Barack Obama to be a boost to CSR?

As many people have remarked, last week's election of Barack Obama to the US Presidency was a historic event. One of the questions we have been musing on though is what exactly an Obama Presidency might mean for business ethics and CSR in the future. The George Bush years are certainly finishing with a nasty bang in terms of the financial crisis and the legacy of ethical mismanagement, as we have discussed in previous blogs. That said, for better or for worse, the free market agenda endorsed by Bush has clearly provided plenty of scope for voluntary CSR initiatives ... and for a fair dose of corporate irresponsibility. So it is perhaps no coincidence that the last eight years have seen the issue of responsible business come to the fore like never before. Without regulatory oversight, business self-regulation has been the main game in town for those seeking responsible practice.

So what of the future then under Obama? Much has been made of the President-elect's commitment to climate change mitigation strategies (specifically cap-and-trade legislation). Andy Savitz, writing in Ethical Corporation recently, suggested that would be the area where he would be likely to make immediate impact:

"Climate change, one of his recurrent campaign messages, is the easiest and most dramatic way for president Obama to deliver on his promise of bi-partisanship at home and to show the rest of the world that we are back in the international relations business. The financial mess may slow it down, but we can expect to see a complete turnabout in Washington, with national cap and trade legislation and the emergence of the US as a leader in the global climate change negotiations."

But there are also many other areas where, we might see the change that Obama promises having an impact on CSR - from health care reform (where private sector responsibilities might be fundamentally reshaped), to labour conditions (where minimum requirements may be put on foreign imports), to clean technology and "green jobs" (where companies may face new incentives and disincentives to accelerate sustainability and oil independence).

So perhaps it was no surprise then that a survey conducted at last week's Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) conference reported that almost nine in ten of the survey's 400 or so respondents welcomed Obama's election as promising a positive impact on advancing CSR. But the scale of optimism was quite remarkable given the circumstances of the financial crisis. Plus, this anticipation of an Obama boost to CSR is matched by an increased expectation of business regulation. The same survey reported that an overwhelming majority (94 percent) anticipated increased government regulation of issues related to corporate responsibility, including climate change (86 percent) and corporate governance and financial transparency (83 percent).

So what's going on here? On the one hand, we see expectation of more CSR, which is typically associated with voluntary activity beyond that required by law. On the other, we're also seeing greater expectation of regulation itself - which according to many would be seen as an alternative to voluntarist CSR. Its an interesting confluence, which at some level is perhaps a reflection of an underlying conviction that the US could move towards an approach to CSR where different constellations of regulation, self-regulation, and voluntarism are developed at the industry level through multipartite initiatives. Certainly, one of the main areas that we see enthusiasm for Obama from the CSR movement is his commitment to a unifying agenda, which many see as promising a new era of collaboration between business, government, and civil society.

The first test of this will probably be in the automotive industry, where the failing "big 3" car companies are seeking financial assistance, and where Obama could potentially see millions of people lose their jobs in the first year of his presidency. At present the rhetoric is still about protecting ordinary workers and ensuring that the car industry remains both economically and environmentally sustainable within a broader agenda of reducing America's oil dependency (which for Obama appears to be more about developing renewable energy sources than military manoeuvring in the Middle East). But there are going to be tough choices to be made here, and it is uncertain yet whether the new administration will have the skill (or the time) to develop a sophisticated package that manages to simultaneously save the industry, protect jobs in the long term, AND turn the American car giants around into sustainable innovators. Whatever the outcome, it appears that we will be getting deep insight into Obama's real impacts on CSR sooner rather than later. Its going to be an interesting few months...