What is Corporate Social Responsibility?
At its most basic, CSR covers monitoring and auditing your business to show it complies with relevant local laws and regulations. It may also include philanthropic activities.
In recent years the concept has evolved, to consider ethical and environmental concerns when making key business decisions. This makes CSR integral to the way your business relates to the world, to everything you do, and to your potential for success.
CSR can be defined by actions such as:
- Integrating social, environmental and economic terms into your business values and actions. Some examples: treating workers in foreign countries fairly; using environmentally sound practices regarding energy consumption, waste and recycling.
- Operating in an open, accountable and transparent way and showing concern for employees and the communities and societies in which you operate. For instance, you may wish to contribute to some development project in a country, such as providing clean water or building skills in local workers or staff working for your distributors or agents.
- Complying with local laws and regulations and avoiding corrupt practices such as giving or taking bribes.
- Living up to your commitments. Make sure people understand your business culture and concern to be a ‘good corporate citizen’ overseas. This starts with supplying quality goods and services that meet or exceed the claims you make for them.
- Monitoring your image and success in implementing your principles in export markets. What can you change or improve for the better?
- Demonstrating good business practice: invoicing and paying bills on time, delivering what you promised, exceeding expectations. You should be aware that in some markets corruption can be a major problem. A useful source of information on your target market is Transparency International’s annual Corruption Index.
CSR is not just for big businesses. It is a valuable tool for creating and maintaining a sustainable export business of any size.
Why is CSR important for exporters?
Developing a CSR strategy allows you to:
- attract additional customers by differentiating your activities from competitors
- motivate staff and improve customer service by creating a clearly shared culture of sustainability and ethical behaviour
- align your work with local conditions and culture: if you operate in overseas markets where your business is unknown, CSR can help gain acceptance and goodwill
- secure beneficial partnerships with sustainable companies and organisations
- gain acceptance and goodwill for your business, products and services
- reduce the costs of legal compliance and prevent costly conflict with local communities and regulatory authorities.
Getting started
There are many different approaches to CSR, these include:
- Caring for company staff and their families: including the ‘paternalistic’ or ‘employer as benefactor’ approach, including housing and welfare projects for staff and local communities. It may also focus on staff qualifications, training, insurance and loan benefits.
- Social activities benefiting the local community: this may include environmental, sponsored events and charitable donations.
- Partnerships with government and non-government organisations. The US$1 million HSBC Climate Partnership is a large scale example of this, but even small firms can build long lasting, beneficial relationships with its chosen charity or charities.
CSR resources
Some inspiration
New Zealand clothing maker Icebreaker has worked hard to develop a comprehensive and transparent approach to corporate social responsibility, and gained significant export success in the process.
For example, the company is pursuing International Organisation for Standardisation certificates in both quality and sustainability across all areas of its supply chain.
And the Icebreaker website and its innovative BaaCode labelling system allows customers to trace the merino wool their garment is made from right back to the southland farm that it came from.
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