Commentaries
Brand image and reputation count for far more than is realised in a cut-throat corporate
world. The recent debacles over the flirtation between the Bank of Scotland and Pat
Robinson, the opinionated US telepriest, and Marks and Spencers' child-labour scare
put big holes in their customer confidence and shareholdings. So a reputation for
improving the environment by obtaining more wealth from less damage is a good
line for corporate reputation analysis.
All of these drivers are, of course, self-serving for business. Business is not in the
world of altruism. There has to be a bottom line. And that bottom line is beginning to
become a triple one (for the most cited work see Elkington, 1998).
Figure 1 summarises what appears to be at stake for the modern corporation in the
coming decade. The economic element is always taken care of: that is the profit margin.
The environmental element is in the regulatory arena, as discussed. The social dimen-
sion is currently truncated, but will have to grow.
Social well-being Environmental sustenance
Figure 1. The relationship between strategies for wealth creation, environmental protection, and
corporate social reporting are highly asymmetric at present. The drive is on to respond to
demands for better social reporting. Will this lead to greater social justice?
Social reporting
Enter social reporting. This is the incorporation into the running of business of ethical,
distributional, cultural considerations and aspirations for improved life chances. The
stakeholders involved are citizens generally, local residents living beside manufacturing
plants and supplier-chain networks, employees, and the interests of future generations.
Social reporting is also driven by reputational pressures, a fear of being discovered
through Internet prying, and the likelihood of massive adverse publicity resulting from
any misadventure involving people and communities.
The Shell Corporation led the way with its 1978 Corporate Social Report, now
updated to its 1999 Report (all on www.shell.com). BP is following, primarily with its
sophisticated climate change response strategy (www.bp.com), though it will soon
produce its own corporate social report. Waiting in the wings are British Telecom,
Eastern Group, and Unilever. Many others will follow.
The general pattern followed by all of these companies is as follows.
(1) A group-wide sustainability council is created, linked to the board of directors and
reporting direct to the chairman. This produces a greater sense of integration, and
ensures that the chairman is in the thick of it. No company can move towards
sustainability unless its top management is fully committed.
(2) A business manager `report card' is generated as an annual response to meeting
sustainable business principles. These are promoted through a set of indicators that
are monitored through internal web sites and exposed to external scrutiny through
corporate websites.