Citola Blog
Corporate Social Responsibility is Big Business
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is big business and one of the big corporate trends of recent years. An interesting podcast from BBC One Planet this week, talked to John Brock, the head of Coca-Cola Enterprises which handles production and distribution of Coca-Cola across western Europe, about Corporate Social Responsibility. An interesting exchange was from the question:
“Why do you think this desire [by big business] to show sustainability is so popular at the moment?” To which John Brock replied: “Well I think sustainability has gone from being a niche situation which it clearly was 10 years ago to one today where companies recognise that it simply… makes… good… business… sense.” There was clear emphasis on ‘good business sense”.
This is a point identified and understood at Citola. In the sustainability and environmental markets, many existing/legacy organisations do not have the knowhow, distribution or business models able to scale and meet the new and growing needs of the market. This is because sustainability and carbon management (aka carbon offsetting) are becoming mainstream, part of large commodity markets and away from not-for-profit and donor driven funding/projects.
John Doeer, a veteran Venture Capitalist from renound firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has stated on alternative Energy: “[Alternative Energy] is the mother of all markets… It’s probably the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century.”
And an old Citola favourite from Tom Friedman, three time Pultizer prize winning journalist,:“[Green’s] opponents... named it liberal, tree-hugging, girly-man, sissy, unpatriotic, vaguely French… I’ve been trying to redefine green as the most capitalistic, patriotic, geostrategic, pro-American... green IS the new red, white and blue.”
Bottom line... sustainability, environmental and carbon management that was once a 'niche' consideration and only for the 'early adopters' is now becoming mainstream, a pre-requisite for doing business and a driver of corporate profit.
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