Ducks in a Row: Winners and Losers
by Miki SaxonA McKinsey study on the value of corporate social responsibility found “…highly innovative Fortune 1000 companies derive greater financial returns from their corporate-responsibility activities than their less innovative counterparts do,” and suggested three actions to improve CSR ROI,
- Don’t hide market motives.
- Serve stakeholders’ true needs
- Test your progress.
DuPont’s success suggests a more far-reaching approach, i.e., embed sustainability deep within your corporate culture and that an “energy culture” is a great place to start.
“Upwards of 40 percent of industry’s energy efficiency improvement opportunities can be realized through low or no-cost projects rooted in corporate culture change”
They must know something since dollar savings to date are not millions, or even hundreds of millions, but billions.
“The key to this model is the formation of multi-disciplinary, cross-functional site teams, with insight from operators, maintenance, mechanics, core process experts, energy experts, engineers and management.”
These are initial steps that follow Richard Branson’s “doing well by doing good” approach.
Two of the biggest stumbling blocks on this path are Wall Street, with its short-term, i.e., quarterly, focus and the current definition of “stakeholder.”
Typically, stakeholders are viewed as investors, management, customers and workers; progressive companies have added the local communities where they do business and a few have tiptoed further.
Whereas Richard Branson points out in Screw Business As Usual every living thing and the planet itself are stakeholders.
Sadly, rather than being in the lead, the majority of US corporations are staying focused on short-term results and narrow definition of stakeholder.
But the winners in the future will be those companies, large or small, whose thinking is longest and definition is broadest.
I hope you are one of them.
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Kung Hei Fat Choy
(Wishing you an abundance of wealth and prosperity!)
Happy Year of the Dragon
Flickr image credit: Bengt Nyman
April 2nd, 2012 at 6:46 am
Hi Miki, thanks for mentioning Screw Business as Usual on your site.
Thanks from the Virgin Unite Team.