MIT Sloan Management Review

Nick Folland of Kingfisher, one of Europe’s largest home-improvement retailers, discusses the company’s aspirations to create a net positive impact on the environment. Kingfisher was the first business of its size to receive full certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Folland, the group corporate affairs director of Net Positive, is leading the company’s groundbreaking collaborative effort to reduce consumption and introduce “closed-loop” products.

Companies are increasingly engaging in CSR activities. But unless companies communicate their CSR achievements wisely to stakeholders, they fear being accused of greenwashing. A study of CSR communication practices in 251 European corporations yields seven guidelines for effective CSR communication. The authors conclude that many beliefs about the risks associated with CSR communication are exaggerated, and that companies that communicate honestly about their activities have little to fear.

Many companies have initiated sustainability and corporate social responsibility programs that represent good first steps toward improving the impact of their organizations on the environment and society. However, unless boards change, many of the initial sustainability efforts launched in corporations are likely to be temporary. For organizations to achieve sustainable effectiveness, they need a corporate board that is designed to lead in a sustainably effective way.

As vice president for sustainability at Kraft Foods, Chris McGrath has been pivotal at guiding the company’s sustainability efforts. With its global reach and massive market shares, the company is setting new standards on how to source through sustainable agriculture and keep packaging out of landfills.

In his tenure as president and CEO of the Campbell Soup Company, Doug Conant first helped steer the company to financial stability, and then set the stage for aggressive sustainability goals. The notion of corporate social responsibility and sustainability has been part of the fabric of the Campbell Soup Company since its inception. By 2006, Conant was ready to kick it up a notch. As president and CEO (he retired last fall), Conant led the company in exploring “how we could bring what I call our DNA, our natural inclination to corporate social responsibility, to a new level.”

Non-profits have the infrastructure and know-how to tackle the global malnutrition crisis, says Paul Murphy, CEO of Valid Nutrition. What they need now are for-profits with vision to be encouraged to help them.

Setting long-term sustainability goals gives managers and employees permission to think about what’s really possible, says Dave Stangis, vice president of corporate social responsibility and sustainability at Campbell Soup. “It’s a much more effective way to drive system-wide, enterprise change.”

Ray Anderson, founder of carpet company Interface and a longtime advocate for business involvement in sustainability issues, died on Monday.

Amsterdam-based Global Reporting Initiative is working with Alcoa, Enel, GE, Shell, Goldman Sachs and Natura to develop the next generation of sustainability reporting guidelines. Over 500 companies internationally already use the GRI template.

Back when protesters were targeting the company, the Gap realized that it needed to overhaul the way it interacted with its critics. So the company launched a strategy of stakeholder engagement.

Christoph Lueneburger, head of the sustainability practice at Egon Zehnder, the executive search and human capital advisory company, says that boards and executives are all talking about the issues that make up the sustainability conversation, “even if they’re not using the word ‘sustainability’.”

An analysis of mandatory sustainability reporting and management practices across the world concludes that it does make a difference, leading to the elevation of sustainability to priority, additional board oversight, and a decrease in corruption.

The key to achieving both of those goals together? Integrate societal benefits with company strategy.

 

If a company is committed to addressing societal problems, can that benefit its business performance? Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter thinks so.

Kanter explained why, in an interview published recently in Business Insight, MIT Sloan Management Review's collaboration with The Wall Street Journal.�

Jeffrey Hollender, a founder of Seventh Generation, spoke at the MIT Sloan School of Management today. Apparently he spoke several times around campus, but we caught him at a lunch time talk billed as "creating a game plan for transition to a sustainable economy."

There’s a big—and getting bigger—public discussion about sustainability, but it’s not the one managers need. Here are some early findings from a different kind of inquiry.

Companies are more likely to achieve profitable sales overseas if their level of corporate social responsibility is either above average—or below it.

New research indicates that there are five steps that can help business leaders increase CSR’s effectiveness as a lever for talent management.

Although the relevance of corporate philanthropy is widely accepted, few companies achieve significant, lasting societal impact because most lack a cohesive strategy. Effective philanthropy must be run no less professionally than the core business.

Corporate social responsibility has become a vital part of the business conversation. Research points to five principles that underscore how collaboration provides the best combination of social and strategic payoffs.