By Amy Fetzer

Today is Get Online Day 2008, yesterday was the 10th anniversary of StartHere. Both of these organisations work to help those in need by getting them digitally included. But why is this important? Technology doesn’t sound like something that helps a business be socially responsible, but if used correctly, it can be a tremendous force for good.

‘Technology transforms people’s lives,’ explains Helen Milner from UK Online Centres (www.ukonlinecentres.com). ‘People think that digital inclusion is nice because it helps people to learn how to use Facebook, but while that’s a benefit, it’s not the reason why it’s important. Digital inclusion is a tool – it’s a solution to solving people’s problems.’

One in three adults in the UK don’t use computers. That means a total of 17 million people in the UK don’t use the internet. This is crucial because in an increasingly digital age, access to many services is geared around getting online.

Studies have shown that being digitally excluded is strongly linked to being socially excluded. This means that the neediest people – the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the homeless – are struggling to access the services that could help them.

Vanessa is good example of this. Homeless and desperate, she was living in a car with man who was not her partner and three dogs. Desperate to improve her situation, she’d contacted social services for assistance, but was told that because she had been living abroad, she wasn’t entitled to any money. At her wits end, she walked into a homeless centre in Chester. As luck would have it, the centre was running a pilot scheme that put new residents onto a computer the first night that they came in. Vanessa was shown how to access services and information online and it wasn’t long before she found a home and a job. The pilot showed that putting people on computers had a 100% success rate of getting them off the street.

Digital inclusion can also help elderly people feel less isolated as they learn to communicate with their families online, while being able to use the internet can help poor students keep up by giving them access to the wealth of online information available to their peers. Better access to services is also key because as Vanessa showed, being able to quickly rectify an immediate problem like finding accommodation for an elderly relative or accessing healthcare can leave you free to become an active member of society and to find a job or otherwise develop your social capital.

Companies such as BT have recognised that working to reduce digital exclusion fits in not only with their CSR policy but also with their business development. This is because the more you improve social capital and help people become active members of society, the more people there are who are digitally included and the more people there are to buy BT’s digital products.

This is why BT have been a long time supporter of StartHere (www.starthere.org) and why they see investing in a company that builds on social capital as matching their CSR aims as well as the bottom line. Billed as ‘the place to turn to when you don’t know where to turn’, StartHere provides a vital bridge to link these people to the organisations that can help them. It acts as a single starting point which allows users to access information on a wide range of social issues from bereavement and childcare to healthcare and housing.

It does this by providing a simple signposting service, typically a website or information kiosk in a community setting such as a healthcare centre, job centre or library, which brings together up-to-date service information in one place but in a format that doesn’t frighten people who have never used a computer before.

It’s a sort of village agony aunt for the digital age which can tell you who can help you, no matter what your problem. The service is unusual as it brings together government and voluntary organisations in one place while providing reassurance that the organisations listed are bonafide, a reassurance you can’t get from a search engine such as Google.

It also trumps the search engines because in stressful situations, people have seriously reduced processing power. They can’t work out what kinds of organisations they should be searching for, or how to sift through the results from a web search when they get them. StartHere takes the user’s hand to guide them through the process so that whether their problem is bullying or bereavement, they find the local or national service that can help them.

Getting people access to the StartHere service is still a problem. Despite widespread recognition from Government on the benefit of the service, the fact it covers so many areas from housing to health means it fall between the many stools of Government departments. This means each department is reluctant to spend money on a product that serves other areas, or to make an investment in a service when another department will reap the financial benefit.

This is why corporate partners such as BT have been so important in the development of digital inclusion services such as StartHere. Hopefully the success of Get Online Day and the StartHere initiative will help Governments to look at more unified ways to support these vital services. With any luck, these awareness raising events will also help more corporates recognise the business benefits of supporting social enterprises which focus on digital exclusion.

Amy Fetzer is a freelance journalist and environmental writer specialising in CSR and sustainability issues. She can be contacted on amy.fetzer@amyfetzer.com. She is also is a member of “The Sustainability Writers Network” (TSWN). For more information please visit the TSWN discussion thread on SustainabilityForum.com.

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Employ a sustainability expert at faculty management level and he or she will earn back their salary in savings several times over. Turn waste into a resource not a drain on resources by diverting it from landfill through recycling, composting or energy recovery.

These were some of the powerful yet practical messages delivered at the University of Surrey’s Sustainable Practice in Universities: Leading and Improving conference on 4th Sept.

Higher Education environments consume 5.2 billion kWh of energy every year creating a carbon footprint of ~3.3MT of CO2 and an energy bill of over £200m. By bringing together experts from across the globe, the conference armed delegates with the tools to reduce these impacts.

Delegates left with new contacts and practical tips on a diverse range of topics. One of the most ingenious included using the University as a living laboratory where innovations from sustainable building designs to climate control systems are tested in the controlled and yet real world environment of the campus. Another inspired approach suggested harnessing student talent by incorporating sustainability challenges into student coursework projects.

The conference also revealed six key strategies for successfully implementing sustainable development initiatives in Higher Education environments.

1. Implement a sustainable development strategy – not a policy. Policies can easily be ignored, but strategies set targets and goals, give people responsibility and make them accountable explained Almut Beringer, UNESCO Chair ‘Higher Education for Sustainable Development’.
2. Install sustainability experts at management level, as well as at an operational level. This prioritises sustainability at the upper level of management providing support and a coherent strategy for the operations team while the resultant cost savings will pay for the additional salary as Steve Lanou, MIT, explained.
3. Present the business case. Many sustainability strategies, such as energy efficiency initiatives, bring massive cost savings ensuring they pay for themselves in the first 1-3 years, as speakers including The Carbon Trust’s David Vincent demonstrated.
4. Engage all groups on campus from the staff to the students. Bring people with you and sustainability initiatives will succeed. The University of Leeds’ incredibly successful recycling programme and LSE’s Reuse programme which diverts student cast offs from landfill were just two of many winning initiatives showcased.
5. Communicate in a language stakeholders can understand and measure and present findings so they can see problems and progress. MIT and others testified that graphs and targets which clearly demonstrate improvement are invaluable – they inspire and motivate whether the subject is dorm radiators or recycling rates.
6. Work as a team and look at the University across all levels. Buildings, energy efficiency, waste management, transport and procurement often operate in silos. It’s crucial to bring people together across departments so the University works as a team and initiatives complement and support each other as Mike Kelly from Communities and Local Government explained.

Higher Educations authorities have an obligation to act to reduce their own environmental impacts. The conference concluded that managing their own impacts is not enough – Universities must lead by example and embrace their role in educating the decision makers of the future.

HE institutions are instrumental in mitigating the worst effects of climate change. They have the potential to produce a ripple effect across whole country and community as graduates literate in sustainability issues take that knowledge into their communities and the economy after graduation. This potential cannot afford to be wasted.

For more information on the University of Surrey’s Sustainable Practice in Universities: Leading and Improving conference, please visit: http://www.ces-surrey.org.uk/news/SPUconf.shtml#summary

Amy Fetzer is a freelance journalist and environmental writer specialising in CSR and sustainability issues. She can be contacted on amy.fetzer@amyfetzer.com. She is also is a member of ” The Sustainability Writers Network” (TSWN). For more information please visit the TSWN discussion thread on SustainabilityForum.com.

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Hewlett Packard recently proved it was possible to package a laptop computer effectively and safely with just a messenger bag as the “box.”
The HP Pavilion dv6929 Entertainment Notebook won the Wal-Mart Home Entertainment Design Challenge.
The computer features an “innovative design that reduces product packaging by 97 percent, conserving fuel and reducing CO2 emissions by removing the equivalent of one out of every four trucks previously needed to deliver the notebooks to Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Club locations around the country.”
In its announcement, HP noted that not only was packaging replaced with the messenger bag, the bag itself is made of 100 percent recycled materials. This allows for a dramatic reduction in overall packaging content and size while delivering equal, if not better, product protection when compared to conventional packaging.
“Caring for the environment is a personal choice that is becoming increasingly important for our customers,” said Steven DeWitt, senior vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “We are honored that Walmart has not only recognized HP’s efforts to ensure that technology and environment enthusiasts have more sustainable choices available to them, but to also join them to help reduce our combined environmental impact from product development through delivery to the consumer.”
Wal-Mart’s Home Entertainment Design Challenge was open to all suppliers of consumer electronics products and three criteria were used to evaluate the submissions:

1. Great design that attracts consumers.
2. Product innovation that reduces the environmental impact for its product category.
3. Packaging design that facilitates reuse and recycling, reduces waste, and reduces or eliminates the use of toxic materials.

“This effort is an extension of our ongoing commitment to provide our shoppers with the best eco-friendly product offerings,” said Alex Cook, merchandise manager for Wal-Mart Home Entertainment. “We received many strong ideas from different suppliers, but the innovative packaging with this HP laptop really stood out, and we are thrilled to make this great product available to shoppers in Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Club locations.” but to also join them to help reduce our combined environmental impact from product development through delivery to the consumer.”
Meanwhile Dell Computers is focusing on reducing carbon emissions and has stated that it met its carbon neutral goal ahead of schedule.
“We’re driving ‘green’ into every aspect of our global business,” said Dell Chairman and CEO Michael Dell. “This includes setting new standards for energy efficiency and green power, delivering environmental and cost savings for customers and aligning key growth priorities with our focus on preserving our shared Earth. Every company can join Dell and the ReGeneration in this long-term commitment.”
Since 2004, the company’s annual investment in green electricity from utility providers, including wind, solar and methane-gas capture, has grown from 12 million kWh to 116 million kWh, an increase of nearly 870 percent. Earlier this year, the company announced that its global headquarters campus is powered by 100 percent green energy.

The author Kim Leslie is a member of ” The Sustainability Writers Network” (TSWN). For more information please visit the TSWN discussion thread on SustainabilityForum.com.

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It has long been supposed by many observers that companies have adopted a corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy merely because it will make them look good, particularly in the media. In the absence of specific legislation requiring it, goes the usual criticism, voluntary CSR is simply practised as a form of public relations.

If that is true, then the CSR industry will almost certainly die out within the next five years as more and more business leaders realise what a failure it is. This is the case because companies practising CSR are generally achieving little or nothing in terms of their PR profile. To make matters worse, they are also failing to achieve many – if any – of the potential benefits in other areas too: staff loyalty and turnover rates, investor confidence, public affairs and so on. And since this is so, company profits are not being enhanced through any appreciable return on CSR investment. Therefore, CSR investment, in the absence of new incentives such as legislation, will soon be jettisoned as would any other wasteful expenditure in a sensibly-run business.

Yet, practised in a more strategically informed, multi-disciplinary manner, CSR could not only achieve significant improvements in many ethical areas – from human rights through climate change mitigation to poverty alleviation – it could also add considerably to the financial success of companies. Yet, in the forms in which it is currently emerging, CSR is usually, at best, a waste of money, at worst a threat to profitability and shareholder value.

Let us take a look at some of the evidence for this assertion. Far and away the most popular response to the CSR agenda has been the annual social or environmental report. Very substantial budgets are deployed each year on glossy publications giving details of companies’ credentials in these areas. An entire industry has grown up around this practice, involving benchmarking, data gathering, assurance, stakeholder engagement, training, design, copy writing, photography, reprographics, printing, distribution…It’s a veritable goldmine for the suppliers, but the clients – the reporting companies – are increasingly noticing that there are generally only three groups reading their very costly reports:

• their competitors
• the competitors of their CSR and communications consultancies
• angry critics of the reporting companies – or of capitalism as a whole

So why are these thoroughly researched, beautifully designed and professionally written reports not being read? Simple answer: because, to almost everyone else, they are tedious. Even among the three groups mentioned above, who are most likely to study these reports, it is increasingly evident that readership is astonishingly low. This shows that each reader is costing thousands of pounds to the company footing the bill – and, worse still, those few readers are of no value whatever to the companies in question; indeed, they are often using the reports as ammunition for various forms of future attack upon the companies in question.

So the return on investment in this, the predominant form of CSR activity, is dismally low. And the digital form of reporting fares little better. Online reports can claim some environmental and financial credibility: there is a significant reduction in physical materials consumed and it is thus cheaper and more eco-friendly than the hard-copy equivalent. However, there are challenges here too: for instance the ‘digital divide’ means that some 90%-plus of the world’s population, many of them among the worst-hit by the more regrettable consequences of a company’s activities, cannot gain access to online information – if you live in an African village where the telephone has not yet been heard of, Internet access is unlikely to be a daily reality. This has led to accusations of élitism, or even deliberate exclusion of those with the most valid claims against the reporting company. Furthermore – and paradoxically – the egalitarian nature of digital media for those who do enjoy access to the Internet (it is a very affordable medium in which individuals and relatively impoverished activist groups can quickly and cheaply become as visible as multinational corporations) means that a Google search generally reveals many more critics than supporters.

Naturally, the next questions that spring to mind are: “If this is the case, then should we throw CSR out? If not, then how do we make it work? If it becomes a legal requirement, how do we make it pay for itself? And if it doesn’t become a legal requirement, how might we make it profitable?” I would suggest that a carefully framed strategy aimed at maximising dialogue in place of monologue – asking and listening as much as telling – and integrating internal with external communications is most likely to succeed in combining ethical with economic improvements.

A comparison of two case studies may help explain this approach:

CSR as a major potential threat to profits
A fast-moving consumer goods company commissioned a research programme in which we assessed the views and understanding of the Board members on three questions:

• What does CSR mean to our company?
• What is our current position on CSR?
• Where should we be headed in CSR terms?

Almost every Board member, while stating that CSR is extremely important to their sector (the company manufactures and sells alcoholic beverages, thus the social responsibility issues for them are huge) added that, in their opinion, little if anything was happening in this field within the organization.

While interviewing the leaders, numerous names of individual CSR champions at lower levels in the company’s hierarchy were mentioned. We decided to interview these people too. What emerged was that, in the many countries where the company operates, spontaneous eruptions of philanthropy were taking place all the time. Usually these initiatives took the form of staff fundraising campaigns and charity support projects such as sponsored half-marathons or second-hand children’s clothing or used book sales. It had become customary that in most cases, enthusiastic organisers asked local or regional directors if the company would match funds raised by the voluntary efforts of the staff. In nearly every case this was agreed and many local charities and other worthwhile causes became the happy beneficiaries of these proactive people’s energy and good will.

Then came the shocking discovery. When we analyzed this global network of extremely well-meant but unconnected fundraising events, a series of very alarming facts emerged:

• The total annual cost to the company ran to several millions of pounds
• The company’s global-level leaders had no idea it was happening
• Few, if any, of the potential benefits of a multi-million-pound CSR programme were being realized
• More than half of the charities being supported were children-focused
• There was a major media campaign being waged at the time, in which the alcohol industry was being castigated for its heavy focus on ‘alco-pops’, a range which was accused of attempting to attract children towards underage drinking

So, not only was the company (unwittingly) spending millions on a CSR programme, in the absence of any leadership-level strategic CSR intelligence, internal communication or media relations management it was achieving very little return on its investment. Worst of all, however, was the horrifying fact that a perfectly well-intentioned and widespread phenomenon had the potential, if picked up by the wrong kind of investigative journalist or activist group, to inflict massive damage on the company’s reputation, profitability and shareholder value. We could see the tabloid headlines: “Ruthless alco-pop peddlers target vulnerable kids”, “children’s homelessness charity as front for booze barons”.

The CEO, in a cold sweat, proposed the election of a Board-level CSR leader and the development of a global CSR strategy. The vote was passed unanimously.

CSR as a powerful profit-booster
A major construction industry client wanted to create a powerful ‘differentiating factor’, particularly in highly competitive bids for substantial public sector projects. The company’s leaders accepted that there was a strong case for a strategy combining internal with external communications and replacing monologue with dialogue. We brought together not only staff from all levels and many departments but also suppliers, community members, NGOs and others in a series of workshops designed to raise awareness of core CSR issues. We not only trained these people but listened carefully and reacted to their responses, their criticisms, doubts, enthusiasms, ideas and suggestions.

It began to emerge that, by combining principles and processes with the participants’ understanding of their own industries, issues, preferences and pre-occupations, we were able to find a win/win outcome for almost any challenge, where profits and ethics enhanced each other at almost every turn.

The result was that the company not only completed the project (on which we practised our newfound win/win innovations) ahead of schedule, we also enjoyed other benefits, including:

• Enhanced supplier loyalty and understanding of CSR
• Greater staff loyalty, enthusiasm and pride in their work
• Significant improvements in ‘innovation thinking’
• Exceptionally positive media exposure
• Numerous highly-acclaimed CSR-related awards
• A multi-billion increase in public sector contracts in the following year

We never did find out how much of the company’s increased order book we could take credit for with the CSR programme but, given the multi-billion level of the boost in business, the Chairman exclaimed at one awards ceremony that anything over 0.01% represented a superb return on his investment!

Conclusion
So, I predict that very soon we will be seeing the death of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in its present form and from its ashes will rise a new, highly profitable and therefore long-lived answer to the question “How can we do the right thing and meet our shareholders’ financial expectations?”: CSR: the Comprehensive Strategic Response or CSR 2.0.
Watch this space…

© Robert Weston 2007

The author, Robert Weston lives with in Bath, England. He has been a CSR consultant, writer, speaker and facilitator for fifteen years. He holds degrees in Philosophy and in Responsibility and Business Practice; he has also co-launched the UK farmers’ markets movement, Bath’s first eco-hotel and five children. His clients include a wide range of high-profile corporations, along with numerous NGOs, government departments, national governments and supragovernmental organisations.
You can e-mail him at: robert@organismics.org or call him on +44 7074 661166
You can write to him at the following address:
Bloomfield House,
146, Bloomfield Road,
Bath. BA2 2AS, UK

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“Green IT is not a company initiative; it’s not a campaign of ours. It is a reason to put out a new press release.”

The quote above came from an acquaintance of mine when I pushed him for details about his company’s “Green IT” information it had just prominently splashed across its homepage. (Green IT = using information technology to increase efficiency and sustainability) I pushed for details because I knew the company pretty well (a mid-sized international software company), and I knew they didn’t even have any internal sustainability or efficiency initiatives or even a CSR report, so I was curious.

The answer confirmed my suspicions that this was all so much marketing-driven who-ha. Clearly, the marketing department had read the latest Gartner and Forrester reports touting Green IT and decided to jump on the bandwagon.

None of this is to say that there aren’t real benefits conferred by Green IT. In offices, the datacenter is the biggest energy user, so increasing efficiency there can result in significant bottom line savings. Also, governments are increasingly looking for technological solutions to address climate change and carbon accounting.

But this company listed the benefits of its particular Green IT as “using less paper” and “reducing waste” among others. Really cutting edge stuff for a company that touts itself as a software leader, wouldn’t you say?

What effect has this green marketing push by vendors had on CIOs? According to Don Tennant at Computerworld, it is turning them sour on the notion of energy efficiency practices:

“It’s as if green has become the poison ivy of the corporate IT agenda. And vendors are hardly providing any calamine. Instead, they’re spreading the irritation in the form of green marketing hype, falling over themselves to be perceived as enablers of a green data center.”

For the sake of the CSR and sustainability agenda, this has to stop. One way would be for analyst organizations like Gartner and Forrester to rank the Green IT products out on the market and expose those that are just so much marketing-speak.

Another would be for CIOs to ask all potential vendors to answer questions on their Green IT credentials, similar to the brief survey available on Computerworld, as part of the bidding process. Even if a company ultimately didn’t base its purchasing decisions on a Green IT screen, it would force the industry to take their own claims seriously.

And we could use a bit more seriousness when it comes to green marketing claims.

About the author: Quinn McKew is an environmental entrepreneur and policy consultant with expertise in climate change, public lands, water and energy policy. With her MBA and experience in non-profit management, she seeks to leverage the best practices of the non-profit and business communities to foster a truly sustainable business culture.

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