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BP – a disaster for the Sustainability / CSR sector in general?

Everything in the CSR / Sustainability world at the moment seems to evolve around BP and its action/inactions to fix the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. I am not doing any BP bashing here today. I am only using the current BP oil spill disaster in todays post as an example that CSR needs to evolve beyond its environmental aspects and the attention for detail by its practitioners.

This is my main argument in this post: Best practice such as the latest trend of integrated report, use of social media, etc. are steps in the right direction in my opinion but we need to increase the speed of the adoption of a more responsible business practice across the board within business in your local area and region.

The BP example has shown that big business will not act responsibly if it can get away with it. We therefore need to start at the local level to convince businesses to demand a more responsible business practice from all their businesses they are involved with. Customers and suppliers. Sustainability / CSR starts at the micro level and with clear guidance and support from a governmental level as I argued in my previous post.

This might sound very general and broad but it seems to me that we as Sustainability / CSR professionals are being caught up in the nitty gritty details of working with CSR / Sustainability far to easily and are somehow loosing the view of the big picture and the main purpose of this practice: To champion Sustainability / CSR and to help organizations in the transition to adopt a more responsible business practice.

This is the short video I recently did in partnership with 3blmedia on exactly this topic. Please let me know what you think about my argumentation and whether you agree or disagree.

Related posts:

  1. Are we really at the Sustainability / CSR tipping point Mr Ban Ki-moon?
  2. Sustainability Business: A different Business Sector?
  3. Takeover of Cadbury by Kraft: The sector loses one of its leaders
  4. The CSR Minister post disappears – On the devaluation of the UK leadership in responsible business practice
  • http://www.theenvironmentsite.org/forum/fossil-fuels-peak-oil-forum/25299-who-s-blame-oil-spill-bp-ourselves.html#post325789 Anonymous

    [...] this kind of irresponsible business practice I believe. I also wrote about this here on my blog: BP – a disaster for the Sustainability / CSR sector in general? | FabianPattberg.com The main message is not totally inline with your question but I would be interested to know what [...]

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/DGFXOE7X4AT43TP67BRPIDUD3M Quiet-Environmentalist

    Are not most CSR departments powerless and really only suggest new practices that get thrown out for being too expensive or adopted to greenwash the company?

  • http://www.fabianpattberg.com FabianPattberg

    Thanks for the comment George. Oh dear. Is that what your experience is with CSR departments?
    Mine is different. I used to work as a CSR manager and my experience is a lot more positive. I am always trying to take the constructive approach by empowering the people that work in this areas on a daily basis and are in the position to make the important decisions. I feel that this then has a lot of a effect for everyone involved. And then CSR makes a lot of sense in my opinion.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/DGFXOE7X4AT43TP67BRPIDUD3M Quiet-Environmentalist

    I have no personal experience so maybe I am a bit out of my depth. However I did take a course on environmental risk as part of my degree and I remember the professeror diskussing in depth the failings of CSR, due to the structures of companies. Maybe it depends on the culture of the firm.

  • http://www.fabianpattberg.com FabianPattberg

    Interesting aspect. I think that it really depends on the structure and most importantly on the corporate culture within the company whether it can and wants to adopt a more responsible business approach ie. CSR best practice. Your professor has a fair point but sees it to negative in my opinion.

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