Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), also known as corporate responsibility, corporate accountability, corporate ethics, corporate citizenship, sustainability, and responsible business, can be defined as the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of that of the local community and society at large. It’s about responsible production processes, socially responsible employee relations, community involvement, and sustainability. It’s about doing things right. (eSourcing Wiki [WayBackMachine])

Furthermore, it comes with a plethora of benefits that include risk management, reputation management, talent retention, ROI, operational cost savings, innovation, and eased investor and government relations when done right. It’s the way of tomorrow, you realize it today, and you want to know what to do next.

It’s simple. Conduct an assessment to figure out where you are today, define your strategy, foster a corporate culture to get buy-in, make some commitments, implement those commitments, measure your progress, and regularly evaluate your progress and identify paths to improvement.

A good assessment will determine who’s currently in charge of corporate donations, whether or not all donations made can be defended, whether or not thorough standards for transparency were applied to current philanthropy programs, identify the firm’s values and ethics, internal and external CSR drivers, key issues that are (potentially) affecting the firm, key stakeholders whose input will need to be gathered in strategy formulation, current inadequacies in relevant decision making processes, the human resources available, and relevant budgetary initiatives.

A good strategy will define the overall direction the corporation is taking with respect to CSR, outline the basic approach, focus on key areas, and detail the next steps. The identification will involve asking, and answering, a lot of hard-hitting questions, including those summarized in the wiki-paper.

For more information on the process used to define specific commitments, implement those commitments, measure progress, and identify improvements, please refer to the new wiki-paper over on the eSourcingWiki and the bibliography.

What industry produces more greenhouse gases than any other?
  Hint: it’s not the transportation industry!
What country kills more than 100 million animals in laboratories alone every year?
  Hint: it’s not China
Did you know you don’t have to log-on to see Alicia Silverstone naked?^*
  Now I know that got your attention!

For the last three months I’ve been sticking to sustainability Sundays, and today will be no different. But today I’m going to talk about animal rights. You’re probably thinking “what rights?”, and I have to admit I see your point, considering, in even most of the developed world, they don’t have any. Furthermore, even in many places where there are animal cruelty laws, they aren’t heavily enforced unless they involve cute little puppies or kitties and the local media makes a story out of it.

And that’s the problem – there’s an utter lack of legislation and directives stating that we care. Today’s consumer is a Gen-X or Gen-Y consumer, and as I mentioned in last week’s post Design for Recycle and, whether or not you want to admit it, we care. And we’ve even convinced most of the Baby Boomers that animals should be treated fairly. (A recent poll by PETA found that 90% of americans feel that farm animals need to be protected about abuses.)

Now, I’m sure most of you are reading this and thinking “we don’t have any contact with animals, so this doesn’t concern us”, but I’m here to tell you You’re Wrong. Do you buy meat or cover meal expenses? Do you buy furniture? Do you buy laptop bags? Do you cover corporate expenses? The answer is yes. All of these decisions impact animals.

Most of us are omnivores. Where are you buying your meat from? Probably the local supplier. Where do they get their meet from? Probably a slaughterhouse. Where’s the slaughterhouse? Chances are it’s somewhere where there are no animal protection programs and where chickens are skinned alive and cows carved up before they’ve bled to death from having their throats slit. I am an omnivore. I do eat meat (although lately I’ve been trying not to eat too much). I believe in your right to eat meat. And I realize that this means we have to ultimately kill animals we raise for food. But face it, serial killers on death row get better treatment – and it’s not like we don’t know how to give them a quick, painless, and (for those of you who only care about the bottom line) cost-effective death.

Furniture … laptop bags … same issues. If it’s leather, there’s a small chance it could be the by-product of a slaughterhouse that doesn’t put it’s animals through cruel, barbaric, tortuous deaths … but there’s a much greater chance it’s from a factory just outside of India’s borders where the cows, like chickens in some places, are skinned alive.

Advertising … if you use animals, you could be promoting abuse. TV animals, like circus animals, don’t live glamourous lives. They are often identified young, snatched from their parents, kept in small cages, and regularly shocked or beaten until they become docile. Then, when they’ve reached the end of their “useful” life, sold to a small zoo somewhere where they get to live out the rest of their lives in another small cage.

Horrified yet? Good. Because you don’t need to be a part of this … and … more importantly … can be animal friendly without increasing your corporate spend. Better yet, animal friendly decisions often decrease spend while increasing brand visibility, product recognition, and consumer loyalty. Today, fake products, such as pleather, are often cheaper, more environmentally friendly, and more durable than the real thing. The same goes for other synthetics.

You have choices. You should use them. And, more importantly, you should tune into Next Level Purchasing’s (now the Certitrek NLPA) new podcast, “Purchasing, Social Responsibility, & Animals” when it hits the wire on Tuesday. In this podcast, NLP’s President, Charles Dominick, sits down with Stephanie Downs, PETA’s Director of Corporate Affairs, and they dive into the issues in much more detail than I can in this short blog post.

^*Unless you’re in Houston. Bad Houston. Bad, Bad Houston.

The King is right.

In June, SupplyManagement.com ran a special supplement on Sustainable Procurement that had a number of good articles. In this post, I’m going to summarize some of the more relevant points from the rest of the articles.

This is because sustainable procurement is part of corporate social responsibility – and corporate social responsibility (CSR) contributes positively to a company’s bottom line. According to a recent survey by Sirota Survey Intelligence, if employees are satisfied with their employer’s CSR commitment, then 86% have high levels of engagement, 82% feel their organization is highly competitive, 75% feel their employer is interested in their well being, and 71% rate senior management as having high integrity.

In “Sustain or be obsolete”, Shaun McCarthy points out that sustainable procurement can boost the economy and bring wider benefits to society. Furthermore, it can build – and sustain – your brand.

In Making a Difference”, Siobhan Cameron overviews how five organizations – including HSBC, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Environment Agency, and Legal & General – are tackling corporate social responsibility.

HSBC, by requiring its suppliers to adhere to socially responsible and sustainable business practices, providing them with a code of conduct, encouraging diversity, adopting new technology, and switching to clean energy was the first major bank to become carbon neutral in 2006.

The Department for Work and Pensions obtains 45% of its electricity from renewable sources, made an upfront investment of £1.68 million in 2004-5 to improve energy and water efficiency in order to obtain an estimated annual savings of £966,000, recycles 51% of office waste, and uses fair trade and organic food in its staff restaurants and catering outlets. Furthermore, it was able to make all of these changes without any additional costs to taxpayers, illustrating that sustainability can be a benefit and not a cost.

The Environment Agency, which launched its CSR program in 2002, has been focussed on improving the green performance of its suppliers. In 2006, it audited its top 20 suppliers and found that not only have its suppliers made energy savings, but they have also seen an increase in business as a result of new and improved CSR credentials. Not only has this effort reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 220 tons, but it has resulted in £19.8 million cash savings in one financial year.

As a result of changes made to paper used in marketing material, together with the 210 tonnes of 100 per cent recycled copier paper they buy every year, Legal & General annually saves: 11,000 trees from being cut down, 2 million Kwh of electricity, 22 million gallons of water, 1,800 barrels of oil and 122 tonnes of waste going to landfill.

In “Green building blocks”, Emma Crates note that the building sector is lagging with respect to sustainable procurement, even though it has a huge opportunity to make a difference.

According to the article, construction is responsible for 52 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions. In the UK, 17 per cent of all waste is created by building work, with a further 10 per cent coming from manufacturers of building products. And it soaks up 16 per cent of the country’s water.

However, in order to make change, the industry has to stop looking at upfront costs and instead look at the long term savings that sustainable options will generate. For example, biomass boilers are initially more expensive, but are expected to have lower running costs in the long run.

The article also overviews some best practices that the construction industry can deploy to improve their operations. This includes the use of consolidation centers to streamline logistics and reduce the need to store materials on work sites where they can be damaged, the use of video conferencing to reduce the need for managerial travel, the use of eco-friendly site cabins that reduce energy use by up to 40%, and the selection of products using environmental performance.

The article also lists some resources that professionals in the sector can adhere to, including the code for sustainable homes, energy performance certificates, and site waste management plans.

Finally, in “A worldwide view”, Helen Walker and Stephen Brammer report that sustainable procurement is becoming increasingly encouraged in countries around the world. There’s still a wide degree of variation in the extent to which different countries are adopting particular aspects of sustainable procurement, such as procurement from local suppliers, buying from SMEs, and ensuring the safe movement of a purchased product, but at least it’s a start.