Stakeholder Expectations of Companies and their CSR Initiatives

When Ceres published the 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap to Sustainability report, I was intrigued about its contents as I'd imagine CSR professionals would be as well. Broadly speaking, the document offers 20 expectations for companies that want to integrate "sustainability into the DNA of business" in the context of four large categories of CSR (they use the term "corporate sustainability"), namely governance, stakeholder engagement, disclosure and performance. The full report goes into features of more than 200 organizations' best practices across a spectrum of 20 sectors.

But the piece that caught my fancy the most was its summary document entitled "The Stakeholder Perspective." I was curious to see how much the human component, the social piece of CSR, was alluded to in that document. They broke out stakeholder categories into 7 groups: Government, Investors, Labor Unions, Civil Society, Business Partners and Suppliers, Consumers and Employees.

Not surprisingly, the document reveals that policies are being implemented by governments as responses to some of the "key sustainability issues," such as toxic chemicals, greenhouse gas emissions, water. But CSR staff may be interested in knowing that the document also referenced among those key issues labor and human rights, as well as a growing interest in better supervision of and accountability for company behaviors that affect societies and the environment. Investor expectations had no specific reference to the social aspect of sustainability, but, of course, there's an expectation by labor unions that corporations do something about areas that concern employees from socioeconomic to environmental. Civil society, as represented by NGOs and community organizations, expect corporations to tackle the impacts they have on the environment or society.

When it comes to business partners and suppliers, there's an expectation that these representatives who interact with businesses will follow suit in terms of sustainability integration, and more consumers are "putting their money where their values are," which includes the "conditions under which products are made, the materials used and post-use recyclability" as well as a growing interest in "credible sustainability information" at the point-of-sale locale. As for employees, they seek more meaningful work and look for employers with a clear idea of their "contribution to a sustainable global economy" and once they become employees, they seek to participate in its future direction through action.

Overall, I think this stakeholder's summary document provides CSR professionals with more references to the 'social' part of corporate social responsibility than I was expecting. In the scheme of things, though disappointing that there was no reference to any part of the social aspect of sustainability in the investor category, it's not surprising.