Sustainable Business Growing in Importance and so is the Link to Reputation – Do You Know Yours?

The 'Call to Action' messages and marketplace research continues to echo in the growing corporate responsibility community – corporate – academia – non-profit - NGOs……..

At a Social Enterprise Conference at Columbia Business School last Friday, a headline message presented at a keynote address by Patrick Cescau - President Group Chief Executive of Unilever - following a special tribute to Anita Roddick of The Body Shop:

“Corporations of the future will not survive unless they adopt and support social innovation and sustainable development objectives”

An advocate of ‘Doing Well by Doing Good’ and Recipient of the 2007 Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics, Unilever has demonstrated commitment to its social and environmental sustainability initiatives via its alliances with The Rain Forest Alliance and World Food Programme – http://www.unilever.com/.

That same week, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) announced the results of a survey in conjunction with their annual conference in San Francisco where more than 330 participants were polled out of 1350 leaders from 50 countries in attendance - www.bsr.org/conference. Key highlights included:

• 82 percent – private sector executives, NGOs and policymakers around the world say they will make corporate social responsibility a core business strategy in the next five years
• 47 percent said a core reason for focusing on sustainable business is consumer behavior and concerns about reputation
• 31 percent said energy efficiency and renewable energy are at the heart of their corporate climate change effort
• 69 percent said China is the country that will most influence the evolution of corporate responsibility in the next five years

Corporate responsibility is climbing higher and higher on the business and public agenda…..

So, what is the fundamental next step to properly create the CR road map?

We, at Reputation Dynamics, suggest a brand reputation analysis and stakeholder evaluation to provide the strategic foundation for the development of a sustainable, long-term program.