Do you like chunky Monkey?

I had to look it up, so I guess that is an answer in itself.

Anything else you want to mention?

People should know that I'm more interested in what is being done that what labels we give things. It so happens that I talk about CSR 2.0 - which I also call systemic CSR or radical CSR - and I use CSR to mean 'corporate sustainability and responsibility', but I really don't care if people have different jargon. For me, the proof must be in the results and for too long we have focused on measuring CSR activities rather than the societal impacts of business. My new test for whether a company is a CSR 2.0 pioneer in the Age of Responsibility is simple: what is their level of admission and ambition? i.e. do they admit the extent of their unsustainability and irresponsibility, and do they set audacious targets like zero waste, 100% renewable energy and rising stakeholder happiness.

Interview date: October 2010

Condensed version published on CSR Wire

Note: All Wayne Visser's books are profiled on his website, including many free downloads

Video: Jessica Webb on the Rainforest Alliance & Sustainability Certification

Jessica Webb is Manager: Development & Tourism Communications for the Rainforest Alliance in Costa Rica. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she talks about trends in sustainability certification in forestry, agriculture and tourism. The interview took place on 20 August 2010 in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Q&A with Wayne Visser on International CSR Trends

This is an interview by Alda Marina Campos, Director of Pares in Brazil, in which she asks Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, various questions about insights from his CSR Quest world tour and trends in CSR. The interview took place on 6 August 2010 in Rio de Janeiro.

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Video: Alvaro Esteves on Sustainability & Social Innovation in Brazil

Alvaro Esteves is Director of Ekobe. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, he talks about his experiences working with companies in sustainability and social innovation working in the favelas. The interview took place on 6 August 2010.

Video: Alda Marina Campos on Sustainability in Brazil

Alda Marina Campos is Director of Pares, a sustainability consultancy. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she talks about sustainability best practices in Brazil. The interview took place on 6 August 2010 in Rio de Janeiro.

Video: Ana Muro on Sustainability Trends in Argentina

Ana Muro is Co-ordinator of the CSR Group of the Argentine Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD). In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she discusses trends and best practice cases in corporate sustainability in Argentina. The interview took place on 20 July 2010.

Video: Cecilia Rena on Sustainability Best Practices at Arcor in Argentina

Cecilia Rena is Sustainability Strategies Manager for Arcor Group in Argentina. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she discusses some of the best practices being implemented in her company, including supply chain integrity and management incentives. The interview took place in Buenos Aires on 20 July 2010.

Video: Rachel Brown on Sustainability in New Zealand

Rachel Brown is Founder & CEO of Sustainable Business Network in New Zealand. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she gives her views on sustainability trends in New Zealand. The interview took place on 22 June 2010 in Auckland.

Video: Maggie Lawton on Sustainability & Local Government in New Zealand

Maggie Lawton is Head of Strategy & Policy at Manukau City Council in Auckland. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she talks about their experiences of implementing sustainability at a local government level. The interview took place on 22 June 2010 in Auckland.

Video: John Elkington on Trends in Sustainability & Social Enterprise

John Elkington is the Founder and Non-Executive Director of SustainAbility and Founding Partner and Director of Volans Ventures. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, he talks about where he sees the sustainability and social enterprise agenda heading. The interview took place in Athens on 11 June 2010.

Video: Tina Passalari on Sustainability in Greece

Tina Passalari is Manager: Sustainability Services for KPMG in Greece. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she gives her perspective from over 10 years of working with companies on sustainability issues in Greece. The interview took place on 11 June 2010 in Athens.

Video: Jacylyn Shi on Sustainability & Women in China

Jacylyn Shi is a CSR consultant, academic and founder of Women in Sustainability Action (WISA) in China. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, she talks about progress on sustainability in China and the role of women in advancing the agenda. The interview took place in Shanghai on 9 June 2010.

Video: Sten Anders Berge on CSR in Norway

Sten Anders Berge is Deputy Director General of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, he discusses Norway's new White Paper on CSR. The interview was conducted on 27 April 2010 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Video: Mark Wade on Trends in Sustainability

Mark Wade is Chairman of Future Considerations and former Head of Sustainable Development at Shell. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, Director of CSR International, he explores how the CSR and sustainability landscape is changing. The interview was conducted on 19 March 2010 at the EU conference on CSR in Singapore.

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Video Blog: Signposts to Sustainability

This is a montage of extracts from interviews conducted by Dr Wayne Visser, Senior Associate, Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, for the Cambridge Top 50 Sustainability Books Project. Included are short clips by Polly Courtice, Muhammad Yunus, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, George Monbiot, Elizabeth Economy and Hunter Lovins.



The Top 50 Sustainability Books is now available from CPSL, Greenleaf Publishing and online bookstores. For more information about the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership or the Cambridge Top 50 Sustainability Books Project, see www.cpsl.cam.ac.uk or email info@cpsl.cam.ac.uk.

The Three Curses of CSR: Curse 3 - Uneconomic Role

Curse 3: Uneconomic CSR

If there was ever a monotonously repetitive, stuck record in CSR debates, it is the one about the so-called ‘business case’ for CSR.

That is because CSR managers and consultants, and even the occasional saintly CEO, are desperate to find compelling evidence that ‘doing good is good for business’, i.e. CSR pays! And indeed, the lack of sympathetic research seems to be no impediment for these desperados endlessly incanting the motto of the business case, as if it were an entirely self-evident fact.

The rather more ‘inconvenient truth’ is that CSR sometimes pays, in specific circumstances, but more often does not. Of course there are low-hanging fruit – like eco-efficiencies around waste and energy – but these only go so far.

Most of the hard-core CSR changes that are needed to reverse the misery of poverty and the sixth mass extinction of species currently underway require strategic change and massive investment. They may very well be lucrative in the long term, economically rational over a generation or two, but we have already established that the financial markets don’t work like that; at least, not yet.