Learning CSR Lessons in Romania

Following my posts on the Value of Case Studies and the Ukraine Case Study contest, the third in this Case Study Trilogy is set against the backdrop of the Transylvanian Mountains and Count Dracula, who could probably have written several Case Studies but not necessarily about sustainability. This post takes us to Bucharest, home to 2.2 million people and the center of Romania's growing economy. It is also home to Dragos Dehelean, Managing Partner of Selenis, a PR  and Communications firm and CEO of ResponsabilitateSociala, a comprehensive portal for all things CSR in Romania. ResponsabilitateSociala is the driving force behind a two day annual event, presenting European CSR Lessons, or Case Studies, for the benefit of the local CSR practitioners, professionals, academics and NGO's. While I was unable to attend on Day One, I had a fabulous time on Day Two (16th May 2012).

The first part of the day was devoted to a panel discussion on community development with speakers from Petrom, Erste Bank Serbia, GlaxoSmithKline Romania, Raiffeisen Bank, and Fundatia Vodafone. All presented fascinating examples of the way they had developed their programs, and spoke frankly about the challenges, dilemmas and choices along the way. An audience of some hundred participants was highly engaged, and each presentation was met with several questions.

Mona Nicolici from Petrom described how  Petrom developed a new strategy which started with educating employees in Sustainability and forming ten action teams throughout the company's operations to support community empowerment programs.  Andrea Brbaklić from Erste Bank in Serbia described her company's program, called Centrifuge, to promote cultural decentralization, youth activism and prevent deviant behavior. Andreia Cucu of GlaxoSmithKline Romania talked about the company's  'The health of kids in the Danube Delta,' program, together with the Association Save the Danube and the Delta by which 80 percent of the kids in this poor and isolated area of Romania benefited from a free medical examination and a health campaign. Corina Vasile of Raiffeisen Bank described the bank's program of donating funds to NGO using social media tools. Finally, in this fascinating session, Elena Serban of the Vodafone Foundation explained how the global foundation provides grants for six-month professional volunteering opportunities, with fifteen people from Romania taking part this year.

The afternoon session was devoted to stakeholder engagement and ways in which companies interact with stakeholders. In this session, I presented a case study from my client comme il faut, an Israeli fashion house, and the way this company engages with different stakeholder groups and also leverages a much broader dialog in society to advance the position of women.

Here is my presentation:

Europe CSR Lessons: Lipstick, Food, Fashion and Prostitution

View more presentations from elaine cohen.

What impressed me most about the day, however, was not only the high quality presentations and generosity of the presenters in sharing their approaches, but also the intense engagement of the audience who fully involved themselves in the debates that arose. Overall, there is a fine sustainability movement building momentum in Romania, and this is a pleasure to see. Kudos to Dragos Dehelean for making a formidable contribution.

As for me, I will be back in Bucharest next week, working with a client on their first Sustainability Report. Hope they haven't run out of ice cream.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices   Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   on Twitter or via my business website www.b-yond.biz (Beyond Business, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

FASHION and LANDFILL

The leading Israeli fashion company, comme il faut, never ceases to astound with the use of contrasts and creative initiatives, combining fashion with all sorts of subjects that one would not normally associate with an industry notorious for skewing our perceptions of beauty and for driving frenzied consumerism in the name of keeping up with the trends. comme il faut is no stranger to provocation. Usually, this is directed at raising awareness of difficult issues in our society, social or environmental, as part of the company's deeply embedded values and social responsibility. This was recognised by Ethisphere who counted comme il faut as one of the world's most ethical companies this year.

Over the years, through its fashion campaigns,  the company has addressed head-on many feminist issues, blowing away myths that prevail in our society and denigrate the position of women, such as how women eat, how women dress, the "invisible"work that women do in the home and more. Way back in 2004, the company made BBC and CNN headlines when it staged a photo shoot at the controversial Israel-Palestine separation wall in an attempt to raise awareness of this painful issue. In 2009, the company ran a campaign supporting women who are trapped in prostitution, requesting customers to bring in old bras for use in an artistic exhibition, whilst making a contribution to support rehabilitated prostitutes make a new life for themselves.

Environment-wise, the company is slow-fashion to the core, low-carbon and an ultra-recycler, and almost nothing is not reused in comme il faut. Even the carry-bags for customer purchases are rejected bags from a cement company that would otherwise go to landfill.

But what prompted this post is the new collection fashion show which was held last week on the site of Tel Aviv's massive eye-sore landfill dump which has now been converted into an Industrial Recycling park. The choice of this site was no coincidence, of course, attempting to drive home once again the role of responsible fashion in our society, and the need for eco-consciousness. The contrast of beautiful designs against the backdrop of the biggest dump in the Israeli metropolis was something that no-one could miss comtemplating upon!

Some photos:

Kudos to this wonderful company who never fails to embrace responsible and sustainable practices as part of its core brand.

(Disclosure: :) We consult to comme il faut, have witten their first CSR report, ethics code and more,  and have been involved in the ideas behind many of the Company's social campaigns over the last few years. We introduced comme il faut to the Tel Aviv dump! and we are glad (and proud) that the event was a resounding, and not too smelly,  succcess!)


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen  on Twitter or via my business website www.b-yond.biz/en  (BeyondBusiness,  CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Ethical Fashion - Who cares ?

Today I lectured to 4th and final year Design students at the Fashion Design faculty of the prestigious Shenkar Design College in Tel Aviv. My objective was to create awareness of the important impact of fashion designers on social responsibility and sustainability, and to encourage these young budding designers to exercise social and environmental responsibility as they start to practise their new profession. Some of these students will be individualists, creating and selling their own innovative designs. Many will go on to work as designers in Companies who retail their fashion in Israel and perhaps world-wide. Some may even become world famous designers to the celebs, attaining a position of influence far greater than a modest, well, sort of modest, consultant like myself can do.  This was the only exposure of students to sustainability thinking as part of their four year course, something I am hoping will change as the importance of fashion design with a sustainability mindset becomes more compelling. My presentation, entitled Ethical Fashion, Who cares? I regret, is only in Hebrew at present, so I will take you through a  brief summary of my key points here:  

The fashion industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, employing over a million people and touching the llives of each and everyone of us on the planet, at all stages and phases of our development. Who cares about sustainability, CSR and ethics in the fashion industry?  No-one declares that they want to destroy the planet's natural resources, wear sweatshop shirts at the expense of the most basic human rights of children in the Far East, or make the hole in the ozone layer bigger. No-one says they want to impoverish communities through exploitation or perpetuate a fast fashion consumer culture which results in tons of unwanted clothes sent to landfill each day. So maybe everyone cares. But caring is not enough. We  know that people care only when we see them take action in line with what they care about. In the fashion industry, we can start with three core groups who influence fashion, and ask ourselves what they really care about:

• Designers - to what extent do ethical, social and environmental considerations form an early part of the design phase?
• Retailers - to what extent do similar considerations dictate retail policies and practices ?
• Consumers - to what extent do consumers vote with their feet, or more accurately, their purchasing choices?

There are many positive examples in all three categories of fashion industry stakeholders such as these, though, overall, the fashion industry is still a perpetuation of unsustainability, especially in Israel where 90% of fashion is imported and little is disclosed about supply chain processes by almost all the leading retailers.

The result of everything that designers and retailers do ends up somewhere as a consumer choice. So I then took the students through a brief review of the things that impact consumer choice, beyond the pure design elements of a specific garment. I focused on three broad areas: 

• Materials - fabrics, yarns, adhesives, dyes, and all forms of accessories - what environmentally friendly and ethically favourable choices are available to the fashion designer ?
• Production processess and supply chain - sourcing, outsourcing, transportation, sales, fair trade - what influence does the designer have on manufacturing complexity and waste levels, for example ?
• Garment care - what the consumer does after purchasing a garment, which makes up a significant element of the garment's total life-cycle impact, often greater than the impact of producing the garment.

I then  I ran through a reasonably exhaustive list of issues for consideration by designers including  fabric traceability, organics, garment life-cycle, labelling,  issues related to body image, use of pesticides, models and modelling practices, technology developments which facilitate use of environmentally friendlier fabrics such as hemp, and more.

Finally I looked at the question of transparency and yes, you guessed it, my favourite subject, reporting, and talked about the leading reporters in the fashion industry, including the only private fashion house in Israel to have produced a CSR report, my client, comme il faut.  I mentioned the Global Compact, and our efforts to drive the Israeli fashion industry to accept and promote the UNGC Principles, though only the comme il faut Company has done so to date, and one more en route, whose first Communication on Progress we are currently working on.

To sum up,  I stitched it all together (don't you just love puns?) and suggested that if they care, they should take responsibility, as designers, and consider social and environmental issues at the start of the design process. Perhaps if I ever become a celeb, one of them might design an eco-celeb-outfit for me. Chunky Monkey colours, please.

I also referred those who are keen to learn more to my list of wonderful books, all of which I have read, enjoyed , learnt from and been inspired by, on the subject of ethical and sustainable fashion, textiles and apparel. Here's my list, in no particular order, they are all great!:

• Eco-chic: The Fashion Paradox, by Sandy Black
• Sustainable Fashion and Textiles : Design Journeys , by Kate Fletcher
• The China Price: The True Cost of Competitive Advantage, by Alexandra Harney
• Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist examines the markets, power and politics of world trade, by Pietra Rivoli
• Social Responsibility in the Global Apparel Industry by Dickson, Loker and Eckman
• Eco Chic: How to be ethical and easy on the eye, by Matilda Lee

I waited as some rushed to copy down the titles. Good sign!

Later, as I pondered over  questions the students asked, and the real impact of their work, I tried to recall  to what extent designers are given air-time in CSR reports. I recalled the wonderful 2005-2006 report by Gap Inc where they state : In our business, everything begins with design.And later in the report, there is a quote from the Director of Textile Development:

Quick look at one more: Next plc, whose 2009 report I just came accross a day or so ago. It's an interesting report, doesn't really touch on the role of the designer, thoough there is evidence that designers are bound by social and environmental commitments such as the development of traceable sustainable cotton products and more.

I hope that this new generation of designers will be a generation of sustainable designers. And I hope that consumers will both demand and applaud this direction. That is, if anyone cares.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en 

Unassured and fed up

I read many sustainability reports, and  many assurance statements. Today, i lost my rag. (I was cleaning the kitchen) The quality of sustainability report assurance is abysmal, on the whole. So many Companies taking good money to provide what should be a seal of quality on  sustainability reports offering not much more than a page of printed hot-air seems to me to be highly irresponsible. Maybe assurance assignments are easy money. Maybe they are not as sexy as reporting assignments. Maybe the providers just dont have the skills, or are not willing to guarantee the quality of their auditing work for fear of liability. Maybe someone might actually make a decision based on the quality of the assurance? What a disaster! Whatever the reason, assurance is just not making the grade. And worse, the Global Reporting Initiative, in awarding a "+" at each Application Level, without checking the quality, for so-called  assured reports, unwittingly perhaps, is complicit in this devaluation of the assurance process. So I took pen to paper (fingers to keyboard) and sent a letter to the CEO of the GRI. Here it is: 

Sunday ,6th December 2009

For the Attention of:
Mr Ernst Ligteringen
CEO
The Global Reporting Initiative
 
Dear Ernst, 
Quality of Sustainability Report Assurance Practices and Allocation of “+” in the GRI Report Check
As you may know, my business in Israel, BeyondBusiness Ltd, is a strong supporter of the GRI, and we are Organizational Stakeholders. We provide sustainability reporting services to a range of clients, who we always encourage to report against the GRI framework. My business partner, Liad Ortar, was the one who took the initiative to translate the GRI Framework into Hebrew back in 2006, creating greater accessibility for local Companies and paving the way for GRI reporting in Israel. In fact, we wrote the first GRI (Application Level B) report in Israel for Bank Leumi together with their team, the first GRI report at application level A for comme il faut, a private fashion Company, and now we are working on the first GRI report for a non-profit in Israel. In between, we have written several other GRI reports. We like the GRI framework and apply it for all types of organizations in all sectors. Of course, there are elements which could be improved in the future, but overall, we are strong advocates. In addition, we always encourage our clients to have their report checked by the GRI, to ensure confirmation of proper adherence to the guidelines.

There is one area, however, where I feel the GRI does not do justice to the reporting process, and this relates to Assurance. The role of Assurance is to enhance credibility and trust in the report, as a promise to stakeholders that the report has been independently, externally verified by a qualified expert, or group of experts, both in terms of the accuracy of content and the relevance of material issues, and in terms of the fair and balanced representation of the overall content. In checking reports, for the award of a “+” Application Level, the GRI checks only the presence of an Assurance Statement, not the quality of the content or the appropriateness of the assurer. The "+" award provides a benefit for Companies, as the “+” tends to promote the assumption that the GRI confirms that the Assurance Statement achieves the appropriate quality of verification, as per the GRI guidelines. Companies who publish an A+, B+ or C+ report indicate by definition that their report has adhered to these standards.

I read, write and regularly review reports. My reviews are published on www.CorporateRegister.com/reviews for all to view. In performing such reviews, I try to assess whether the report presents a credible and trustworthy picture of the organization’s Corporate Responsibility activities. Of course, I always read the Assurance Statement, if there is one.

And now to the crux of my message.
In many cases, the Assurance Statement seriously lacks the ability to assure.

• Often the statement is a partial assurance of only a very small sample of the report – for example – the carbon emissions.
• Often the statement fails to give reasonable evidence that the Assurance Provider has done the rigorous work required to draw a conclusion about the quality and material relevance of the report.
• In many cases, the Assurance Statement is signed off by a Company and it is not known who actually did the Assurance work. In one currently “featured” report, the name of the Assurer is not legible.  
• In other cases, the Assurance statement is largely a reprint of the prior year’s statement.
• I have seen one report where the Assurer was the very same consultant who supported the entire development and writing of the report, which is a serious breach of the assurance “quality standards” that require the Assurer to be a party “not unduly limited by their relationship with the organization or its stakeholders.”
• One report, which is a currently GRI “featured report” is an integrated report and contains only an audit of the financial statements, and no verification of the sustainability content, as far as I can see.
• And it is almost never clear what changes have been made to the report content prior to publishing as a result of the Assurer’s intervention.

And yet, the GRI automatically awards a “+” for all Assurance Statements, just because the Reporter shows they exist. This, in my view, undermines the contribution of the assurance process and devalues the GRI check.

I suggest the GRI should take a stronger stand on the subject of assurance, and that the GRI should check that:

1. The Assurer is external to the reporting organization and not  engaged in any other form of service provision with the Reporting Company for at least 12 months prior to providing assurance.
2. The Assurer has relevant experience of corporate responsibility practices qualifies him or her to do the work, and signs the Statement in his or her name.
3. The Assurance Statement relates to the entire content of the report, disclosing the detailed methodology used.
4. The Assurance Statement makes reference to specific core material issues and whether the reporting Company has addressed these in the report
5. The Assurance Statement gives positive confirmation, and not a statement of several negatives that confirm only that the Assurer has not noticed inconsistencies or errors, but has positively done the work to conclude that the content is accurate and relevant.

Anything less, should not deserve a "+".

In a review of several of the current featured reports on the GRI Website, I find that adherence to the above criteria is low. Few of the statements I reviewed suggest a professional and quality approach to assurance, and the GRI approach seems to condone this.

I would like to recommend, that the GRI adopts a new policy to read and check Assurance Statements, and award “+” only if the Assurance Statement and the Assurer meet the above criteria.

This does not preclude a Company including a consultant’s statement, or opinions of experts relating to part or all of the report. This is often a nice touch, and adds value, but it does not carry the validity of a formal Assurance Statement which earns the Company the highest level of adherence to the GRI Framework with a “+” designation.

I would be grateful if the GRI would consider this recommendation and a possible change to its practice with regard to the checking of assured reports in the future. I send you this letter as an open letter, which I plan to publish simultaneously on my Reporting Blog , in the hope that it will generate some discussion from other reporting professionals as you consider this recommendation.

Thank you for reading this letter, and for all the GRI does to promote sustainability.
I look forward to hearing from you 

Warm regards,

Chunky Monkey Me Elaine 

 *********************

That was the letter. I don't expect that the GRI response will be an ethusiastic YES OF COURSE, though i do believe the GRI, as a multi-stakeholder organization, will be receptive to feedback, and hope this will be taken in good spirit. Whatever the response, I could not remain passive on this issue, which irks me time and time again every day as I dip in to some report or other.
By the way, the report mentioned above which has an assurance statement signed illegibly - well, see what you can make of this

Maybe it was written by an alien ?

CorporateRegister.com produced a good report about  Assurance approaches in July 2008 called AssureView.This report discusses quite well the difficultues of assurance including the fact that there is no "common currency" or accepted methodology of performing assurance of non-financial data. The conclusion hits the nail on the head:

So what do you think ? Am i unassured and fed up all alone ? Should the GRI change its policy? Do you read and believe Assurance Statements ? And how important is all of this?

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Prostitution, fashion and communicating CSR

Embed. Once more. Interweave CSR into the fabric of your business. This is my fifth and final post on this subject, (for now!) inspired by Ethical Corporation's 2009 research report called How to Embed Corporate Responsibility across different parts of your Company.We already covered how people do it (embedding CSR in Human Resources ), how buyers buy it (Procurement function ), how accountants count it (Finance function ) and how truckers truck it (Operations and Logistics Function). Now, we examine how they all talk it. Embedding CSR in  corporate communications - internal, external, marcom and reporting.

With case studies and insights from the Man Group (don't worry girls, this isn't a gender thing, the Man group was founded by James Man over 225 years ago. Not his fault if he had a gender-biased name), Hewlett Packard, Novo Nordisk, BT, Vodafone, Starbucks, Pepsico and reference to research findings from McKinsey, embeddng communications covers reporting (ahaaaaaaaaaaa, my favourite subject. See ?  I saved the best for the last) and how to make reporting effective, marketing to consumers using CR messages, and communicating with your colleagues internally.

One of the things I liked in the research paper was a quotation from the Global Triple Bottom Line Management at Novo Nordisk who said that the report is a key method for "keeping the Company accountable for performance". This is often underestimated as a prime use for CSR reports. The more internal and external stakeholders that know about corporate goals and objectives, the more pressure there is on the individuals in the business to deliver. Another interviewee goes even further and says that reporting should drive behaviour change.  In my experience, this does happen.

Another thing about CSR communications is that the core message should be spead by every employee in the Company, in a way that is relevant to her or him, and her or his role in the business, and in her or his own words. I will illustrate this with an example  from one of my clients in the local market.

Communications and dialogue has long been at the heart of the comme il faut fashion house in Israel. Every bi-annual fashion collection is supported by a social campaign which involves employees and customers in dialogue.

 from comme il faut Winter 2010 collection

Last season's campaign, a bold move, was centered around customers bringing to the Company an unwanted bra, in return for which they received a discount on new purchases, whilst the Company donated cash to support healthcare for women trapped in prostitution. You can imagine that the subject of prostitution is not one which is easily introduced into the world of  fashion, beauty, positive body image etc, and it was not without a certain trepidation that this company for women, known to be outspoken in promoting women's rights, decided to stand up publicly for women who have been abused by society. Before this campaign launched, many internal dialogues were held with employees of the fashion house, both to help them understand the plight of women trapped in prostitution and protitution survivors, who still need much support, and also to build their skills in engaging customers on this subject.  I facilitated many of these conversations and was fascinated by the range of insights this brought out. Subsequently, during the campaign, each of the several thousand customers who donated a bra engaged in a conversation about prostitution and also benefited  from new insights.

The current campaign  for the Winter 2010 collection is themed Re-fashion, and looks at what endears us to certain items of clothing year after year, and how we can re-fashion and re-fresh them so that they can serve us even longer, inspired by the principles of environmentally preferable "slow-fashion" . Customers bring in an item of clothing, which the comme il faut designers examine in order to understand why  that particular garment is so special that it stands the test of time. The customer gains a discount on new purchases and the opportunity to win a $5,000 new wardrobe. And women trapped in prostitution get a new garment as a gift from comme il faut for every old one that is brought in. This has doubled the conversation effect. Not only is the social content still present, but now the Company can engage customers in conversation about their most intimate reasons for wearing the same pair of trousers, or the same blouse or skirt, year after year, and use the customer experience in the new garment design process.  

Why is all this important ? Because these campaigns embrace the principles of corporate social responsibility in processes based on communications. They require every employee in the business to understand and engage with the campaign and what the Company is trying to communicate. It makes them think about their own role in supporting the campaign and furthering the commercial and social objectives. And it help them understand the way others think and use this in making business decisions.  And this, in my view, is what embedding CSR is all about.

By the way, you can read comme il faut's CSR report (I led the writing of this report) here.

I have now completed my series of posts on embedding CSR in different functions of the business. Thank you to Ethical Corp for the research report which prompted this series. And now, if you see me walking around in my undies, the reason is probably that i gave all the rest of my clothes to comme il faut ....

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

REPORTING AWARDS: please vote!

The corporate register reporting awards are open for voting.YEAH !!!!!.

Please go to http://www.corporateregister.com/crra to vote.

And a special request:
Please vote for the comme il faut report in the Best SME category.
This is a breakthrough report - first in Israel at GRI level A checked, first private company report, first fashion business report, amazing design and comprehensive content. I am NOT objective. I wrote it! But it's a great report. And i would really like to see my client win an award. This is also the only Israeli report in the competition.

The Corporate Register is the best reference point for reporting. It stores over 18,000 reports and boasts 23,500 users. There are 120 reports in ths years competition, and some of them (!) are absolutely exceptional.

This is the second Reporting Awards. Last years competition included 300 reports. To see who won, take a look here: http://www.corporateregister.com/crra_last/

Please vote!

Reporting is a critical tool in the development of transparency in business. Any report is better than no report, but the awards is an ackowledgement that reporting requires more than just a desire to be transparent, it requires the existence of true csr processes in the business (otherwise there's nothing to report, right ?) and a professional and methodical approach to describing csr approach and performance. The awards offer recognition for the leaders in this field, and broader awareness for reporting companies and csr issues.

Reporting in itself is a catalyst for action, and regonition for reporters is a catalyst for reporting.

Well done to the corporate register for this initiative!