The following is a list of the year’s 10 best research findings related to CSR, compiled by the Network for Business Sustainability. They focus on the impact of sustainable innovation on profit, the affect volunteering has on performance, employee engagement, product quality, stakeholder buy-in, reputation, carbon metrics and honoring stakeholders.
It’s been a big year for corporate responsibility. A huge oil spill, continued ructions in the financial sector, landmark decisions in the courts, and a new dawn for online companies around human rights issues are among the top CSR stories of 2010.
The Sustainable Brands ’10 session “Sustainability Leadership: The Making, Marketing and Thinking Behind Cradle to Cradle Companies and Products” took a look at the importance of measures of ingredient toxicity and material recyclability in branding products as healthy and sustaining.The presenters introduced the idea of moving past “meeting regulations” and achieving the minimum requirements to efficiently and effectively using natural resources, designing systems to eliminate the concept of waste, and leadership within one’s industry for design excellence. They also explained how sustainable business practices build value for an organization including reduced risk and liability, brand differentiation, enhanced reputation and competitive advantage.
Numerous consumer polls proclaim increased spending on green products, but they fail to provide much insight into the actual purchase trends or specific decision drivers behind consumer choices. Instead of relying solely on such generalized market surveys, adoption of a strategic market research process will help businesses boost their revenue, reputation and competitive advantage from sustainability.
Community involvement has a number of benefits for businesses implementing green marketing and corporate social responsibility programs. They include: preferential government and regulatory treatment; enhanced reputation and brand image in that community; increased profit and customer loyalty;creates new business opportunities;increased ability to attract and retain employees; increased ability to attract and retain employees; innovation in market through cooperation with local communities; and innovation in market through cooperation with local communities.
A summary of the second webinar in the Sustainable Brands Boot Camp series, Innovation Opportunities in Response to Today’s Environmental Hot Buttons: Climate Change, Water & Waste. The webinar was led by Will Sarni, CEO and founder of Domani Consulting, an integrated sustainability consulting firm, and featured examples of new, innovative business and product strategies from various markets that are successfully being brought to market in response to emerging environmental and social strains.
Discover the 10 most important factors you should be using to select a green MBA program and how to use them to select the right program to put you on a successful career track.
There’s been a lot of discussion about elevating corporate responsibility to become a strategic driver of your business. Most companies would like to benefit from their ethical efforts in the form of increased customer attraction and loyalty, yet few have figured out how to do it successfully. When marketing and PR are relied on, it can often backfire in accusations of greenwashing. The secret is to apply brand-strategy principles to build your ethical reputation.
Your company has been progressing nicely up the sustainability curve from compliance to cost savings. The next logical step is reputation and revenue generation, and itʼs here that many sustainability pros hit a roadblock. Without a CEO mandate, business units usually have little incentive to deviate from whatʼs been working in the past. Sustainability and CSR initiatives have safely been tucked away behind the scenes, dealing with internal and supply chain issues that reduce risk and cost to the business. Objections to customer-facing sustainability initiatives range from “Why put our neck out and riskgreenwashing charges?” to “Itʼs still a niche market” and “Why would we promote our values for commercial ends? Weʼre doing this because it’s right, not to make money from it.”