Presentazione waf nov011 def

København, 25.11.2010

CSR in transition: from a locust to a honeybee attitude

Dr. Pierluigi Orati - Journalist, CSR Consultant


Borrow – Use - ReturnTake – Make - WasteHoney beesLocusts

An old Business model vs a Sustainable one

Would you like to be the change or to see the change?


Desert Forest

Dry – Inhospitable - Empty Green – Liveable - Rich

The consequences of a shortsighted system


Sustainability: not just surfaceSince companies discovered sustainability as a mere communication/marketing tool, CSR became the packaging of a dangerous product: an overestimated weight givento the reputation. But the packaging in the end of its economic cycle producesdamages and it is a problem to tackle in the “developed” world.


Level ofsustainabilityperceived

British Petroleum

Beyond Petroleum

Betraying Planet

Time

Sustainable Communication used as a “hooker”

Communication should be used to give / deliver real and useful information to the stakeholders / society and not merely as a tool to gain consensus (a “PR exercise”). A change of identity (logo) and an appealing website, a “well pictured” SustainabilityReport or “Sustainable” initiatives for the friendly press are probably just successfullmarketing tools.


From Greenwashing to GreedwashingGreed in the last quarter of century, became more virulent than before, growing spectacularly. Rather than marketing exercises such as greenwashing, Corporations, starting from their Board of Directors till their CSR officers, should put in act some greedwashing with the purpose to not just maximize their profit in a very blind perspective but creating value through real sustainable practices that, on the long run, could guarantee the Companies’ virtuous performances.


Some positive approaches …


The Africa-EU Renewable Energy CooperationProgramme

European Commission has allocated a first 5 million Eurosfrom the fast start climate action grant financing to support a three year start up phase of the programme. This is in addition to a largercontributions to renewable energy investments provided under the InfrastructureTrust Fund and the Energy Facility aiming to contribute to African renewableenergy targets for 2020

The key areas of the programme aim at:

• Strengthening the renewable energy industry and markets in Africa.• Implementing renewable energy policies and measures. Focus will be on a set of measures aiming at creating stable and 'renewable friendly' administrative and legal frameworks.• Mobilising existing and new financial instruments to support renewable energyin Africa.• Renewable energy research, education and technology transfer.


• Address clients' fuel shortages affecting local health, nutrition and education. • Budget savings for institutional cooking fuels and disaster relief situations. • In some regions distribution of biomass and fossil fuels are subsidized by aid agencies.

Broad use of solar cookers can decrease these costs so that more people can benefit from these humanitarian funds.

• Solar cooking addresses all of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Solar Cooking projectsTwo billion people rely on wood and charcoal for cooking fuel. Solar cooking alleviatesthe conflict between their basic needs and the need to preserve earth's dwindling forests.

http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/United_Nations_Millennium_Development_Goals

http://solarcooking.wikia.com/index.php?title=Why_solar_cook%3F&action=edit&section=11


Some practical proposals for seriouslycommitted Corporations …


I have set some easy and affordable proposals towards those entrepreneurs / top managers, corporations, seriously committed to change the current state of art

• Let’s get rid of this equal opportunity policy based merely on the “gender affiliation”. One manager is not good or bad just because of his/her gender! Let’s reappraise the “meritocracy”, companies should give the responsibilities and the manager positions only to those that really deserve them, beside the gender and of course not creating unbalanced situations where “minorities” are not represented at all. • “MBO” (Management by Objective) directly linked to Sustainable performances of the company, spread all over the units of the organizations. Let’s not be too philosophical and romantic, money will motivate managers to achieve better results. • A more serious monitoring of Key Performance Indicators related to CSR and an external audit contract for no longer than one year, not renewable. The external auditors, well paid from companies, otherwise will tend to be too “friendly” and “flexible”.• Teleworking: this can be a policy that encounter some initial resistance in the Latin mentality as per my experience: a boss wants to check (physically) his/her employee, thinking to obtain better performances through direct control. Nothing is so untrue! To make people responsible, this is the real challenge, the control can be easily obtained setting deadlines for each task assigned. We are not teacher in the primary school and if we treat our people like that, we will obtain just primary school results.

“Hot tips”, not just environmentally oriented


Are all these kind of initiatives enough?

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed”.

Mahatma Gandhi


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