Transcript Eric Bichard

www.sobe.salford.ac.uk
The Conflicts & Benefits of Introducing Sustainability
The into
Business
of
BusinessLanguage
Practices
Sustainability
Professor Erik Bichard
University of Salford
www.sobe.salford.ac.uk
Three Languages One Sector
• The Language of the Responsible
Reporter
• The Language of the Responsible Retailer
• The Local Dialect: Sustainability and the
Employee
www.sobe.salford.ac.uk
Corporate Sustainable Reporting
•
•
•
•
Sustainability Reports not for everyone
Very small pool of winners
Very small pool of readers
Language is specialised and refined
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The Language of BT
• corporate social responsibility, reduced energy use,
increased recycling, wind-farms ,customers first,
environmental footprint, inclusive society, sustainable
economic growth, embed sustainability, employees
flourish, transparency and accountability, responsible
behaviour, climate change, CO2 emissions, low-carbon
economy
• We use the term CSR more often than sustainable
development or sustainability. We see CSR as the
voluntary action a company takes to contribute to the
wider societal goal of sustainable development. The
three issues where BT has the most opportunities to
make a difference and grow our business are: climate
change, social inclusion and sustainable economic
growth.
www.sobe.salford.ac.uk
The Language of Shell
• Sustainable development, economically, environmentally
and socially responsible, responsible energy system,
climate change, security of [energy] supplies,
environmental and social impacts, safety, biofuels,
greenhouse gas emissions, fuel efficiency, responsible
energy future.
• ‘For us, contributing to sustainable development means
helping meet the world’s growing energy needs in
economically, environmentally and socially responsible
ways. In short, helping secure a responsible energy
future’.
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The Language of the Co-operative Group
• Ethics, Fairtrade, pesticides, energy
consumption, sustainable energy sources,
wind farm, climate change, ecotown,
social and environmental issues, a more
competitive and responsible business,
responsible retailing, sustainability
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The Language of the Co-operative Group
• Ecological sustainability ‘Nature cannot withstand a
progressive build-up of waste derived from the Earth’s
crust, nor can it withstand a progressive build-up of
society’s waste, particularly substances that cannot
degrade into harmless materials. In addition, the
productive area of nature should not be diminished in
terms of quality (diversity) or quantity (volume) and must
be enabled to grow’.
•
Social sustainability ‘guided by the long-established
co-operative values of self-help, self-responsibility,
democracy, equality, equity and solidarity, and the
pursuit of legislative compliance’.
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The Effect of this Language on the Consumer
•
Just 10% of consumers trust what companies say about climate change
•
20% are confused about conflicting or hard to decipher information
•
50% think it is the government’s job to remove unsustainable products form
the shelves
•
Some people are influenced to think companies are environmentally
responsible because they have green packaging
•
Enron and many of the banks that recently ran into difficulties were leading
lights in the CSR world
From various studies undertaken by Consumer International (2007) and PWC (2008)
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What about the workers
• Employee engagements second to External
relations
• Internal brand as important as external brand
• Just 18 of FSTE 100 CR reports mention
employee communications (Futerra)
• Unusual methods including evoking emotion,
arts-based approaches, and the power of nature
a long way off, but could/should be the new
language of sustainability
• Are things changing?
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Denial
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Confusion
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Find out more from…
• [email protected]
• Positively Responsible, Bichard, E. and
Cooper, C.L., (2008) ButterworthHeinemann