Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Corporate and Individual Social Responsibility

In today's world we have seen fundamental and multifaceted disruption to our planet's environment. More since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This disruption presents profound social and environmental opportunities for change and great challenges to every individual, business, community, and country as we see this global economy continue to be transparent.

You continually hear conversations with CEOs, heads of state and, communities from every part of the world what can we do or this is what we are doing socially as a corporation, individual, etc. Globalization is creating multiple levels of competition (some new, some old) creating new forms of innovation and seamless integration of technology, business and society than the world has ever seen. Aggressive innovation will prevail, innovation that changes an organization from top to bottom and that engages each employee at all levels intimately with a broad societal ecosystem of businesses, communities and countries.

The most visible impact as we note above is a change in the corporation itself. So how do you operate your business, community or country? Today's focus on the environment offers new hope for progressive globalization. We cannot be oblivious to all this, if we are we will not achieve the benefits or navigate through this disruptive change by operating status quo. Here are some tip on social and corporate responsibility from an environmental prospective:
  • integrate the environment with your business or community
  • form a social or responsibility committee focusing on giving back
  • pick a key cause and get employees to buy into it
  • save water campaigns through automatic shut offs faucets and insta-flushes
  • get your employees involved in the community and provide them the time off for this volunteerism
  • paperless campaigns both home and in the workplace
  • build a bridge between the business and community that benefits both entities, that is is there sustainable development
  • contribute to the arts and be a corporate patron
  • lend your employees expertise, skills, and knowledge to schools and universities as well as non-profit groups.

The nature of competition and the forces of innovation are shifting the frontiers of science, business and technology continuously. Expertise today is not static. To be competitive, any individual—like any company, community or country—has to adapt continuously, learning new fields and new skills. This is true within any given job, and it’s true across the span of an entire career. This should be shared with the local community and helps the environment

All this requires a new relationship among the company, employees and society. Empower your employees to make decisions and to act. A company, family or individual to make this a great planet for our children should be measured by three key things:

  • contributed hours of volunteerism
  • how much has the company or individual contributed year over year
  • has this effort made an impact and can it be measured - sustainability

So, I ask you as an individual, corporation, community, and global inhabitants of this planet are you doing your social responsibility or CSR(for corporations).

Your opinion counts so please email me with your ocmments at wgstevens2@gmail.com