Responsible
Products and Services: Myth or Reality?
Making Sense of Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability and Supply
Chains
11th November 2003
The Bush Hotel Conference Centre
Farnham, Surrey, UK
"The product aspects of the CSR agenda are still emerging.
However, understanding these issues will be a fundamental task in the
future. We can look forward to a focus on responsibility spurring innovation,
and helping to develop new commercial opportunities as well as advancing
social and environmental goals.'Responsible Products and Services: Myth
or Reality' will be an important platform to help companies improve their
awareness of the inter-linkages."
Stephen Timms, Minister of State for Energy, e-Commerce and Postal Services, Department of Trade and Industry, UK
Background
Companies face a number
of questions related to their responsibilities: environmental, social,
financial and organisational. A diverse range of issues fly at companies
at the 'speed of light' and responding inappropriately can affect corporate
and brand reputation - which may ultimately affect share price and market
share.
Many of these issues are not 'black or white' e.g. child labour - with
solutions being very complex. Globalisation and the changing business
models mean that the production of many products and services are being
outsourced worldwide which is creating a new set of supply chain challenges
for companies that want to act responsibly. Determining the extent of
a firm's responsibilities to its internal and external stakeholders in
the economies and communities that they operate in - locally, nationally
and internationally - is becoming an important issue.
Understanding
the business implications of the confusing mass of terminology, acronyms,
standards and codes is also eating into management time. There is no common
language or framework. This is exacerbated by companies describing their
responses in different ways often creating communications problems, for
example, using the words of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) when
meaning environmental management, and visa versa.
Amongst many leading-edge companies the term Corporate Responsibility
(CR) is increasingly emerging, acknowledging a wider set of responsibilities
and this is being reflected in the re-branding of previous sustainability
reports. Some companies are re-structuring and splitting their organisational
charts to reflect this change with environmental issues now coming under
Sustainable Development departments and social issues under CSR or CR
functions.
To help manage these issues, a new breed of CSR and CR managers are emerging
from a very diverse range of backgrounds. Finding a way through the CSR
labyrinth and accessing objective information on new developments and
particular concerns is a complex and time-consuming task.
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