IKEAs flatpack approach to diversity

After our recent discussion of IKEA's role as a public institution  it was interesting to see this week that the company has been in hot water over the last few days after revelations that it removed images of women in its Saudi Arabia catalogue. The evidence, on the face of it, is pretty damning. As you can see in the pictures here, it really is a case of disappearing women. No doubt about it.

There is a feel of something ethically troubling here, with critics arguing that   IKEA should be upholding its values of equality. The Swedish trade ministerhas kicked in by criticising the company while IKEA itself has offered an apology, saying that the practice is "in conflict with company values".

The question we have to ask though is whether IKEA really is doing anything much wrong here? After all, isn't it up to them what pictures they want to put in their own catalogues? And don't they have a responsibility to meet local cultural norms as long as no ones fundamental rights are being infringed? Its not like any women were directly disadvantaged by their actions, we're they?

As far as we can see, though, IKEA hasn't been very smart or subtle in appearing to airbrush its women from Saudi. As far as cultural sensitivity goes, its a pretty basic effort to fit in with cultural norms in the country. But first, let's remember that IKEAs catalogues are increasingly just computer generated anyway, so maybe the women were never actually "there" in the first place. And second, let's not pretend that IKEA catalogues are a glowing example of diversity to begin with. Show us the rich ethnic mix in the catalogue. Or for that matter, the representations of women in hijab that constitute a large part of the female population in many parts of the world where the firm operates.

A global company it may be, but a globally diverse catalogue it is not. IKEA markets a homogenous global product for a global audience with less tailoring to local tastes even than other global giants such as McDonald's or Wall-Mart attempt.  So what are we complaining about here? That IKEA hasn't been 100% homogenous after all and we don't like it? Is homogeneity really the best solution to equality and diversity problems?

That's not to say it doesn't matter what pictures companies use in their marketing campaigns, because in our view, it certainly does. This is especially so for big companies like IKEA because they have such a major impact on the visual world around us. But demanding that they present a unified image across the globe just seems to be missing the point.  Shouldn't we be demanding that they present a genuinely diverse representation of their customers, maybe even one tailored to the societies in which they operate? Disappearing white women from your catalogues in Saudi Arabia certainly doesn't look good, but it's hardly the biggest problem here.

Regular readers of our academic research will know that we have a long standing interest in the role of companies in shaping people's citizenship opportunitiesand experience. IKEA here is clearly failing to promote the cause of women's equality in Saudi, insofar as equality is measured in terms of representation. This is one part of the picture (in the same way that failing to represent ethnic minorities or those with different sexual orientations in advertising presents and reinforces a skewed image of society). But it's not the only important one.

A critical role is also played by the company in its hiring and promotion policies, and in its other efforts to promote (or not) equality in Saudi. If the company isn't doing a good job on these fronts (and this is a question that demands further investigation) then presenting a pretty diversity picture in its catalogues would be little more than window dressing anyway. Let's hope the latest scandal presages some deeper consideration of how to deal with diversity at the company given its increasing global spread. Saudi women, if not the curiously disappearing catalogue models, deserve no less. 

Photo: IKEA
Thanks to Jeremy Sandler for alerting us to the story

Who will be the business ethics winners and losers at the London Olympics?

Corporate involvement in the Olympic Games continues to expand in size and significance. This year, the 2012 London Olympics will boast sponsorship on hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate sponsorship and tie-ins. But as the corporate money flooding into the Games increases, so too do the attendant ethical risks. For all the advantages of being associated with one of the world's greatest and most watched sporting events, it also puts you at the mercy of activists and other critics ready to use the Games' huge pulling power to target big brands. Adidas, BP, Dow Chemical, McDonald's and Rio Tinto are all currently in the firing line regarding their involvement in the London Games. So the big question for the companies is: come closing ceremony time, who are going to be seen as the ethics winners and who will be the ethics losers?

 Four years ago, the 2008 Beijing Olympics also brought to the fore some major ethical risks for the Games' sponsors, mainly because of the potential for being tarnished with the human rights and environmental pollution problems facing hosts China. This time around, it is less the hosts than the companies themselves, accused of anything from using their sponsorship to greenwash their more unsavory practices (BP, Dow), to corrupting the ideals of the Games (McDonald's), and exploiting sweatshop labor to produce official Games sportswear (adidas).

The most tangible of these criticisms regards the sweatshop allegations. Over the years, adidas has worked hard on its ethical supply chain practices, and was one of the forces behind the Sustainable Apparel Coalition initiative. But having already dropped off one list of the most ethical companies this year, the accusations of poor labor practice in the factories producing the official kit for the Great Britain Olympic team will no doubt strike a significant reputational blow to the company.

Let's be clear here. It's unlikely that adidas is actually an outlier amongst apparel companies. A decent investigation into pretty much any global brand's supply chain could probably surface some major failures to live up to their impressive sounding codes. Not because they don't want to meet their commitments, but because there are always going to be suppliers that cut corners given the low cost, high flexibility model of production foisted onto them by the big brands. Adidas becomes a useful target though because of it's high profile in the Olympics. That's the risk that comes with the territory these days. Nike got it right 4 years ago when they published their special report on their Chinese operations months before the Olympics took place thereby taking any sting out of any likely exposé.

As for the so-called green washers, they also shouldn't be too surprised about the controversy they have sparked. BP as an official "sustainability partner" for the Olympics? Wouldn't it make sense to get your sustainability reputation back before wrapping yourself in such a cloak? Maybe they think that at rock bottom the only way you can go is up. But public trust needs careful nurturing if you are going to restore it after a major catastrophe. Not symbolic gestures.

If anybody should know how hard it is to rebuild public trust, it's one of the other Olympics sponsors currently in at the losing end of the PR battle, Dow Chemical. The beef with Dow goes back to 1984, and to a company that they didn't even acquire until 2001, Union Carbide. That the compensation question for Union Carbide's role in the Bhopal tragedy should still be rumbling on is testament to the importance of dealing effectively with legacy ethics issues. Here we are nearly 30 years later with Dow's banner role in the Games being the subject of front page news in India, the UK and elsewhere.

There's already been a high profile resignation from the watchdog supposed to monitor the sustainability of the 2012 Games as a result of the company's sponsorship deal, whilst over in India, the Government itself has now launched a diplomatic offensive against the company after it failed to persuade the London Olympics Committee to drop the firm as a sponsor. There has even been talk of a national boycott of the Games by India, but this currently looks unlikely. 

Let's get this one clear too though. Dow is no evil corporate monster, and has been doing some fine work in the sustainability space. But it does have a legacy problem still to deal with. And until it reaches a more easy relationship with key opinion formers in India (which, frankly seems unlikely in the near future given all that has happened ..... and when the response of the CEO to the current troubles is that any opposition to their sponsorship is "beyond belief"), it should just steer clear of huge global events like the Olympics. Any PR firm worth it's salt should know that. The $10m sponsorship money could have been spent in much more effective ways. Why take the risk of stirring up old problems - and more than that, give them a global airing - when you don't need to? Hubris, insensitivity, poor research, or just bad PR? It would be interesting to find out.

The bottom line is that the Olympics offers great opportunities for corporations to connect with a global audience. But those opportunities do not come risk free. Companies need to have their reputations in their best possible condition before they take such a plunge. And they need to have the PR department, the CSR team, risk management, and the senior leadership working together from the get go to minimize any damage.  Just ask any Olympic athlete. Winning at the Games is all about preparation, dedication, commitment, and having the right team in place to get you there. Business should be no different.

Photo by the|G|™. Reproduced under Creative Commons Licence

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GE, IBM and Ford still top performers in sustainability communications using social media

We're pleased to feature a guest blog today from Matthew Yeomans, a leading expert on social media in the area of sustainability and CSR. We asked him to tell us a little more about the Social Media Sustainability Index, an impressive report that he recently authored on the state of social media sustainability communication among major international companies. Read what he has to say, and then download the free report in full over at the SMI website. It's full of practical tips on how to communicate effectively about sustainability using social media - and of course there's a top 100 list to pore over at your leisure.

"One year ago, we published the inaugural Social Media Sustainability Index, a trawl through 287 major companies in North America and Europe to identify who was using social media tools and thinking to communicate sustainability. At the time we found just 60 companies that were devoting any real time or dedicated resources to that mission.

Fast-forward to the end of 2011 and a new landscape of social media sustainability has emerged. In researching our new report, The SMI-Wizness Social Media Sustainability Index, we identified at least 250 major corporates that are engaged in some form of social media sustainability comms and more than 100 have a blog, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter channel dedicated to talking about sustainability. Those dedicated 100 form the basis of our new Index.

Even as the volume of social media sustainability content has increased, the standout leaders of our Index – GE, IBM, Ford, PepsiCo, BBVA and Allianz – are the same as last year. This we believe is a testament to good social media practice in that none of these leaders consider social media sustainability through the prism of a campaign mentality. Indeed the top companies in our Index all have built upon the editorial platforms and community engagement they had established in 2010.

The social media sustainability leaders also demonstrate that companies who are committed to making their business more sustainable – be it through improved energy efficiency, lowering emissions, policing their supply chains, pioneering ethical sourcing and promoting equitable working environments – have a distinct advantage in social media communications. That’s because they have a good and believable story to tell, and good storytelling remains the most valuable currency in social media. Here are some of the ways the smartest companies are using social media, not just to communicate their sustainability stance, but also to involve the public in building a better world:

• Homage to compelling reportage: Hiring experienced filmmakers, writers and reporters to tell a complicated story well like IBM and Allianz
• Crowdsourcing: Tapping the public for big innovative ideas like General Electric
• Crowdfunding: Enabling collaborative fundraising and donations like BBVA and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank
• Bold alliances: Teaming with established NGOs, charities and conserva- tion watchdogs to support common goals and raise awareness like Levi’s
• Leveraging community: Tasking your massive online following to build a better future through campaigns, contests like PepsiCo
• Platforms not campaigns: Building an ongoing social media sustain- ability communications vehicle like Danone
• Making technology accessible and digestible: Creating content that shows how sustainability technology and initiatives matter to the general public like Philips and Sony
• The wisdom of your crowd: Collaborating with fans to break taboos and challenge the status quo like Kimberly-Clark

These stand out leaders in this year’s Social Media Sustainability Index all have a few things in common. They fully embrace their newfound power to publish and provide useful, regular, transparent and creative content for their social media communities.

It just so happens that we think those qualities are exactly what companies need if they are to succeed in social media communications. And so they form the bedrock of how we have ranked and rated the 100 companies that make the Index."

You can download the entire Index at: http://socialmediainfluence.com/SMI-report/

This post was first published on SMI. Graphic copyright SMI Wiziness

Ecolabels – it’s time for a change

Today, we have a guest post from Heather Mak from SustainAbility who is a co-author of the recently released report Signed, Sealed ... Delivered? which calls for a fundamentally new approach to eco-labeling. We asked Heather to tell us more....
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Over 30 years ago, the Blue Angel label came out in Germany. It was significant – a label for consumers to recognize what was the more environmentally sound choice, backed by a standard and certification. Years later, many others followed – including many well-known ones such as Fairtrade, Marine Stewardship Council, Energy Star, Organic – and as of several days ago on the Ecolabel Index, the tally was at 424 labels. But what we needed in the past is not what we need any more. It's time for a change.

In a recent research piece from SustainAbility called Signed, Sealed…Delivered? that I co-authored with my colleague Patrin Watanatada – we looked at the value and challenges that businesses find in using certification and labelling as tools to improve economic, environmental and social outcomes across global value chains. 

What we have found is this - certification, labelling and the standards-setting organizations behind them have been pioneers in building a more sustainable economy. For businesses, they provide a credible, consensus-set reference point for collective action, access to expertise and networks, and can spur demand for certified or labelled goods. This is particularly the case in the B2B space, where labels and sustainable attributes are built into institutional purchasing agreements, such as within large companies or municipalities.

However, there are also a number of challenges. The traits that are the strengths of consensus-based standards – governance and inclusiveness — also pose challenges. For one, some businesses are seeking to advance sustainability as quickly as possible – but sometimes the agreement required in a consensus based model can slow things down. In addition, what is best for all stakeholders is not always perfect for sustainability – for example with many of the forestry standards it is a compromise between best available science and what the industry can handle. Also – the issues that are covered by specific standards may not be entirely appropriate for the business, so there are many cases where companies such as Innocent Drinks have developed their own standards for sustainable sourcing. As labels become more known in specific product categories, they also become a mere condition of entry, which has been the case with Energy Star in electronics. This does not suit most marketing departments who seek to differentiate, first and foremost.

Another challenge to labelling is that it has limits – in particular, limits to scale. Labels are mostly recognized and understood by a niche group of consumers – a typical consumer will not buy an ecolabelled product unless it has a clear “what’s in it for me?” for them. For example, organic products have done well because many believe it to offer them a significant health benefit. This is also why we see an increasing number of B2B standards and certifications that have no consumer facing element, including the Better Cotton Initiative and UTZ Certified for coffee and cocoa, which allows companies to focus solely on making the commodity more sustainable.

What then needs to happen? We think that the model of standards + certifications + on-pack ecolabels needs to evolve, where they are separated and each are used and recognized as part of a larger sustainability toolkit. Standards would provide an increasing, pre-competitive baseline, and brands could compete around this, such as what apparel manufacturers are planning with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s index. In concert, partnerships and collaboration with civil society would help to transform supply chains and consumer norms and behaviour, for example with Procter & Gamble’s Turn to 30 cold water washing campaign. Certification could take the form of civil society and government evolving to be more effective and efficient in developing ways to hold business accountable. And lastly, brands – which intentionally started off as trustmarks themselves – would be the main focal point with labels becoming a complementary “back of pack” instrument, such as the case with Method using Cradle to Cradle certification as a design tool to reinforce the brand’s design focus, and using the label for the 1% of its customers who are interested in it.

It’s a tall order to be sure, and a lot needs to happen before this vision can be realized. But in a quickly changing space as sustainability – it’s time that ecolabels had their change too.

Photo by fmg2001. Reproduced under Creative Commons Licence

Ethical sunscreen: getting it covered?

The end of July. School is out, the beach is beckoning, and North America is just emerging from a massive heatwave. OK, so its grey and chilly in much of Northern Europe right now, but for many of us, summer is truly here. And like all self-respecting sunworshippers, we're all too aware that this means it is time for sunscreen. The question is, though, what is the responsible choice among the myriad brands in the market? And what counts for responsible when it comes to sunscreen anyway?

Over at the Ethical Consumer website, help is at hand. The UK-based magazine publishers and all-round ethical shopping wonks produce ethical buying guides for just about everything. Their buyers guide for sunscreen is available free and includes probably more information than anyone could possible want about how the various brands stack up against a wide array of social and environmental issues. Top of the list of things to avoid are potentially harmful chemical ingredients, including various parabens and cinnamates. Not to mention one of the more controversial ingredients around, nanoparticles. These are widely used in sunscreens, but have raised concerns around safety and environmental issues. Of course, the most responsible sunscreen is one that actually works. Natural, non-chemical ingredients are all well and good, but not if they don't guarantee you the protection you need ... or has been the case in the past, do not actually provide the SPF protection they claim on the package. With the EU tightening up regulation a few years ago, some of the "natural" producers have struggled to comply and stay in the market.

That said, unsurprisingly for an organization that has always held multinationals in low regard, the top-ranked brands according to Ethical Consumer are still largely small-scale natural product specialists, such as Yaoh organic hemp sunblock, and Green People sun lotion. Among the more well-known international brands, Clarins, Malibu, and Nivea are among the best scorers, though it has to be said that they all come in at less that 10 out of 20 on Ethical Consumer's scoring system. But this is mainly because the sunscreens are not just being ranked on their ingredients and other product-specific qualities. Ethical Consumer has always taken a more holistic view of a product's ethics, taking into account the producing company's policies and practices on a wide range of issues including employee rights, sustainability reporting, political involvement, and much more besides. In fact "product sustainability" is only one of five categories that a product is ranked on, the others being "environment", "animals", "people" and "politics". In essence, they evaluate the brand, not just the product.

Such a wide ranging assessment may not be for everyone. Some people just want to rate the product, not the whole corporate culture. In the past, you'd just have to stick with the final assessment given by the company doing the rating, but organizations like Ethical Consumer are now providing more sophisticated tools. We love the way they provide a customizable scorecard online so that you can quickly and easily prioritize the ethical issues that matter to you and de-prioritize those that don't just by using the sliding scales. And when you do, the differences between the sunscreen brands turn out to be more driven by company factors rather than simply product-specific factors. That's not to say these company factors aren't important. But clearly, not everyone is going to care as much about all the same issues. So customization is a technique that really works in ethical product ratings.

Where the sunscreen ratings don't quite convince though is on the real basics. People buy sunscreen to get protected from harmful UV rays. An ethical sunscreen has to be one that provides superior protection. But none of the more than 20 categories ranked by Ethical Consumer appear to include an assessment of actual performance. Maybe they just assume that if the products meet the legal standard then they are all of acceptable standard. But as far as we're concerned, ethical performance is not just about the ethical add-ons. It's also about doing the job the product is designed to do - and doing it well.  Marketers refer to this as the "core" and the "augmented" product. If ethical evaluations pay no heed to the core product benefits, then they miss out on half the picture. Its like lying in the sun and using sunscreen on everything except your most sensitive areas. Sure, you're taking precautions - but you're still gonna get burnt exactly where its going to hurt the most. Ethical rankings need to get the essentials covered.

Photo by Pedro Moura Pinheiro. Reproduced under Creative Commons licence  

Anti-corporate activism through social media: how Greenpeace is leading the way

As events in the Middle East have shown, social media can play a critical role in connecting up protesters around a common cause. Whilst in this context the aims are political and the targets are state leaders, over in the world of business, companies are also finding themselves the unwitting subjects of campaigns fueled by social media.   And leading the way in exploiting new technology to confront companies is Greenpeace. After having claimed the scalp of Nestle last year with its viral Kit-Kat ad that prompted the company to change its sourcing of palm oil, Greenpeace has also recently rolled out its "Polluter Harmony" campaign in Canada to confront government support of oil sands companies. Last week, it claimed another victory with the US retailer Costco announcing a major sustainable seafood initiative after a Greenpeace campaign featured the company in a series of videos going through an "Ocean destroyers anonymous' program. And now, it has set its sights on the social media giant itself, Facebook.

Greenpeace is no stranger to the use of new technology in anti-corporate activism. As Ethical Corporation reports, the organization was propelled onto the world stage by its use of live video footage from its campaign ship in the mid 1990s. The organization also led the way in using YouTube videos to target companies, such as its Kimberly Clark campaign back in 2004. Since then Greenpeace has continued to exploit developments in new media to get its message across and engage people in its campaigns against big companies. For example, a 2009 campaign against an extension to Heathrow airport involved setting up a 'Join the Plot' website that enabled some 90,000 people around the world to become "beneficial owners" of land earmarked for the new runway, thereby giving them the right to be represented at any future inquiries about the extension. Plans to extend the airport were subsequently shelved by the UK Government.

The Kit-Kat YouTube spoof, which was part of a concerted campaign to stop companies sourcing from the Indonesian palm oil supplier Sinar Mas, was so successful that it made it into our top 10 stories of last year. As Greenpeace put it, “With nearly 1.5 million views of our Kit Kat advert, over 200,000 e-mails sent, hundreds of phone calls and countless Facebook comments, you made it clear to Nestle that it had to address the problems with the palm oil and paper products it buys.”  And, lo and behold, it did.

The latest campaigns have so far garnered attention, and no doubt ruffled a few feathers, but it remains to be seen what kind of success they've actually achieved. The Polluter Harmony campaign was started in the US in time for Valentine's Day 2010. This February, attention switched to Canada after the Environment Minister Peter Kent started extolling the virtues of the 'ethical' oil sands. It's a well executed campaign featuring toe curling spoof videos of big company bosses and politicians (or 'tar-crossed lovers' as the Canadian declaring their love for each other in the form of those nauseating love match clips used by online dating sites such as e-harmony. Similar in style are the Costco videos portraying the company as an initially in-denial 'ocean destroyer' who eventually completes the 6-step program on sustainable fishing and graduates from rehab. They've generated thousands rather than 10s or 100s of thousands of views, so in social media terms have not exactly taken off, but all the same have clearly been a nagging irritant for the company.

And then there's Facebook. Here the tool isn't just social media, so is the target. It's a smart piece of media planning for Greenpeace to be attacking Facebook through, well ... Facebook. The main focus is a Facebook page urging the company to 'Unfriend Coal' as a power source for its new data centre. Featuring a cute logo that uses the iconic Facebook thumbs up (and thumbs down), as well as a cheeky (or maybe just annoying) video that apes the "Story of Stuff" technique to remix the Social Network the campaign is gradually going viral. The page now has some 60,000 friends and the video has been played almost half a million times on YouTube.

But its not just the numbers we should be looking at here. The interesting things about the Greenpeace social media campaigns is the way they manage to harness the power of new technology to get people to do more than just click 'like' or watch a 2 minute video. Here's a few of the things we think they're doing right:

Using social media to get people on the ladder of participation. Joining a Facebook group doesn't represent much in terms of participation, but issues like coal, seafood, runways or toilet paper aren't all that interesting. So it's critical to make it easy for people to get involved, to get their foot on the first rung of the ladder of participation, before engaging them further. Greenpeace has been adroit at engaging .. and then educating ... through providing extensive resources, constant updating of new material, and encouraging people to go go higher up the ladder. Once people know more, there's a better chance they'll participate more and write an email, join a protest, or create their own activist videos or photos.

Mixing earnestness with wit and irony. Activist groups believe passionately in what they do. and the issues they deal with are often ugly and unpleasant. So it's no surprise that their way of communicating is  a preachy form of earnestness. But that often doesn't work with social media where attention spans are small and content is typically "lite". Greenpeace has been effective in using wit and irony in its "lower rung" communications coupled with a more earnest voice once people's interest has been pricked. That combination is something other organizations, including companies, have struggled with.

Creative imitation. Like it or not, but in terms of getting a message across about big brands, parody works. Spoof ads, Facebook icons, dating websites - Greenpeace knows how to leverage the tools and brands of big business to communicate to the public. But it does so in a creative way that helps them stand out from a busy field. As academics, we'd be tempted to call this intertextuality - where the codes or meaning of one text are transferred or re-produced in another.

Fitting social media into a broader strategy.With all the hype around social media it's easy to forget that it's just one tool among many, and just one part of a broader strategy to achieve an organization's aims. Greenpeace appears to have been successful in deploying social media as part of a social change strategy that also involves direct dialogue with companies, developing new solutions, and tackling issues at a policy level.

And a couple of things they could still do better:

End of life 'take-back'. OK, it's not the same as letting your e-waste end up poisoning someone in Africa, but the artifacts of social media also tend to stay around a long time, especially online videos and webpages. Once a company like Nestle or Costco has changed its policy, Greenpeace might want to think about what it should do with all the critical content it has left out there that is no longer an accurate picture of reality. Taking videos down from your own website is one thing, but a successful "push strategy" can leave content lurking all over the web. We like the latest Greenpeace video 'Changes' celebrating Costco's success following the 5-step program - it's a real step in the right direction - but do they have a policy on what should be done about all the rest of the stuff they've produced and disseminated?


Further integration. So far, Greenpeace has been better at creating new content than linking it all up, especially between its different campaigns and across countries. It's a difficult challenge, especially in a network form of organization like Greenpeace International, and where you're trying to talk in (at least) two different voices. But greater integration can pay-off in terms of clarifying the message and capitalizing on successes. Given how far they have come already, it doesn't look to be beyond them. Though maybe that's just another of the secrets of success in social media - the courage to give up control.

Price of tap water x 2000 + plastic bottles + manufactured demand = The Story of Bottled Water

We've been meaning to write something on Annie Leonard's "Story of Stuff" online phenomenon for some time. But then we thought: why not give some real "digital natives" the opportunity to express what they think about it? So we set a challenge for a class of undergraduates at Copenhagen Business School who we knew were using our book and were about to watch some of the Story of Stuff content as part of their CSR course. Write us a review, we said, and we'll feature the best one on the Crane and Matten blog.

And so here it is - a terrific guest blog from the winner of our challenge, Camilla Marie Thiele, a bachelor’s student at CBS.

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“The Story of Bottled Water” presents a narrative of how the bottled water industry came into being by “manufacturing demand” for an unnecessary product through misleading advertisements, and how this product is effectively trashing the planet. This narrative, which is cleverly presented in animated video form with smartly drawn cartoon characters that attract the attention of adults and children alike, attempts to expose the bottled water industry and its deceptive selling practices in an effort to help us consumers see through the deception. That said, the video also points the finger at us – the consumers – who purchase these millions of litres of bottled water every year and toss them out with little regard to where those chunks of plastic pile up.

Annie Leonard, the writer and narrator, offers a compelling argument of how the bottled water industry has worked to deceive us, where that industry has strategically called into question the quality of regular old tap water and manipulated all of us into thinking that water from the tap is inferior to water from the bottle. This is part of the bottled water industry’s plot to manufacture demand with an ultimate goal of relegating tap water to just showers and washing dishes!

And, as Leonard argues, it is obvious why the bottled water industry must work to manufacture demand because it costs 2000 times more for bottled water than tap water - not to mention that tap water has been shown over and over again to be just as high quality (if not better) than bottled water. Leonard goes on to argue that this has led to the current situation where because of this manufactured demand, people around the world are spending their money on bottles of water whereas the real demand issue of access to clean tap water is grossly underfunded. And this happens while the bottled water industry is laughing all the way to the bank!

Leonard is right - that does not sound sustainable. It is time that we took back the tap.

The seven minute animated video that is “The Story of Bottled Water” is part of a wider collection of videos known as The Story of Stuff Project. Since the first The Story of Stuff video was put out in 2007, this project has become an online phenomenon clocking up over 10 million views. This figure now includes my fellow classmates and I since we viewed both the Story of Stuff and the Story of Bottled Water as part of our bachelors course in Corporate Social Responsibility at the Copenhagen Business School.

The Story of Bottled Water critically examines the environmental and social consequences of an unchallenged allegiance to consumerism by using the bottled water industry as a compelling example of the harms that can result. And it is effective because even though The Story of Bottled Water is part of an activist campaign taking on a suite of very serious issues, Leonard frames the points in a satirical and highly entertaining way. Despite - or maybe because of - the simple videos and their easy-to-understand-manner, it is a message that provides substantial food for thought for every kind of audience. And perhaps most importantly for my fellow business school students and me, The Story of Stuff provides the opportunity to really dive into the questions about the responsibilities of business, in particular the responsibility of companies that manufacture demand for products that are not even needed.

Making a product that is not needed, and then spending all of your time and energy to manufacture demand for it? Hmmmm, that sounds like a huge waste. Why don’t we call for companies to focus their time and innovative energy on meeting real demands? The world is full of a lot of really big challenges and thus there are a lot of very real demands out there that could use creative people and companies addressing them, and ultimately turn these problems into more sustainable solutions. This calls for a re-calculation of the first equation:

Real needs + innovative products + sustainable solutions = Responsible and sustainable profits.

And who knows – you might even smile on your way to the bank. So be smart and think outside of the bottle.


Camilla Marie Thiele is a bachelor’s student at the Copenhagen Business School studying Business Administration and Organizational Communication. She can be reached at cath08ae@student.cbs.dk.

The blog challenge was facilitated by Robert Strand, a PhD fellow at CBS and one of our occasional guest contributors. Thanks Robert!

Baby shopping: ethics, fiction and the marketization of human reproduction

We are big fans of the power of film to illuminate business ethics issues, but we don't often discuss the role of fiction.  But that doesn't mean we're not interested in it. And to prove the point, we thought we'd point out that a short story written by Andy has been short-listed for a writing prize, the AnyBook Award, organized by the American Book Centre in Amsterdam.

The theme of the competition is Redesign Your World, and Andy's entry "Baby Shopping" is all about the marketization of human reproduction. It doesn't offer any ethical answers or certainties, but uses fiction to explore what happens when the emancipatory forces of choice get the better of ethical considerations ... and the very human problems that ensue. It's all focused around personal relationships rather than abstract ethics, which is where fiction has some obvious obvious advantages over our more usual academic writing. It's not to be taken too seriously, but if you've ever cringed about stories of celebrity adoptions, or wondered whether you really could get just anything on the interenet, you might want to take a read. The competition limited entries to 1000 words so it won't take long! 

For the next week, until 22nd Nov 2010, the top 10 shortlist are the subject of a public vote, so if you like Andy's entry, do give it your vote. The other shortlisted pieces (which include art and poetry as well as short stories) are certainly worth a read too, and in keeping with the Redesign Your World theme, some include strong sustainability themes. So stop reading this and step into the creative world with us for a minute.

Photo by ^^TILSIM^^. Reproduced under Creative Commons License

Corporate engagement through CSR blogs?

One thing we've been taking a look at recently is the development of CSR blogs written on behalf of companies, usually by a senior CSR executive or team. Although there do not appear to be a large number of them about (or at least if there are, no one's reading them and they're not appearing in our not-very-scientific Google searches), the phenomenon does seem to be gaining some momentum. Probably the most well known is the McDonald's blog 'Open for Discussion' which launched back in 2006, but CSR blogs have probably been most conspicuous amongst technology companies, with the likes of Intel, Sun Microsystems, and Lawson Software all launching CSR blogs of one kind of another. Although IT companies may not be the most prominent in the CSR and sustainability world, especially compared to fast food companies like McDonald's, there are clearly a whole range of responsibility issues that the industry is having to deal with. The interesting thing though is that they are choosing to use their technology focus to develop new ways of engaging with stakeholders through the medium of blogs.

OK, so in reality, the CSR blog is not a major breakthrough in the development of stakeholder communication, but it does represent an attempt to connect with people about responsibility issues in a potentially more personalized and interactive way than corporate reports, press releases and TV commercials. As Intel claims, it is an "intent to create greater transparency through open dialogue". Or, as McDonald's puts it: "Get personal perspectives on the issues, hear open assessments of the challenges we face, and engage in civil dialogue with the people behind the programs at the Golden Arches."

Clearly the rhetorical emphasis here is on dialogue, although according to our reading, there doesn't seem to be too much real conversation going on. Much of the content in these is mainly about presenting the corporate position on CSR issues, but simply using another channel of communication to do so. The titles of two recent McDonald's blogs on "What my little league days say to me about the root causes behind obesity" and "An alternative perspective on larger-scale agriculture" won't leave anyone guessing that the answers are in any way in doubt - i.e. fast food is not to blame and big agriculture is good for us.

Other CSR blogs take a different approach - the law firm Addleshaw Goddard, for example sets out "the mental meanderings of our CSR Manager" as more of a diary for its CSR programme than anything else. And the Lawson "Frankly CSR" blog is also somewhat idiosyncratic, but actually says relatively little about the firm's program. It focuses more on what the VP is currently finding interesting in the CSR world.

So there are clearly different ways if going about this. Our view is that the more corporations simply use CSR blogs as another vehicle to "get their message out", the less successful they will be. We already hear enough about what they are doing. So it is not exactly surprising that most CSR blogs, even for major corporations like McDonald's, seem to get relatively few comments. As Bob Langert, the company's VP for CSR said in response to a comment on the blog recently: "I wish we received more comments". But from our perspective, this isn't likely to happen so long as Langert persists in thinking that :

"Poor perceptions of McDonald's are frequently the result of a lack of information. People need easy access to information about our social and environmental policies and progress so that they can draw conclusions based on facts. "

People are not looking for more information, and corporations suffering from "poor perceptions" should not be deluded in thinking that more information will solve their problems. Corporations need to engage with people in a different way - a way that treats their concerns seriously, that seeks to find common understandings and solutions, and that, yes, genuinely engages in dialogue. CSR blogs hold some potential for this, but at the moment, it is not being realized effectively. A change in mindset is required, not simply a change in communication channel.

But don't go thinking that we don't see anything positive in the current CSR blog phenomenon. There are some interesting discussions starting to happen out there. And perhaps most of all, what is pretty refreshing is to get a real person, an individual with a name and a face, writing about a company's CSR activities. With personalization, with a "moral face" even, there is greater potential for a meaningful ethical shift than with the bland bureaucratic messages of the faceless corporation. Plus, they tend to have a lot more fancy technological finery than our rudimentary efforts...

I'd like to teach the world to .... eat?!

Probably the title of this post is lost on some of our younger readers, but it refers to a classic ad by Coca-Cola, where a multicultural bunch of young people with bad haircuts (well, it was the 70s) sing about peace, love and understanding in the guise of selling more soda, all to the tune of "I'd like to teach the world to sing". Beautiful. I don't know about you, but it gives Crane and Matten an urge to go grab a couple of cold ones from the cafe here just thinking about how much our friends at Coke have contributed to racial understanding and that great one-world vibe. Well, not counting the record breaking court fine for racial descrimination in 2000, their problems with water use in India ... oh and the fact that here we have a Pepsi-only exclusive concession!

But anyway, we digress. The point of the post is not actually to talk about Coca Cola, but about one of the other great giants of American global branding - McDonald's. Anyone that has read our Business Ethics textbook will know that we always like to see what's going on in the world of Ronald McDonald - there is always a meaty story or two to get our teeth into (if you'll excuse the pun). This time round, we are curious to explore what exactly it is that McDonald's hopes to teach the world. Probably not, as in the Coke ad, to teach the world to sing, but one thing is for certain, everyone's favourite fast food company is not content to leave the teaching to mere teachers.

First up, from this side of the Atlantic, news that McDonald's is pulling its ill-fated sponsorship of elementary school report cards in Florida (thanks to Ryan for pointing that one out to us). Yes, that's right, McDonald's was giving away happy meals as a reward for good grades, complete with a beaming picture of Ronald McDonald holding up the golden arches on the report card envelope. You couldn't make this stuff up. Critics rightly questioned whether McDonald's was sidestepping its own pledge not to advertise in elementary schools, whilst the firm countered that this was "not advertising". Oh, right, well that's OK then.

Only last week, we blogged about some of the issues around food companies self regulating their marketing to children, and this looks like a particuarly good example of where a stronger system is necessary to prevent companies breaking their own rules. As it turns out, the issue caused such a stink that the initiative was quickly dropped by McDonald's, who probably couldn't believe all the fuss since they had just taken over from Pizza Hut who had a similar promotion on report-card jackets for about 10 years. Perhaps the real question is how Pizza Hut managed to get away with it so long, but that's another story.

Not content with providing "incentives" to American kids for getting A's, from the other side of the Atlantic comes news that McDonald's is going to be offering high school qualifications to its staff in the UK. With the British Government looking to provide more practically oriented qualifications, as well as hoping to leverage some of the massive investment in company training into nationally recognized skills awards, McDonald's is one of three UK companies slated to run pilot programmes that will result in A' level qualifications for eligible staff.

Given that even the British Prime Minister himself, Gordon Brown, has said that the McDonald's A' level will be a "tough course", we clearly should have nothing to worry about. After all, he expects them to be ultimately suitable for entry into university. But even though we don't have a problem at all with complementing school education with practical training, there are clearly dangers here in equating a rather narrow company specific training course - however good it may be - with a decent high school education. Corporations quite naturally train people to work in the company's best interests, and unless students are also given the tools to put this training into a wider context, there is not much prospect for developing well rounded educated individuals. It is not that a McDonald's training scheme couldn't be part of this, but it would need to be effectively and imaginatively embedded into the curriculum to ensure that students are not short-changed by a government simply contracting out the educational process to "socially responsible" corporations. Maybe they should offer some free happy meals to anyone who makes a good suggestion for how to do this....