One of the most important stakeholders influencing corporate behavior is investors. Recent alignments between mainstream financial market organizations and corporate responsibility organizations are good reason to be encouraged. Of course, SRI’s have always been at the intersection of that space. For example, Calvert with their mission of ‘Integrating sustainability into capital markets for the health of the planet and its people.’ But I am referring here to financial organizations that are not mission driven in the same way.
Last year, Thomson Reuters acquired ASSET4 an investment research provider and offered an ESG/CSR information service.
In addition, last year, in August, Bloomberg launched a new ESG data service. I attended a compelling presentation about the service given by Curtis Ravenel at the annual members meeting of The Climate Group in New York last week. In the opportunity I had for a quick glance, BT seemed to fare well in the aggregate score.
NASDAQ has been running a CRD Analytics since June 2009 “a benchmark for stocks of companies that are taking a leadership role in sustainability performance reporting and are traded on a major US stock exchange”.
NYSE Euronext has partnered with the Corporate Responsibility Officers Association (of which in the interests of full disclosure I should say I am a governing board member) to accelerate professionalization of best practices in corporate responsibility. NYSE Euronext and CROA just released a joint CR practices survey across the member companies of NYSE Euronext.
Of course investors need to understand the data (Bloomberg’s analysis alone has 101 data sets) to be able to act on it. And as we know, good transparency doesn’t always correlate with good practices. But I think these initiatives (and others I have probably missed) are encouraging building blocks.
Showing posts with label Corporate Responsibility Officers Association (CROA). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corporate Responsibility Officers Association (CROA). Show all posts
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
What is Our Role?
The Corporate Responsibility Officers Association posted this blog from me today. I thought it would be of interest to readers of CSRPerspective too.
I chair the professional development committee of the Corporate Responsibility Officers Association (CROA). I am especially passionate about this component of the work of the Association. I have a directional aspiration for the CRO and the practice to be considered in a similar way to the CFO, or the Chief Legal Counsel. I say ‘directional’ aspiration because I don’t expect, nor do I wish for it to be exactly the same. Both the financial and legal roles have a significant component of compliance and I see the role of the CRO as distinctly ‘beyond compliance’.
That said, one of the things that gives the CFO and Chief Legal Counsel (CLC) their gravitas, is a recognized set of responsibilities, competencies and principles to work to. I think we need the same for the CRO and for CR practitioners. Some say that this is navel gazing and we need to be out there embedding the principles of CR in the business. Others have said to me that our practice is only temporary and that once the principles are embedded in the business the need for our role will be gone. I think both perspectives are valid, although I disagree.....
Navel gazing; I certainly agree that we should be out there embedding the principles in the business. But that is no different than the CFO and the CLC needing to be out there ensuring that the employees across the company are aware of and implementing the principles of cost and revenue and the respect for the law in their day to day business activities. None of that denies the need for the defined role of the CFO and CLC, In fact I think it strengthens it.
The temporary nature of our role; If you believe that corporate responsibility is addressing climate change, then sure, once the science is fully accepted and incorporated into the way we run our business, the need for the role is fulfilled. But if corporate responsibility is about business acting positively in regards to the broadest needs of society and the environment, there will always be a new issues around the corner that the CRO will identify before it causes the business serious pain.
So I remain enthusiastic about this work to develop the professional standing of the practice. Defining a consistent set of competencies, job description and a behavioral code for the role are some of the first things I would like to see happen.
I chair the professional development committee of the Corporate Responsibility Officers Association (CROA). I am especially passionate about this component of the work of the Association. I have a directional aspiration for the CRO and the practice to be considered in a similar way to the CFO, or the Chief Legal Counsel. I say ‘directional’ aspiration because I don’t expect, nor do I wish for it to be exactly the same. Both the financial and legal roles have a significant component of compliance and I see the role of the CRO as distinctly ‘beyond compliance’.
That said, one of the things that gives the CFO and Chief Legal Counsel (CLC) their gravitas, is a recognized set of responsibilities, competencies and principles to work to. I think we need the same for the CRO and for CR practitioners. Some say that this is navel gazing and we need to be out there embedding the principles of CR in the business. Others have said to me that our practice is only temporary and that once the principles are embedded in the business the need for our role will be gone. I think both perspectives are valid, although I disagree.....
Navel gazing; I certainly agree that we should be out there embedding the principles in the business. But that is no different than the CFO and the CLC needing to be out there ensuring that the employees across the company are aware of and implementing the principles of cost and revenue and the respect for the law in their day to day business activities. None of that denies the need for the defined role of the CFO and CLC, In fact I think it strengthens it.
The temporary nature of our role; If you believe that corporate responsibility is addressing climate change, then sure, once the science is fully accepted and incorporated into the way we run our business, the need for the role is fulfilled. But if corporate responsibility is about business acting positively in regards to the broadest needs of society and the environment, there will always be a new issues around the corner that the CRO will identify before it causes the business serious pain.
So I remain enthusiastic about this work to develop the professional standing of the practice. Defining a consistent set of competencies, job description and a behavioral code for the role are some of the first things I would like to see happen.
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