343 ways to report on Thanksgiving

You may not be surprised to know that Thanksgiving is a very popular theme for CSR Reports. There is possibly no better holiday than Thanksgiving to demonstrate your corporate citizenship efforts and hold various celebrations and events for the community. I found 343 references to Thanksgiving (using CorporateRegister.com's PDF search tool ) in CSR Reports over the years. 

Bacardi likes to celebrate Thanksgiving in style and in the 2012 Bacardi Report we can find references to an apparently very important Thanksgiving event in which 5,580kg of food were donated by Bacardi U.S.A. employees to the Abriendo Puertas food bank onThanksgiving in 2011. This was so important that it was mentioned four times in the same report. I wonder if that means they donated 22,320 kg?  

Alliant Techsystems Inc (ATK) also donated food - turkeys and other groceries - at Thanksgiving. Turkey is the traditional food eaten on Thanksgiving, unless you live in Alaskan villages, where whale meat is sometimes served up instead. I wonder if ATK included whale meat in their donation? 

Abengoa reported on their social programs in 2012, and lo and behold, there was lunch on Thanksgiving, just in between preventing breast cancer and pizza day events. The thing is, there's a misprint in the text and instead of saying Thanksgiving Day Luncheon, it says Thanksgiving Day lunch on. Maybe they ate the turkey and the letter "e" as well.   

In China, things got a little more creative. China Telecom shared coffee and love on Thanksgiving Day and ended up donating rice to a local Food Bank.

Integrys Energy tells a humanitarian story of many employees who selflessly helped to support devastated communities in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

But it's not all about turkeys and food banks. Grupo Ferrovial notes that traffic is heavy on Thanksgiving. Apparently, if you are not eating on Thanksgiving, you are going somewhere to eat. 

Another spectacular event is Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

However, watch out for the weather.

"Snoopy, SpongeBob Squarepants and other giant helium balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York could be grounded by high winds predicted for the holiday by weather forecasters"

But all is not lost. if you can't get to the parade on Thanksgiving, at least you have about another 330 CSR Reports to read in order to learn more about how corporate citizenship kicks into action on this special day and how it is reflected in sustainability reporting. 

The #CSR Reporting Blog wishes everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

(PS: If you find any turkey-flavored ice-cream, please let me know)


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm info@b-yond.biz