Fabian Pattberg

Tag Archives - companies

What companies should aspire to in terms of Sustainability / CSR best practice

November 9, 20101:34 pm

14 Comments

One lesson I learned very early on in my life was to have have dreams and aspire to something you feel is worthwhile for you as an individual. Personally I have these dreams and aspirations of course but what would this aspiration look like if we where to project it onto the corporate contact and it’s Sustainability / CSR best practice?

Recent examples ranging from the outrageous ousting of Jeffrey Hollender at Seventh Generation to BP and its monumental oil spill disaster and subsequent failure to react properly have not really helped to foster confidence in companies in my view. Many companies it seems have lost their aspirations to continuously do better and reach higher in terms of CSR / Sustainability best practice.earth eye What companies should aspire to in terms of Sustainability / CSR best practice

My top five aspirations to in terms of Sustainability / CSR best practice a company should have:

  1. Reporting on the Sustainability / CSR strategy and activities of the organisation is embedded in the organisational mind-set. To report means to be transparent and accountable towards your stakeholders as well as not trying to paint a rosy picture. The Sustainability / CSR report is a part of your stakeholder communication tools but not the only one.
  2. Have a CEO and a non-executive board of directors that understand what needs to be done to practice and promote responsible business in and outside of the company.
  3. A cycle of employee engagement is in place that reinforces the Sustainability / CSR activities and creates employees which are proud of what their company is doing and actively shape the future direction together with your senior leadership team.
  4. Have a new product innovation process that has the Sustainability / CSR idea and best practice at its core.
  5. Market and sell your product)s) with a clear distinctive Sustainability / CSR related message. Try to be authentic and not be hassled by financial goals that are violating your Sustainability / CSR values.

These are my top five aspirations a company should have in terms of Sustainability / CSR best practice. What are yours? What are aspects/aspirations you would like to add according to your experience?

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mind_scratch/2434031231

Why do we trust companies to do the right thing?

February 22, 20107:16 pm

4 Comments

Now here is a difficult question to answer. Having worked in this Sustainability / Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) field for a good while now I must say that this very basic question is not really easy to answer. Especially from the viewpoint of the Sustainability / CSR professional. It is our business to be trust agents and convince others to trust in the good companies are doing.

money trust Why do we trust companies to do the right thing?So as engaging bloggers do ( and I am hoping you will see me as one of these engaging bloggers), am I putting this question to you, my reader, and seek your opinion.

Here is what I think about this: Trusting companies to do the right thing is difficult as companies are so integral to our society and way of living. Most of us either work for one company or have companies as customers. Companies provide us with the income we need to buy the things we need to live our life, care for our family and raise our children.

So what other choice other then to hoping that they will do the right thing do we have? I think we need to look at the other side of this question. It is not a choice but rather a duty, a duty for us as stakeholders of these companies to ask and demand of them to do the right thing. We can not hope for them to do the right thing but we can and need to demand it.

And the time can not be better nowadays with such easy access finding like-minded people from across the globe using the internet and ways to publish your messages via free social media tools.

Change starts with believing that you can make a difference. And we need to start believing that we can create a better business world. We, as a Sustainability / CSR professionals or activists, need to believe that we can influence all of these negative aspects that are pulling our confidence down at the moment by using our education, experience and passion to make it a better business world for us and our own stakeholders. This is our duty as stakeholders.

This is my take on this but what is yours?

Picture Credit: s4nt1