Scientific American Coverage on the Environment in China
August 6th, 2008 by Rich
Since starting this project, I have enjoyed highlighting many of the Scientific American article on China’s environment, and in the run up to the Beijing games they have released a large number of articles in their print and digital versions.
- The Price of Gas in China
- Can Coal and Clean Air Coexist in China?
- Sunrise on China’s First Carbon-Neutral City
- Back to the Future: Harnessing the Power of the Yangtze River
- China’s Big Push for Renewable Energy
- Is China’s Pollution Poisoning Its Children?
- After the Quake: Helping China Clean Up Their Environment
Each of these is well written, offer some nicely packaged commentary that I enjoyed, and hope you will as well
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March 31st, 2008 at 9:28 am
Adam,
A very timely post.
1) I have yet to hear anyone in China say that they had to cut budgets yet. Perhaps this is due to the bubble that has become our little market, but firms are actively out looking to look better
2) the firms that have the best programs, have the lowest turnover, the highest productivity, and some of the most loyal fans. why anyone would want to divest from that simply defies logic.
3) Excellent point about firms are only will to support the community when times are good. I think it says a lot about a firm who sticks to a budget even when all else looks bad. firms do get extra points for staying in the game, and this is especially true when a firms employees are engaged fully.
R
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
The argument rings loudly similar to the one we would often hear in advertising. When times are tough, ad budgets are frequently the first to be cut. Advertising is treated as an expense v. an investment. Evidence has shown that in downturns maintaining levels of advertising will in fact have an increased positive effect.
If your CSR initiatives are truly integrated into your business then it’s a non-issue. It’s the cost of doing business. If like the above example, CSR is an expense, then it’s looked at as a cost center and scrutinized accordingly.
You see the same thing happen with training and talent development. So called ‘people oriented’ organizations show their true colors in tight times.
Many of us are challenged with double whammy of recession in the US and inflation in China. It will reveal what kind of business model organizations are following.
jd
April 16th, 2008 at 8:09 am
A few of points:
I always get a bit nervous when I see CSR ‘rationalised’as risk assessment. Risk assessment is still reactive and by its nature acknowledges that there are accepted ‘trade offs’ to ‘manage risk’. This should not be CSR.
In fact you may want to read some of the latest literature around strategic sustainability assessment, where it’s more about asking the right kind of questions early in the planning stages rather than when a program has been implemented.
I think that in itself is an enormous shift for most companies to make. Primarily because the objective of a company first and foremost is to make money. And every decision following that will need to keep that in mind. This is not being cyncical but a rational and pragmatic fact.
Therefore in times of recession or economic hardship comapany executives will make decisions about how the company can keep making money. And 9 times out of 10 the way to keep making money is to reduce cost.
Also remember the global financial system is based on short term reporting and results therefore it is extremely hard for a company to committ to long term investments (unless maybe in the resource industry).
Lastly, as far as I can tell there is still very very little hard and relevant data demonstrating the ‘return on investment’in many aspects of CSR, especially programs within CSR like community investment, employee volunteering etc …
If we are to ensure that “CSR budgets” (whatever they may be?) are not cut then we need to look to emerging examples around energy efficency targets. These have been successfully adopted and embraced by industry because there is a clear correlation between cost savings and doing good (for the environment). The key point here is that it demonstrates cost savings - therefore a business value.
Some food for thought ….
April 16th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Rita
Quickly, as someone who heads up a volunteer organization and interacts with lots of corporates, I would disagree with their being no studies.
Personally, I know of 2 firms in Shanghai who conducted in house studies (one included more than 700 people) and it was clear that people were less likely to leave, that the helda higher opinion of their employer, that they chose that company because they had such a program, and that they told their friends/ family about their programs.
Also, Peter Drucker has some interesting cases. I will see if I can find the one I use for my corporate presentations, but the data is pretty clear. Volunteering increases ROI in a lot of ways.
R
April 16th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Thanks Rich. It would be interesting if you could share some of your insights because the verdict is still out for me regarding the ROI on employee volunteering.
I’m sure employee volunteering does add to ROI in terms of improved morale and possibly productivity but on its own I doubt employee volunteering can contribute to ROI.
Employee volunteering programs TOGETHER with a conducive working environment ie; respect for work life balance, open door policy, progressive management, well performing business, fair pay, incentives, employee benefits etc … contributes to overall ROI and productivity. But I would dispute that employee volunteering at the exclusion of the other factors I mentioned above contribute to ROI.
And I would go further to say that including a conducive working environment (and the above factors), without employee volunteering would still provide for high ROI and improved productivity.
It would also be interesting to know whether the employee volunteering program was company facilitated (ie; during company time, dedicated resource to manage program and not managed by an employee voluntarily)vs. employees from the company getting together and volunteering during their non working time.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Rita,
Give me a couple days to dig it up. I know it is somewhere in one of my external drives.
With regard to your comments, I would agree that you cannot be a company that treats employees poorly (each of the attributes you site are very subjective and each person will view differently) and then try and make it up through a day at an orphanage.
I have to actually find a company that has done that to be honest (at an extreme), and while I have seen my fair share of PR driven events, I will say that even those have some positive impact.
One thing I will note is that when reviewing the firm with the 700 responses, one stat did stick out. Essentially, the employees of this firm were more likely to speak of their company in a good light to friends/ family even when they were considering quitting. Interesting..
Thanks for the comments… you are provoking me to think at 1am!
R
April 16th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Rita,
I totally agree with you on the unfortunate short-term nature of the investment community. I wonder if recent circumstances will impact on number of companies going public, or going private, in order to get away from the shot-term nature of most financial investors. I had an interesting chat with some members of the Institute of Family Business last night around this issue, and evidently that sort of business has its advantages and disadvantages too.
The problem I have with trying to explain CSR as strategy is that most people I talk with are a very long way away from seeing this, from seeing CSR as ‘just good business’, though I am constantly trying to stress this (see my latest post), and most people within businesses are not working on a strategic level and thus still need to see how CSR affects them -something you point out often in your post.
Regards
Adam
(p.s. I had tried to comment on your blog a number of times, but had issues, after registering, managing to log-in and post something)