(This is part two of this article, inspired in part by Forbes’ Why has Corporate Social Responsibility stalled? and looking at EABIS’ Value Creation Network (PDF). Part one can be read here).
Restarting CSR
The key to keeping the CSR agenda going lies in the SME businesses. This is both acknowledged and discarded by the Forbes article:
Paul Klein: The vast majority of economic value is created by small and medium-sized businesses that don’t have the knowledge or resources to operationalize CSR. Is there an opportunity to engage small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in CSR and deliver social results on a scale that dwarfs what we’re seeing now?
Aron Cramer: I think that SMEs have a huge role to play … Although SMEs don’t always have the resources to formalize sustainability, every business has employees, and thinking about how they are treated is crucially important. Every SME depends on having access to water and energy that is sustainable and clean so this is an issue of importance everywhere and also a big opportunity.
If CSR is ever going to have any impact, it has to engage SMEs: in reality, the big business version which is talked about is simply the hothouse development of what has to become business norms no matter what size the business. [Read more…] about Un-Stalling CSR with the Value Creation Framework | Part 2/2