Corporate social responsibility provides competitive advantage in an evolving business environment.

By Tatjana de Kerros

The current economic and social climate in the UAE has put competitiveness, sustainability and responsible business at the top of the agenda. Whilst corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices have been controversially associated with improving brand recognition and enhancing a company’s reputation, this has neglected CSR’s potential of improving efficiency, productivity and market orientation. Rather, having a CSR strategy embedded within a business model not only serves in gaining a competitive advantage by increasing reputational appeal; but responds to changing stakeholder demands in an evolving environment.

The Dubai Chamber and PepsiCo launched the first comprehensive study of CSR and corporate governance in the UAE, finding 42% of respondents believe CSR increases productivity. However, 66% of companies in Dubai cited that a lack of awareness and financial resources prevented them from taking part in CSR initiatives.

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Originally posted on the CSRwire website.

By Francesca Rheannon

Offshore tax havens are starving economies of the capital needed for productive investment and saddling governments with crippling deficits.

The headlines scream it every day: city, state and national budgets are being cut, cut, cut. Citizens are up in arms, outraged that needed government services are being eliminated, wages and pensions slashed and the national patrimony sold off. The poor in “developing” countries are getting poorer and the funds to repair aging infrastructure or adapt to climate change are drying up. A “silver tsunami” of boomers turning 65 is heading our way while politicians threaten to shrink government support for medical care for the elderly - if not eliminate it entirely. And young people are seeing their future dry up and blow away in the wind.

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Sustainability pioneer John Elkington reports back from sustainability’s new frontier.

By John Elkington

When I recently had dinner in San Francisco with Joel Makower of GreenBiz, he blamed me for pulling him into the sustainability space over 20 years ago. (In the late 1980s, he translated our best-selling Green Consumer Guide into the American version.) Having just attended the London version of Joel’s brainchild VERGE, a rolling, invitation-only roundtable forum that kicked off in Shanghai and ended in San Francisco the following day, I feel quite proud. This was one of the most interesting events I have been to in a while – spotlighting key trends and opportunities at the intersection between energy, information, buildings and vehicles.

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Being a board member is a responsibility, not a sinecure.

By Elmira Bayrasli

The possibilities of the boardroom, board director Lucy P. Marcus believes, should aspire to the ideals that legendary medieval English King Arthur created at his famous table. There, knights gathered in effort and equality to erect a vast empire that changed history.

Change is one of the incentives driving individuals to join boards. Armed with good will and intentions and a collection of applicable skills to help entrepreneurial ventures, multinational corporations and non-profits catapult to success. It is this intention that has taken New York-born and UK-based Marcus to throw her passion behind sitting on boards as well as writing about best practices for boards and advising entrepreneurs, corporations and non-profits on how to develop strong boards. Board development, Marcus notes, is surprisingly something many entrepreneurs, who are so focused on their respective innovations, treat as an after thought. The situation is similar at non-profits. As a life-long member of this field, that caught my eye.

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CSR is no longer about risk mitigation and “doing no harm;” it’s about shared value creation.

Originally posted on the CSRwire website.

By Elaine Cohen

CSR is not what it used to be. Long gone are the days when managing your carbon emissions and contributing to the community were good enough. Today, the talk is about sustainable value creation. But is this a realistic objective for most companies?

CSR is no longer about risk mitigation and “doing no harm.” It’s no longer about being a responsible corporate citizen, paying taxes, developing employees or reducing carbon emissions. This kind of CSR activity may be a necessary stepping stone to sustainability but its return is limited. There is only so much money you can save by reducing your water consumption and only so many stakeholders you can appease by expanding your community outreach. The real prize is when the corporation moves beyond CSR.

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Originally posted on the CSRwire website.

By Francesca Rheannon

WikiLeaks revelations aren’t just about politics but also about how well corporate practices conform to stated CSR goals.

The news broke several weeks ago the suppliers of several major U.S. apparel companies had convinced the Obama Administration to kill a plan by the Haitian Parliament to raise the country’s minimum wage.

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Making the case for volunteer managers and fundraisers to journey together.

By Robert Rosenthal

As the Blackbaud Supporter Journey Tour makes its way across the country, jokes about Journey the band will definitely make less sense than they did yesterday in San Francisco. Steve Perry and company are actually from here, and so tunes like “Don’t Stop Believin’” are part of the official soundtrack of life here—and, something not easily translated.

Yet if there was one takeaway from the Blackbaud event, it was to not stop believin’ the day will come when volunteer and donor engagement operations will truly be integrated at all nonprofits—and, where leading tech services like Blackbaud and VolunteerMatch could work together to make life easier for nonprofit folks.

I want to be there…

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Social media empowers consumers to change the way companies do business.

By Simon Mainwaring

No doubt many readers of Talkback agree that free market capitalism has fallen into disrepute, proving to be ineffective in creating a prosperous society for everyone. Today, Wall Street banks, wealthy investors, corporate CEOs and boards continue to pursue profits at the expense of the overall society. Jobs are being outsourced to cheaper labor countries, worker salaries are falling and the middle class is slowly disappearing. Meanwhile calls for values-based practices, ethical conduct and concern for the greater good fall on deaf ears.

In response, many thought leaders and social visionaries have proposed new versions of capitalism – co-op capitalism, conscious capitalism, ethical capitalism, philanthrocapitalism and creative capitalism to name just a few. But these efforts are yet to have the impact we need to build a better world.

That is about to change.

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Innovative models shared at Europe’s first SOCAP conference.

Originally posted on the CSRwire website.

By Jeffrey Hollender

Innovation. Passion. Possibility. Potential. Just four words that come to mind when I think back on the first-ever SOCAP/Europe conference (an organization dedicated to the flow of capital towards social good), which took place on May 30-June 1 in Beurs van Berlage, an extraordinary building that was Amsterdam’s original stock exchange.

What transpired over the course of three days was an exploration into the wondrous realm of people fearlessly fighting back against a world gone wrong. People excited by their ideas and, yet, uncertain as to how those ideas would manifest themselves in the real world. With seven hundred people from more than 50 countries touching every corner of the globe present, the energy and excitement was palpable.

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