I believe strongly that business should take an expansive view of its role in society, but there are – or should be – limits to the scope of corporate social responsibility. Asking companies to solve every social problem is a bad idea, and one that can have unintended consequences. It becomes CSR run amok.
That, at least, is what I took away from a panel discussion that I moderated at a New York meeting of the Arthur W. Page Society, an organization of high-powered PR folk. (Nice to see familiar faces in the crowd—Richard Edelman, Carol Cone, Carl Folta, Betty Hudson, Mike Lawrence). The panel was called The Buck Stops Where?, and I thoroughly enjoyed the give-and-take with two thoughtful CSR experts from academia, Jane Nelson of Harvard’s Kennedy School and Chris Pinney from Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship. But I came away worrying that the buck always seems to stop on the FORTUNE 500 CEO’s desk. And that could be a problem.
Let me explain with a personal anecdote: After two months of relative inactivity due to a knee accident while skiing, I’ve put on a few pounds. I’m not happy about it, but it would not occur to me to lay the responsibility with the Breckenridge ski resort (the fall was my own doing), or with any of the dozens of food retailers, including Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s, that provided me with the calories that later settled onto my waistline. Their job is to sell product; mine is to decide how much to consume.
So why, pray tell, is the fact that tens of millions of Americans eat too much and exercise too little the fault or the responsibility of McDonald’s, Pepsico, Coca-Cola, Kraft or any other food company? Obesity is, to be sure, a big social problem. It may well be a business opportunity for food companies that choose to sell healthier food, as McDonald’s and Pepsico have. Or for the makers of bicycles or treadmills, for that matter. But it’s not a CSR issue.
To say that obesity is a corporate responsibility is to blur the lines between individual, government and corporate responsibility. Although obesity is a social problem, responsibility for solving it rests, above all, with individuals. It’s not all that complicated, folks. People weigh too much because they take in more calories than they expend.
It is arguably a government responsibility, too. Schools ought to teach nutrition, serve healthy food, promote physical activity, etc. I’d argue that government should plan and regulate our public spaces in ways that encourage walking and bike-riding.
But business? Well, companies can if they like create incentives in their health insurance policies to reward people who stay slim, or they can decide subsidize gym memberships, or create running or walking paths if they have corporate campuses, or sell weight control products. But obesity is not the food industry’s problem, and to say that it is undermines a sense of personal accountability that is just as important to society as is corporate accountability.
I’m even skeptical about the argument that food companies shouldn’t market to children. In an ideal world, I suppose I’d agree. But the argument presumes that children can go to the supermarket and buy stuff that’s bad for them. Most can’t. Parents ought to have the strength to say no if they don’t want to give their kids Fruit Loops or M&M’s after they’ve seen them on TV. What’s next? A ban on “junk food” ads to adults, too? And is Cherry Garcia junk food?
What’s often overlooked by the food police is that advertising to kids makes possible TV programming for kids. Just be aware that if we push companies to stop advertising to kids, someone else (mostly probably the viewers) will have to pay for the costs of programs on, say, Nickelodeon.
A second example: Labor rights in China. Mostly, I applaud the fact that Nike, Gap, Timberland, the toy industry, electronics companies and, yes, Wal-Mart monitor the working conditions in their supply chain to protect the human rights of workers in China (and elsewhere), because the Chinese government can’t or won’t enforce its own labor laws. This is the upside of globalization—we are, in effect, exporting western labor standards to the global south.
But there’s a risk here, too, of letting the Chinese government off the hook. It is, after all, the government’s job to protect the labor rights of Chinese workers. Here again, lines are being blurred. The far better (if not yet practical) approach would be to put the heat on China and other countries in the global south to do what governments should and enforce labor laws. To the degree that corporate monitoring relieves the government of its role, that’s unhealthy. Smart companies understand this, and they are forming alliances to bring some rationality and efficiency to the hodge-podge system of monitoring in place now.
The point is, NGOs, CSR experts like Jane and Chris and companies all need to think carefully about where to draw the lines and where the buck should stop. My own inclination is to hold companies accountable for how their products are made (i.e., the labor rights example) and not to worry as much about how their products are used (the obesity example). It’s all rather complicated and messy. How does censoring a search engine or blog in China fit in, for example? But reflexively holding big business accountable for everything that’s wrong with the world isn’t a winning strategy, and could even be counterproductive.
A tricky subject… and I don’t think I have an answer either… but I agree that we have a tendency to blame others for our own personal failings… and the American intitution of the lawsuit is a convienint forum for that.
On the other hand, people who say that a corporation’s sole responsibility is to make money for its owners have it wrong… a company’s responsibility is to serve it’s owners’ *interests* without infringing on the rights of others. I submit that the owners of any company have an interest in a healthy, peaceful world on which to live. They also have an interest in owning a company that does not act in ways they find morally reprehensible.
There’s a bit of red herring in this piece, in that CSR types are really asking McDonald to get out of its core business. (Some healthy food activists, tilting at windmills, are, but that’s really a different discussion.) Where corporate social responsibility comes in is in the areas where a fast food or famly restaurant company is behaving IRresponsibly… For instance, while they (admirably) add healthy choices to their menu, they resist the idea of openly disclosing the calorie and fat content of their standard menu items. Obviously, the double cheeseburger, egg mcbacon, or nacho platter are more appealing (because of all that delicious fat) than the white meat chicken salad, and they just don’t want to have to tell you just how dangerous the “less healthy” meals actually are. There’s just no justification for feeding someone a meal with 3000 calories and 40 grams of fat without telling them ahead of time. That’s irresponsible, and that’s an example of where corporate conduct needs to change. Personal responsibility is all well and good, but individuals have a hard time exercising it when the information they need to make good decisions is being intentionally withheld from them…
oops — i meant the CSR types AREN’T asking McD’s to get out of their core business…
Yes, the line where the company’s responsibility ends must be carefully drawn. In the case of consumer goods, it makes sense not to draw that line too widely, both to make sure that some individual accountability remains, and because in may cases the company’s decision shouldn’t be substituted for a political/democratic process. (Not in theory, anyway; the fact that those processes are themselves often under excessive corporate influence will have to wait for another post.) But what about these examples?
- Marketing of unhealthy foods to children in schools, via deals that put soda & snack food vending machines in schools. The food industry has largely stopped doing this, thanks to a deal w/ Bill Clinton last year, and I think this is right – kids in school are the definition of a captive audience, and one without full adult judgment (or the direct oversight of their parents). Is this also a matter of government responsibility? Absolutely – schools should resist this kind of intrusion. But I’m not willing to let the companies off the hook in this case.
- Making products that you know are used for purposes that (arguably) violate human rights. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, has criticized Caterpillar for making modified, armored versions of its bulldozers & selling them to the US, which then gives them to Israel, which uses them to bulldoze Palestinian homes & farms, either belonging to the families of suicide bombers or in the process of erecting Israel’s security fence. (Such a bulldozer killed American activist Rachel Corrie in Gaza in 2003.) Human rights and humanitarian groups say cluster munitions, dumb landmines and other weapons have no legitimate use; these are other examples of products that perhaps simply should not be made, or should not be sold to certain governments. Of course the governments in question should refrain from buying them, or using them in the ways being objected to, but (much like the failure of the Chinese government to enforce its labor laws) that’s probably not going to happen soon, so I think it’s fair to hold the companies to account.
Some good comments here, which are just what I’d hoped for–to stimulate some thought about where the lines should be drawn.
To Adam’s point about a “red herring,” I think the entire point of the movie Supersize Me (which I enjoyed) was to argue, humorously, that McDonald’s makes people sick. This is blurring lines. I totally believe in transparency as a principle in almost any industry, and so would support pressures to get food companies to be open about what’s in their products and their caloric content. I favor GMO labeling, too, which we don’t have in this country.
Greg, I’m with you on vending machines in schools. Public schools should be selling junk or calorie-laden drinks to raise money for education. And companies shouldn’t push them to do so. As for companies selling cluster munitions or landmines or the Caterpillar bulldozers (and I don’t know the facts in those cases) I’d agree those are products that shouldn’t be made or sold. But…I would not agree with SRI funds that screen all weapons makers out of their funds. That makes no sense in a post 9/11 world.
Marc, thanks for the thoughtful response. The SRI movement is an interesting place to think about how people actually seek to influence company behavior on these issues. As you know better than most, some campaigners are seeking to get mainstream funds & investors (as you pointed out recently, like Fidelity & Berkshire Hathaway) to take on social responsibility activities in their investments, such as engagement w/ companies on issues of concern or screening out companies (e.g., those that do business in Sudan). Interestingly, I don’t think there’s a big movement to try to get mainstream investors to take on the positions you describe, such as screening out all companies that make/sell alcohol or weapons. I see the SRI funds that do employ those screens as an interesting market response to demand from certain investors for vehicles that reflect their values — but fairly separate from any broader movement to try to make investment funds generally greener, more ethical or more socially responsible.