10 ways to have CSR fun in Berlin in September

Planning go to Berlin on 14-16 September 2016? Could possibly get there on 14-16 September 2016? There anyway? Let me help you decide how to have some fun on those days.

1. Go to one of the best Ice Cream Shops in Berlin and try out at least 5 flavors.

2. Attend the opening session of the 7th International Conference on Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility at Humboldt University. The conference theme is "CSR in an age of digitization".

At 08:45 precisely on Wednesday 14th September, Joachim Schwalbach will take the stage to open  up three days of spectacular debate, as he has done for the International CSR Conference Series since its inception in 2004. Joachim is Professor emeritus of International Management at Berlin's Humboldt University, and a prominent expert in CSR and related topics with a distinguished academic career to date. 

I asked Joachim about his hopes for the upcoming conference.

Joachim Shwalbach: "Based on the take-out of the conference in 2014, my hope is that we find ways for technological innovations to empower individuals and organizations to contribute to society's well-being. The last conference concentrated on the connection between innovation and sustainability. There were many insights resulting from that conference, but I will mention only three: First, given the challenge to global sustainability, incremental improvements are not enough. Instead, sustainability driven innovations increase the likelihood to improve value creation by companies and in society. Second, the conference brought two camps, innovation and sustainability, together. These disciplines do not normally pay attention to each other in companies as well as in academia. Third, digitization may help to speed up the process so that innovation and sustainability will be present in all elements of the value chain in companies. The 2016 conference will be a natural extension of our thinking in 2014."  

Well, there you are, and we are only at number two thing to do. If you are not convinced, read on for 8 more fun things to do. 

3. Attend the first plenary at 0900 on Wednesday 14th September at the 7th International Conference on Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility at Humboldt University. Join Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, Georg Kell, Vice Chairman of Arabesque Partners, an asset management firm for sustainable investing and the founding Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact until recently and David Kiron, executive editor of MIT Sloan Management Review's Big Ideas initiatives. They'll present their thoughts on CSR and Digitization. Surely that's fun enough to convince you to participate in this session. But if not, read on..

4. Come and have a drink with me at the Hotel de Rome. At the heart of everything that happens in Berlin, the Hotel de Rome is a great startpoint for your Berlin sightseeing. Unfortunately, I won't be doing much of that.. see points 5., 7., and 8.

5. Join me for a plenary panel that I will chair  with a formidable group of experts at 14:00 on Wednesday 14th September on the subject of Digital Accountability. How is the digital world affecting communications with stakeholders? What is digitization doing to reporting and do we like it? Come and ask the tough questions!


6. Enjoy fresh the Berlin air in the Campus Mitte around Humboldt University's main building, at the boulevard "Unter den Linden", between Brandenburg Gate and the Dome of Berlin. While you are there, pop in to one of the rich, informative and educational sessions at the 7th International Conference on Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility.

7. Join me for another plenary panel that I will chair with another formidable group of experts at 09:00 on Thursday 15th September on the subject of Innovations in Sustainable Development with a focus on Human Rights. What are the practical steps being taken by companies to protect human rights? What outcomes can be identified? What innovations are we seeing? What are the minimum disclosure standards we should expect from corporations relating to human rights? How are we seeing the evolution of such disclosures today? What are the gaps? More on this .. but only if you show up. It's ok - you can bring ice cream.


8. Join me for yet another plenary panel that I will chair with yet another formidable group of experts at 14:00 on Thursday 15th September on the subject of Innovative Philanthropy and Impact Investing. What are the similarities and differences, and how can you tell? What contributes most to sustainable development? What's driving what? Don't worry, there won't be a call for financial contributions.

9. Join me for a massage at the Spa in the Hotel de Rome. After chairing all these plenary panels, even ice cream may not be enough to keep me cool and collected. The spa is located in what was once a vault for gold and jewellery. (The Hotel was built to house the headquarters of the Dresdner Bank in 1887). Maybe they didn't clean it out properly and we might find a few diamond tiaras and a ruby or two.

10. Go to one of the best Ice Cream Shops in Berlin and try out all the flavors you didn't already try. Joachim Schwalbach's favorite flavor is Cookies and Cream, so don't gorge yourself on that, so there is some left for him.

I could have continued with at least another 45 fun things to do in Berlin on 14-16 September (most of them associated with the CSR Conference). However, these are the Top Ten. If you allocate your time well, and screen your calls, you can probably manage to do all of them. Wow, that's a whole lot of fun in Berlin in three days. See you there?

I'll leave you with another thought from Joachim Schwalbach: "CSR or sustainability departments in companies have reached a cross-roads: Either they improve their competence as a valuable partner for the companies' top management to show that CSR aspects are key success factors, or they do business as usual and remain in their niche, not recognized as one of the most important drivers of business success." Yes, that's something else we'll be talking about in Berlin. Now you HAVE to come.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, 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 Twitter (@elainecohen) or via my business website www.b-yond.biz (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm). Need help writing your first / next Sustainability Report? Contact elaine: info@b-yond.biz

Liberty Global: Empowering more than digital

There is something empowering about Liberty Global's 2015 Corporate Responsibility Report - and it's not only the title. While Liberty Global may be referring to "Empowering Positive Change through Digital", the truth is that this report is an empowering experience for most who read and publish reports. 

Once again, the folks at Liberty Global set themselves a challenge... at 22 pages, this is the shortest, but probably the most powerful report yet from Liberty Global. It's a full 10 pages shorter than 2015, and less than half the length of the (first) 2011 Report .. all the while the company has been growing, expanding, acquiring, developing and connecting more and more millions to the digital world. There is a certain skill to delivering more performance, writing fewer words and, at the same time, producing a Corporate Responsibility Report that gets the message through, is G4-compliant and actually, very interesting. Liberty Global not only continues to improve sustainability performance; with every report, the reporting team demonstrates greater skill in articulating it succinctly.

In my post about the 2015 report, I offered four process points that explain this winning formula.

First, get the strategic framework right. 

Second, be completely selective about what to include and what to exclude. 

Third, once you have selected the content and stories, keep the narrative compact, minimal, and avoid repetition. 

Fourth, where you can, use visuals to tell the story and save on words. 

I think today, I would probably add a fifth element: Plan and stick to the plan. Starting your report by clearly envisioning the outcome, planning the page-by-page content and making choices before the keyboard starts to rattle, is the key to maintaining the discipline required of all the four other steps. In this way, the process becomes empowering. It enables all the players involved to focus on what's really important and wastes less time in often unproductive debate. Also, a shorter report means fewer words to proof and correct, fewer drafts to revise, fewer content-providers to herd in to approve their sections and far less overall time investment than most longer report counterparts. And, stakeholders still get to know what they need to know.

This year, Liberty Global published a new strategic framework. It builds on the legacy framework that Liberty Global created four years ago, and still plays in the space of opportunity, positive impact and doing good with digital. With an overarching theme of Connected Purpose, the new framework has two clear pillars: Digital Imagination and Responsible Connectivity. 

You will also see the connection to the material impacts reported by Liberty Global, that informed the new strategic framework.

The 2015 Corporate Responsibility Report follows the structure of the strategic framework. Learning about Digital Imagination, we read about how Liberty Global is helping share skills that are needed in the digital economy, investing in innovators and entrepreneurs to use digital technology to inspire social change and bringing people together to use digital technology to solve the most pressing issues facing society. A few select case studies show that it's not all (just a few) words. It's (just a few) words that are underpinned by real actions. 

In Responsible Connectivity, Liberty Global walks us through how the Company is improving customer service, protecting customers’ personal data and helping keep children safe online. In the section on Sustainable Growth, Liberty Global demonstrates strong progress against 2020 environmental goals and describes how it connects with industry colleagues to reduce grid dependency and improve the emissions efficiency of the telecommunications sector as a whole. In Empowering People, the narrative describes how Liberty Global continues to invest in and develop its workforce which has now grown to more than 65,000 employees (including outsourced employees). Here again, a light sprinkling of case studies adds credibility.

In this case study, the picture shows Crystal Crawford, Liberty Global's CR
Manager (left), and Marta Pagan, CR Reporting Team Member (right)
one of the smartest reporting teams I know

The report finishes up with Liberty Global's signature Performance Summary - two pages packed with four years of environmental, workforce and other social data points, the most essential ones for most stakeholders. Presenting data in such a concise and well-ordered way is yet another element of skilled, focused reporting. This presentation empowers report users to get to what they need fast, and easily see trends and performance ups and downs.

 

As in prior years, Liberty Global publishes a separate GRI Content Index, also available for download. This includes one of my favorite tables - the G420-21 table - providing a road-map showing the route from material impacts to performance indicators. So many G4 reports still fail to make this bridge - and leave a list of material issues hanging in mid-report with no connection to the performance indicators actually reported. Every G4 report should have a table like this.

As far as reports go, Liberty Global has again produced a report that is both short and empowering in more ways than one. I'd love to write more but I am worried that this post might actually become longer than the report itself .. haha.

And, as usual, a little disclosure: Liberty Global is my client and I worked on this report.

And, as usual as usual, take a look. Give feedback.


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, 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 Twitter (@elainecohen)  or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm).  Need help writing your first / next Sustainability Report? Contact elaine: info@b-yond.biz 

Short reports, big messages

Some of the best reports are the shortest. Writing a short report doesn't mean you lose the big message. On the contrary, short reports focus the mind on the right information for the right stakeholders. So, when Liberty Global decided to prepare the Group's 2014 annual G4 core Corporate Responsibility Report at 32 pages (excluding covers), this immediately caused the adrenaline to flow and the brain-cells to gravitate to a different approach to reporting that is much more focused and strategic than the intuitive approach of "let's gather everything we can and report on that". Heaven forbid that a company should forget to include the $1,500 donation that operators in the packing plant collected for Oxfam, or the Christmas party held for local schoolkids, or the color of the plant manager's new socks. All of these things are great, but when you tune yourself in to reporting strategically on the most important things - what I call relevant transparency - then you end up with an immensely readable, compact and relevantly transparent report. 

That's not to say that Liberty Global doesn't pack a punch with this report. Partially, this is because this strategic approach is not new. Liberty Global adopted a clear CR framework in 2012 and has empowered this framework to guide the global corporate approach and activities, improving in focus and sharpness with each successive year.

Promoting a digital society is at the heart of the strategy and represents one of the group's most material impacts. Liberty Global is the largest international cable company with 27 million customers subscribing to 56 million television, broadband internet and telephony services, operating in 14 countries and employing more than 38,000 people. Consumer brands owned by Liberty Global that you might recognize include Virgin Media, Ziggo, Telenet and UPC. The Liberty Global report covers activity driven at corporate level and provides a framework and direction for the companies in the group, most of whom report separately in their own markets. The digital society is Liberty Global's core business and advancing access and skills to take advantage of the digital society is both a social good and a business benefit. Strategically, Liberty Global has aligned business, sustainability and materiality. This forms the basis for reporting and enables the possibility of an extremely focused report.

Keeping the report short is then a four pronged affair: First, get the strategic framework right. Check. Second, be completely selective about what to include and what to exclude. Adding in loads more case studies - and there are plenty in a company the size of Liberty Global - is not an advantage. Selecting specific stories that illustrate performance and are representative of material impacts is what you aim for. Exclude the non-critical stories. Check. Third, once you have selected the content and stories, keep the narrative compact, minimal, and avoid repetition. Check. Fourth, where you can, use visuals to tell the story and save on words while getting the message across. Check.

Example of a visual used to present a lot of information about Liberty Global's digital society initiatives.

One of the impressive features of Liberty Global's reporting is the consistency of alignment to a set of multi-year commitments. As with prior reports, in 2014, Liberty Global clearly updates us on progress made against these commitments and advises new ones. Commitments (or targets) are available for each material impact area -  a total of 14 targets in all. Just a couple didn't progress as planned, and these are communicated transparently.

Each of the report's main sections starts with an explanation of why it matters and what Liberty Global is doing.

Aside from the presentation, Liberty Global has made impressive headway in its Corporate Responsibility performance over the past few years, and in 2015, was named the RobecoSAM Industry Mover, achieving the largest proportional performance improvement among industry peers. Liberty Global has improved energy and carbon efficiency against 2020 targets, and has advanced a program of supply chain assessment of key suppliers based on self-assessments against 21 environmental and social indicators. And as for promoting a digital society, Liberty Global has been a consistent support and key player in the Digital Agenda for Europe , investing in programs such as YouRock’s employability platform and CoderDojo, a not-for-profit coding club across Europe with 60 sessions that reached 2,000 young people.

Here is the press release that gives some more highlights of the report.

For a short report, that is aligned with GRI G4 Guidelines, Liberty Global's 2014 Corporate Responsibility Report gets the message across. I recommend you take a look. And give feedback!

Disclosure: I assisted Liberty Global in preparing the 2014 Corporate Responsibility Report.


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, 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 Twitter (@elainecohen)  or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm).  Need help writing your Sustainability Report? Contact elaine: info@b-yond.biz   

Liberty Global brings on G4

It's always a privilege to work with companies that are passionate about helping create a better society for us all. I have been pleased to work with a fantastic team at Liberty Global to help develop their latest publication, the company's third Corporate Responsibility Report, under the heading: Empowering a Digital Society, launched this week.  

It's a first G4 report for Liberty Global at G4 core level, with a full G4 content index online. And guess what, it's short. Weighing in at only 40 pages, Liberty Global shows how a G4 report can be focused, complete and actually very interesting. In line with the corporate mission "Connect. Discover. Be Free.", this report is about possibilities, opportunities and the transformation that technology can help create. 

As Liberty Global is the largest cable company in the world with more than 45 million subscribers, that's a lot of transformation. With a materiality matrix that places digital inclusion and protecting children online at the forefront of this international cable company's CR considerations, Liberty Global drives CR home at the core of its business. In promoting a digital society, and helping people have the confidence to get online and build the skills to do so effectively, Liberty Global's business encourages us to make the most of new digital opportunities. 

One example of many in the range of ways Liberty Global invests in promoting a digital society is through involvement with CoderDojo. CoderDojo is a volunteer-led global movement that offers free coding clubs for young people. Children between the ages of 5 and 17 learn how to make websites, applications and internet games. Dojo workshops are set up, run and taught by volunteers and offer a fun environment for discovering and developing new skills. Wish I were 17 again! I'd spend all my time at Dojos coding internet games about ice cream. Liberty Global subsidiary Telenet, in Belgium, hosted CoderDojo events to give young people an opportunity to develop the skills that will help them secure a meaningful future. In 2014, Liberty Global is supporting CoderDojo with an additional 60 Dojos across Europe, reaching an additional 2,000 young people. 

As a parent, protecting my kids online is always a concern and I have had a rather scary near-miss with my own daughter. Therefore, I can appreciate the value of the significant investment Liberty Global makes in developing tools for educators, parents and kids of different ages to help keep kids safe online and develop their online identity with consciousness of both the opportunities and the risks. Kids develop several identities online, and they are not always aware of the digital footprint they are leaving behind. The Web We Want was developed by Liberty Global, the third in a trilogy of tools to provide assistance for safe behavior online., help kids control the information they leave on the internet and decide who they want to interact with. 

In this report, Liberty Global also communicates new environmental targets to 2020. The company commits to improving the energy efficiency of its electricity consumption by 15% every year through 2020 and becoming five times more carbon efficient by 2020. Advanced technology that combines functionality in different ways has enabled Liberty Global to increase the energy efficiency of its latest set-top boxes by 40%. This means that customers using set-top boxes in the home can reduce their energy consumption, an advantage both for the bank account and for the environment. On the supply chain front, a new program was launched to assess the environmental and social performance of Liberty Global's largest 100 suppliers and this will be expanded to 200 suppliers this year. 

One of the challenges for a global company such as Liberty Global is finding the common ground that connects Liberty Global subsidiary companies on a shared page. This includes companies such as Virgin Media, Telenet, UPC and more, each reporting on CR in their own right, each with slightly different considerations in their local markets. Pulling that together in a way that leverages the strengths of the global organization and embraces the differences of each component part requires patience, skill, flexibility and inspiration. My experience with Liberty Global is that the culture is one of possibility, not one of overly prescriptive frameworks and rules, and that best practice in one part of the company is recognized and can be leveraged for the benefit of all companies. 

With this report, it's clear that ‘Empowering a digital society’ is more than promoting technology. Helping people take advantage of technology is empowering them in new and different ways, and this includes people inside the organization as well as its customers. 

Take a look at this new report, get inspired, give feedback.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, 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

How to grow revenues by connecting women

I am often asked, by clients or people I meet in the course of my work: What is the difference between embedding CSR into business decisions and doing business that improves sales and profits, provided its ethical? When you talk about embedding CSR into business decisions, its hard to know where business stops and CSR sets in. After all, both should lead to better business results. How can you know when a business decision has integrated CSR principles, or if it was based solely on goals of delivering income and profit growth? Doing "good" business, beyond philanthropy and community investment, is just doing good business. Or is it? 

I often answer this question rather simply, in a way that more or less aligns with the direction described in the Big Idea of Porter and Kramer, who explain: 

"The solution lies in the principle of shared value, which involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. Businesses must reconnect company success with social progress. Shared value is not social responsibility, philanthropy, or even sustainability, but a new way to achieve economic success. It is not on the margin of what companies do but at the center."

My answer, then, is about the considerations involved in developing new business initiatives or products. If it's about selling more to create economic growth (which is, in general, a good thing if business is done ethically), then this is hardly embedded CSR. Economic growth alone, as we have seen, does not always produce equitable social benefit and even risks perpetuating many of the global divides - poverty, malnutrition, access to medicine etc - that society faces today. Embedded CSR means approaching business development in a different way, that includes an assessment of the social and environmental impacts of potential decisions, and the social and environmental imperatives in the markets where a company operates. In making such decisions, then, economic considerations as well as social and environmental considerations share valuable weight in the decision-making process. The outcomes are measurable benefits to business, to the economy and also equitable social advancement. 

So far, I suspect, there's not much new here for the rather enlightened readers of this blog. Most of you already will already be familiar with shared value and integrating CSR type concepts. So let's get to the point. It's this. Vodafone. Mobile Technology. Economic Empowerment. Measurable Outcomes. Connected Women.

Earlier this year, Vodafone published one of the most fascinating reports I have read in a long while about the effects of mobile technology on women's empowerment and improvement in the quality of life. It's called: Connected Women. This actually missed my radar a few months back when it was launched, in March, at a Vodafone Connected Women Summit. Better late than never, I guess, and what's more, it's still relevant, of course. I learnt about it this week via an item from IndiaCSR, reporting the launch of the Connected Women report in India by Cherie Blair. 

The report is the summary of research for the Vodafone Foundation conducted by Accenture Sustainability Services. In addition to assessing the impact of increasing mobile ownership among women, Accenture modeled the potential social, economic and commercial impact of five services in the areas of education, health, safety, work and loneliness in 2020. These services are: 

1. mobile learning for adult literacy 

2. Text to Treatment: using mobile payments to cover travel costs to receive maternal healthcare 

3. an alert system for women at high risk of domestic violence 

4. a mobile inventory management system for rural female retailers 

5. new services to connect elderly people to their family, friends and carers.

The research ran in 27 markets around the world where Vodafone does business.

Conclusions are summarized in this infographic below, with the overriding message that the services Vodafone provides in the markets where it does business could enable 8.7 million women to improve their lives. Around the world an estimated 300 million fewer women than men own a mobile phone.  

I guess we all know that mobile technology can support education, health, safety and work so it is clear that improving access in these areas will have social benefits. The Vodafone reports looks at each of these issues in detail, and in relation to the special opportunities that women could enjoy, providing perspectives, data and impacts. There are some very compelling examples. The thing that I found most eye-opening is the issue related to loneliness. I guess, at some level, we know that phone and internet can help older people feel connected. We have all heard the stories of delighted grandparents who sent their first email to their grand-kids. But loneliness as a social issue is perhaps more real and more extensive than we imagined. In Spain, for example, 38% of people over 65 that live alone or have limited mobility report feeling lonely, the research shows.

"Loneliness and social isolation in old age can lead to sadness and anxiety and can even affect physical health. It is particularly a problem for women, since they are more likely to live longer and to live alone in old age."

Vodafone's initiatives in this area meet such real social needs - perhaps even ones that haven't yet been fully articulated - and open up opportunities for great business. Vodafone cites a potential $1.7 billion annual economic benefit to society in 2020 through reduced healthcare costs and informal carers being able to return to work. This translates into a potential $450 million cumulative revenue for Vodafone through 2020. Just by helping older women feel more connected.  

One of the neatest things in this report is the summary of findings and impacts. 

In each area, there is a clear benefit for society and a clear revenue opportunity for Vodafone as a result of empowering women through technology. The report closes with four recommendations, that place focus on doing business differently, engaging in partnerships and considering new business models.

Focus on women’s needs and preferences: Only by understanding their different needs as well as user preferences in each market, can operators provide the tailored services that will be valued by women customers. 

Local implementation with relevant partnerships:  Operators will need to work in partnership with NGOs, partners and funders to launch programmes at scale. Working with local partners will enable operators to leverage their expertise and networks to reach more women more effectively. 

Explore new models and funding options: Different economic models would be required to deliver the different services at scale. An estimated $900 million in donor funding would be required to achieve wide uptake of the modelled services in health, work and education in emerging markets. The mobile learning and Text to Treatment services are likely to require ongoing, large-scale donor or public sector funding. Nominal fees for services to recover development costs and public sector investments could contribute to these costs in some circumstances. Other services, such as those focused on work, safety and loneliness, have the potential to be self financing or revenue generating. 

Use local infrastructure and existing technologies: Combining projects with existing services, for example the M-Pesa mobile money transfer system, or infrastructure, such as local healthcare networks, will significantly improve reach and effectiveness.

Back to the question of how to define embedded CSR / shared value, it seems to me that this is an example of exactly that. It seems to me that Vodafone is quietly pioneering new business models and innovative ways of combining social needs with business development. 

It just so happens that I am currently reading Alice Korngold's excellent book, entitled: A Better World, Inc. In this book, Alice focuses on many of the ways that companies (including examples from Vodafone) are engaging in this new economy and achieving success through addressing social needs. In fact, Alice makes the point that "only global corporations have the resources, global reach and self-interest to build a better world". She says: 

In combination with a fundamentally RATS approach (responsibility, accountability, sustainability, transparency), corporations have the potential to change our lives for the better. This Vodafone example shows how. 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, 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