Corporate Citizenship

Mr Gradgrind, you remember him?
He was the miserable old git in Dickens’ Hard Times. He said: “In this life, we want nothing but facts, sir, nothing but facts”
But is it true? Some companies clearly believe not. Companies like BT, Kingfisher and Shell commission expert panels as part of the assurance process.  Thereby readers can see [...]

Corporate Citizenship helps clients to create and deliver a full range of CSR and sustainability programmes.  We work with corporate functions and business units to develop strategies, engage stakeholders, manage environmental impacts, and invest in communities to achieve business goals and fulfill corporate missions. Corporate Citizenship also publishes Corporate Citizenship Briefing, the leading journal in [...]

Welcome to the world of social media! If you’re reading this blog then take some satisfaction that you’ve already made the first steps. But what comes next?
Up to now getting a handle on the state of play in social media for sustainability has definitely been a case of jump in and see whether the water’s [...]

So, today we learn that spending on Fairtrade products hit the £1 billion barrier in 2010, an increase of 40% compared with 2009. This was more to do with the certification of mainstream brands such as KitKat, Dairy Milk and Starbucks rather than consumers specifically looking to purchase Fairtrade products.
As more and more brands opt [...]

It seems that there is increasingly more noise about complaints being made by customers of Lloyds Banking Group. But is this skewing our impression of them?
By digging deeper into this story we are able to uncover further detail. It seems that many of the (most recent?) complaints focus on the mis-selling of PPI – payment [...]

While today’s report from the Environment Agency on the carbon footprint of plastic bags may seem a little dry, this report actually highlights an important insight when it comes to achieving environmental savings: the lifecycle impact of a plastic bag (as with so many other things whether it a washing machine or a coffee mug) [...]

It might sound strange, but recent headlines concerning labour standards in Apple’s supply chain (Apple report reveals child labour increase / Chinese workers appeal to Apple over health worries), whilst depressing and appalling, should also be considered in a tentatively positive light.  Children working in factories, multiple incidences of poisoning and failures to comply with [...]

Tax is rising up the agenda as a corporate responsibility issue in 2011. Today’s Telegraph reports that the Treasury Select Committee is considering “forcing” banks “to reveal the breakdown of their corporate tax contributions”. Protests by UK Uncut have targeted names like Vodafone, Boots and Topshop. Both NGOs and politicians alike have hit on payment [...]

An increasing incapacity for a lot of corporate sustainability reporting to deal with bad news was highlighted by a colleague yesterday, with a gem from a recent report. The victims of the company in question’s redundancy programme were referred to rather euphemistically as having been “separated from employment with the company”. You can really see [...]

A great treble bill of programmes was provided by BBC Radio 4 last night.
It kicked off with The Report, which presented an investigation into the growing market of ‘payday’ loans and the sticky situations people can get into through borrowing sometimes nominal sums. Most concerning seem to the number of commercial moneylenders putting themselves forward as [...]