What’s in a name?  There was a while back when I thought the language of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ was on the way out, but I don’t now, certainly not for the foreseeable future.

Sure, we’ve long drawn the distinction in Tomorrow's Company between ‘conviction CSR’ and ‘compliance CSR’, as our Founder Director Mark Goyder has so memorably coined the terms – between CSR you are forced or ought to do, and CSR that comes from what you believe in. 

And we’ve underlined the importance of distinguishing between CSR and community programmes, which are so often confused: a distinction that becomes more obvious when you question some of the fundamental assumptions on which discussions on the relationship between business and society are explored, see my blog  business – necessary evil or essential good?

After all, if you implicitly accept that business has to argue for its right to be seen as a significant part of society in its own right, then business is forced to gain legitimacy by ‘doing good’.  (This is not to deny that there are good reasons for community programmes, and that they contribute to employee motivation and satisfaction: there are and they do)

We’ve recognised the move from business needing to secure its ‘licence to operate’, as promoted in the original Tomorrow's Company inquiry towards a more positive approach, reflected in the language of CSR.

And we’ve survived being bewildered by competing labels – corporate responsibility, corporate social opportunity, and corporate citizenship: the emphasis may vary, but, you don’t have to be from Mars (be it the planet or the chocolate bar) to suspect all of this is ‘dancing on a pin head’.  Albeit quite a large and certainly a very cool pin head.

CSR has gained greater meaning harnessed to the rigours of the triple bottom line, and the importance of achieving ESG objectives: so people, planet and profit meet environment, social and governance considerations, and all is well with life, the universe and everything.  (42 is so much simpler, surely?!)

But it looked like the baton was about to be handed over, from CSR to sustainability.  I’m indebted to Heidrick and Stuggle’s Steve Tappin’s research for his new book called The Secrets of CEOs, soon to be published, to learn that:

“The word sustainability has existed for nearly 300 years dating back to 1712 and its German translation of nachaltigkeit, used by forester and scientist Hans Carl von Carlowitz in his book Sylviacultura Oeconomica and adopted to develop the practice of planting trees to replace those harvested.”

(All of which conjures up the reassuring concept of zen-sustainability: if there is no-one is in the forest to hear the sound of one tree falling, neither will they hear the new tree being planted.  How then does one attain ‘zentainability’,but I digress …)

In the face of the cumulative threats to our life on this planet of climate chaos, flooding, food and fuel shortages, peak oil, and so on, it is all too easy to react by putting our eggs in the sustainability basket.

And in some ways this is reinforced when you search a bit harder for definitions.  In BT’s excellent Glossary: a guide to the language of sustainable development, the following definition of CSR/CR is offered:-

“the business contribution to the overall societal goal of making sustainable development happen.

From the business perspective, CSR is the management of social, economic and environmental issues beyond the minimum regulatory requirement.”

So CSR is really, according to this definition, a means to the end, of sustainable development, which in turn is defined as

“Development that meets the needs of the people today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

So not only is CSR a means to an end, it is a means to a steady state end, in which we simply reproduce the preconditions for life, now and in the future.  Now I am passionate about the sustainability agenda, and in more personal terms, being confident that my children can look forward to seeing the setting sun, the stars at night, and won’t have to move because London is a flood plain: but I think this is far too limiting in what we can and should be doing with our lives, the role of business in helping us do this, and therefore of CSR. 

I’m going to explore this further in another blog,  but for now, it is enough that I make the argument.

More than that, I’m really struck by the massive importance of seeing CSR through the global diversity lens:

“To Chinese consumers, the hallmark of a socially responsible company is safe, high-quality products.  For Germans, it is secure employment.  In South Africa what mattered most is a company’s contribution to social needs such as health care and education.”

That’s the important conclusion of ‘Defining CSR: Globespan Corporate Social Responsibility Monitor, 2005.  It’s obvious, but pretty striking, that CSR means something very different in different countries.  (Maybe Zentainability is not such a throwaway line after all: it’s not so much an issue of whether anyone is in the forest, but who is in it, and what perspectives they bring, rooted in the experiences they have had, and issues they face)

Actually, the strongest reality check for me was being part of the CII Sustainability Conference in December 2007.  CSR ruled!  With the dynamism and rapid development of India, and the culture and capability that underpins this rapid, sometimes haphazard but gloriously creative and diverse pattern of economic growth, racking up as yet unaccounted environmental costs on the way, the focus, necessarily and rightly, must be on the broader responsibilities of business, linked, for some at least, to contributing to sustainability outcomes.  Yes, CSR Rocks!

But it’s not just India that still sees CSR as still relevant – we are working closely with one major European brand which is even now defining its CSR strategy and policy, and working out how to embed this within its broader activities.

And listening to Richard Howitt MEP, CSR Rapporteur in the European Parliament, yes read those words again, CSR Rapporteur in the European Parliament, talking about CSR in Europe, the debate is about difference and distinctions for sure, but it absolutely recognises the central importance that CSR can and should play across the newly enlarged Europe.

So we should not be surprised by the findings of a Ethical Corporation survey in November 2007 which found that in terms of preferred terminology:

34% went for corporate social responsibility

22% went for corporate responsibility

20% went for ‘it’s all the same thing’

18% went for sustainability

6%   went for corporate citizenship

What to conclude?  At a minimum it is a case of horses for courses, and that CSR and sustainability are of course both relevant.

But with over 50% for CSR or CR, this only goes to underline that the language of corporate (social) responsibility is clearly going to be around for some time to come.

PS:  I’m now convinced that there is a deeper and more fundamental reason for this uncertainty over terminology. 

Looked at through the demanding lens of the inquiry ‘Tomorrow’s Global Company: challenges and choices’, which underpins the forceforgood website, the issue needs to be considered in relation to the continual challenge of achieving business success and sustainability.

We must recognising that the real challenge is about harnessing the capacity of innovation of business to meet people’s needs as consumers and citizens of our one planet, which for me, is not really captured by either CSR or sustainability: but that again, is for another blog!

There was a while back when I thought the language of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ was on the way out, but I don’t now, certainly not for the foreseeable future.