Newsletter April 2004: CSR Standards and The CAP Gap Audit, IE 2004

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In This Issue

This edition of The Future 500 newsletter is sponsored by the Asian Productivity Organization. To find out how your company can sponsor this newsletter, please visit our sponsor page.

• IE 2004 - Profitable Sustainability - register soon for our upcoming conference
• CSR Standards and The CAP Gap Audit - sign up for our free Webinar for Fortune 1000 companies
• Best Practices in Stakeholder Engagement - click here to learn from expert peers

This Month's Article: Dogged by Dozens of CSR Standards, How Can Companies Avoid "Survey Fatigue?"

By Aileen Ichikawa Director, Future 500 Corporate Accountability Practice (CAP)

The surge of standards for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is creating tremendous challenges and opportunities for leadership companies.

The challenges are obvious. CSR standards cover an overwhelming breadth of topics which touch every aspect of corporate operations. There are over 60 major CSR initiatives and standards that focus on a particular issue, geographic area, or stakeholder group, and more than 180 codes of conduct that have different emphases (labor, human rights, community, etc.), scopes (domestic, international, industry-specific, etc.), and methods of implementation (obligatory, certification requirement, voluntary declaration, etc.) Some companies receive several questionnaires a month from CSR and SRI groups, driving an epidemic of "survey fatigue."

In addition, the standards arena is dynamic. Standards change and shift. Marketplace events such as the collapse of Enron, the Bhopal chemical disaster, and the Exxon Valdez spill create new standards and areas of focus. Standards rise to prominence, then fade away or consolidate with other standards. Diverse global regions derive their own standard sets.

But what about the opportunities? Can the many standards benefit leadership companies?

One opportunity is the invaluable FEEDBACK that each of these standards provides. Each represents a distinct set stakeholder concerns. Each stages and organizes stakeholder issues in way that make them easier to understand and act on. By responding to these concerns early, companies can stay in tune with powerful shifts in the economic and political marketplace. They can also guard against negative consumer action, enhance reputation and brand, advance best practices, and attract socially responsible investors.

Many companies overlook the value of this feedback. They think of CSR and SRI standards the way they think of laws and regulations: as standards of behavior forced set and enforced by an external body. They plead for the standards marketplace to "settle down" into a coherent and unchanging set of expectations, so they can compete on a level playing field.

That's not likely. CSR and SRI standards are as diverse as the marketplaces companies serve. No one expects that consumers will soon settle on the one model of car or brand of cereal that is "best." Needs and preferences will always shift. Similarly, in a global economy, social and environmental priorities will always be in play. Human rights, employee relations, cultural diversity, environment, indigenous rights, and accountability are just a few of the dozens of concerns reflected in the mix.

Now even standards of standards are proliferating. The leading standardization effort, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), is largely accepted as the best structure for sustainability reporting. The International Organization for Standards (ISO) has launched a global initiative to consider management standards for CSR, to ISO 9000 and 14000. ISO is planning an international conference with stakeholder groups to gather input. The International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling Alliance (ISEAL) recently published a code of conduct for standards development, to foster a uniform standards labeling structure. Countering the one-size-fits-all movement, national CSR standards have been created in France, Mexico, Japan, and Israel.

The real challenge is how corporations can engage efficiently with this growing, changing and shifting standards landscape. How does this valuable feedback get translated into new programs used to maximize the opportunities and to reach and respond to a company's key stakeholder groups? How can CSR performance benefits be communicated across the organization in meaningful ways? How can data serve the organization, rather than overwhelming it?

Tools are needed to convert this data to actionable programs that benefit both stakeholders and companies. In so doing, the tools can help align companies with marketplace trends of global scope and force.

To that end, Future 500 companies have created and deployed a software tool known as the Corporate Accountability Practice (CAP) Gap Audit. The tool consolidates top-line criteria from 17 different CSR and SRI standards into one automated question set. The tool measures corporate performance against each standard, helps set planning priorities, correlates to business benefits, and creates a central software repository of CSR and SRI data for reporting. It is updated regularly, to track changes in the standards marketplace. (To read more about this tool and process please click here)

One way companies use the tool is through a half-day deployment session with executives from key divisions. The deployment session captures important detail about a company's CSR and SRI performance, builds cross-disciplinary understanding, and fosters teamwork for more effective follow-through. (For information contact Alison Wise at the Future 500: awise@future500.org)

Other companies use the software as a repository for all their CSR and SRI reporting data. That enables them to more efficiently compile corporate sustainability reports, or respond to queries from standards organizations.

CSR/SRI standards are not regulations per se. More accurately, they are marketplace signals. They reflect broad social and environmental concerns that are inefficiently transmitted in the traditional economic marketplace. Instead of being directly communicated through demand for goods and services, they are transmitted by way of the standards organizations. If companies fail to adapt to the standards, some may indeed become legal mandates.

The array of CSR and SRI laws, voluntary initiatives, and codes of conducts can cause confusion both for industry who get lost trying to navigate through them, and for external stakeholders who have no effective means of assessing the firms' performance. Tools like the CAP Gap Audit and others assist companies in engaging successfully and efficiently with the challenging world of CSR standards in order to avoid risk and gain the significant marketplace advantages which can be realized today.

What You Can Do: Free Webinar on CSR Standards and the CAP Gap Audit

Join us for a free webinar on CSR Standards and the CAP Gap Audit, an overview of 17 standards of corporate accountability, responsibility, and sustainability, and a demonstration of the CAP Gap Audit, a desktop tool that consolidates 17 standards into one simple, software-driven process.

The webinar happens at your desk, on your PC.

For representatives of Fortune 500 companies, please contact Nikole Wilson-Ripsom for information regarding the next scheduled webinar. For professionals and consultants in the field, contact Nikole Wilson-Ripsom to arrange a demonstration.

Quick Links

The Future 500 provides powerful tools in Corporate Stakeholder Engagement, Metrics, and Reporting. Here are quick links to our most popular offerings, to Maximize Return to Stakeholders at the World's Leading Companies:

• To End "Survey Fatigue" and "Headline Headache" - The CAP Gap Audit
• To Master Stakeholder Engagement - Stakeholder Mapping and Consultation
• To Profit Sustainably - Sign Up for Our Speeches and Trainings

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Save The Date

Eco-Products Fair 2004 - September 2 - 4, 2004, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Produced by The Asian Productivity Organization, The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers, and the National Productivity Corporation of Malaysia. Admittance is free. To purchase exhibit space, or for more information, please contact webmaster@fmm.org.my

And don't miss our fifth major IE Conference presented in cooperation with NBIS/NW!

Sept. 26-29, 2004:" IE 2004: Profitable Sustainability - The Future of Business". Seattle, WA. Register today. Be a Sponsor or Exhibitor. For more information or to register, visit IE 2004: Profitable Sustainability - The Future of Business

This edition of The Future 500 newsletter is sponsored by the Asian Productivity Organization. To find out how your company can sponsor this newsletter, please visit our sponsor page.

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