The owner of a McDonald's franchise made news recently by opening an eco-friendly restaurant in Cary, N.C. It has energy-efficient refrigerators, low-flow toilets, tables made from sunflower seeds and even recharging stations for electric cars.
This McDonald's is surely going green. But that doesn't make it sustainable.
To many people, sustainability means solar panels, wind turbines, and LEED-certified buildings. And that means that too often, sustainability is parked over by the recycling bins and isn't core to the work. But sustainability is more than just going green or being green. It is, fundamentally, a mindset. It's a way of thinking about business — a mode of leadership and behavior that aims to create lasting value as opposed to piling up short-term transactional wins. It's not as much about wind turbines or solar panels or green buildings as it is about the reason we want those things: so that our companies and our world will be better off tomorrow than they are today.
We need to reframe and reclaim sustainability to take the term beyond "green" and make it relevant to the work businesspeople do every day. We need to recognize that sustainability is a powerful way to forge deeper connections with employees and customers.
Making these deeper connections with stakeholders is more important than ever. Let me offer a brief look backward to explain why. Throughout most of human history, sources of power were finite. In the land-based economy of the middle ages, the more land people owned, the more rent they could charge. In the capital-based economy spawned by the industrial age, the more capital people had, the more interest they could charge. Money talked. So did oil and minerals.
Goodbye, Command-and-Control Management
In these zero-sum economies, people accumulated and hoarded the sources of power in order to impose their will upon those who had less. And hierarchical leadership habits arose — such as command-and-control — that worked well enough for a time.
No more. In today's knowledge economy, the sources of power — information and ideas — are infinite. Since we can't hoard information, leadership habits forged under the old rules are less effective. Just as important, people want more than a paycheck from their jobs — they want to feel that they're working with others to accomplish something important that they could not accomplish alone. So we are shifting from "command-and-control" to "connect-and-collaborate," from exerting power over people to generating power through them.
There are some companies that have been around a long time that understand what it means to be sustainable in every sense. DuPont (founded in 1802), Procter & Gamble and General Electric are all big companies, but their size is not what has kept them going. All have become environmental leaders in recent years, but that's not the key to their success, either. They are sustained by their values and culture, by how they do what they do.
Finding Meaningful Sources of Connection
Which brings us back to McDonald's. Like many other large companies, McDonald's now takes an expansive view of sustainability rather than a narrow one. On signs outside its restaurants, McDonald's used to brag that it had served billions of people billions of burgers. In the closed, fortress world, they said: "Look at us — we're big, so we must be successful." In today's more connected and transparent world, McDonald's is finding deeper and more meaningful sources of connection.
Some franchise owners may still post signs about "billions" served, but the company has stopped counting and instead is more likely to talk about values, its workplace, health and philanthropy. Now, McDonald's tells its employees: Perhaps the single most important thing to consider in a McDonald's career is the role you play in the community.
Protecting the environment is a big part of that community role. McDonald's minimizes the weight of its packaging and maximizes the use of recycled materials. It won't buy beef from rainforest areas. It encourages its suppliers to follow best environmental practices. It's transparent about its activities and engages with outsiders on a company blog devoted to social responsibility called "Values in Practice."
The New Pardigm: Connect and Collaborate
Those values go well beyond being green. McDonald's has responded to America's obesity epidemic by offering healthier choices on its menu, being transparent about its ingredients and even encouraging customers to get more active. The company is trying to connect on values across the board and not just in a "siloed" approach. It provides training and promotional opportunities for entry-level workers. And like many companies, it gives back to communities, notably through the long-running Ronald McDonald House Charities.
In these tough times, values matter more than ever, and coercion and motivation are becoming less effective and less relevant leadership modes. Leaders can't coerce their people and expect to be sustainable in today's work. And they can't use money to motivate them, either -- there's not enough money to throw around. Instead, leaders who aim for maximum impact must inspire their people to connect, collaborate, behave and perform. And in case you're wondering, I have no commercial relationship with McDonald's. However, I do see McDonald's as an example of a company that is not compartmentalizing its values and is working hard to live them.
Ric Richards, the franchise owner of that eco-McDonald's in North Carolina, gets it. Sure, he's doing the green thing — but it's what's behind those efforts that matters. At the restaurant's grand opening, which was attended by other franchise owners, staff, friends, family, the city's mayor and, yes, Ronald McDonald himself, Richards declared: "Passion is what built this restaurant." And a passion for making the world better is what makes companies truly sustainable.
Dov Seidman is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of LRN, a company that helps businesses develop ethical corporate cultures and inspire principled performance, and the author of "HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business (and in Life)." LRN recently announced the acquisition of leading green strategy firm GreenOrder.
*This column appeared in, and was written for, BusinessWeek.com.
Treating Your Employees
Like Honored Guests = Outstanding Customer Service = Business Success
Chip Conley, founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre, the largest
group of boutique hotels in California, believes in treating his employees like honored
guests. He knows that in turn they’ll provide the kind of extraordinary
customer service that will guarantee return business, and recommendations to
friends, family and colleagues.
I had just read his book, “Peak: How Great Companies Get Their
Mojo from Maslow,” and was curious to see if he was really as passionate about
his work and his employees as he sounded in his book. I soon discovered that
his passion was exponential and contagious.
While many organizations have cut back on employee benefits,
appreciation programs and teambuilding events that increase fun at work, Chip
refuses to do that.He says. “Happy
employees equal better workplaces which equals increased profit.
After working with us for three years, salaried employees
get one-month paid sabbaticals.
All employees and their families are given two free nights
per quarter at any Joie de Vivre Hotel. If they choose not to use their nights
during any quarter, they can bank them for a longer stay.
Employees also get discounts on massages and spa services,
and can take any of the lifestyle class that Joie de Vivre offers which
include; learning a new language, how to cook a Thanksgiving turkey, and how to
have a more balanced life.”
As I spoke with him at one of his properties, Hotel Vitale,
I could see and hear the love he had for his work, and the value he placed on
all of his employees feeling included and experiencing the joy of life.
When I asked him how he maintained his own life balance he
replied, “I’m energized because I’ve been living my calling. I love coming to
work. I take vacations, make use of our spa services, and practice yoga and meditation.”
Conley went on to say, “Every day I affirm that as I
surrender, more love comes to me. I’ve learned that I can’t do everything, and
that I need to let go of things I can’t control.”
He has also learned to be “off the clock,” and even have no e-mail
Fridays, which for many of us would be worse than withdrawing from the most
addictive drug.
“I named my company Joie de Vivre because I wanted to find
more joy in my life.”
From what I’ve observed, he has.
Simma Lieberman
"The Inclusionist"
Simma Lieberman creates workplaces where people love to do their best work and customers love to do business
Ok, first off, I can hear you laughing at the title
of this post. Not very nice! Don Draper aside, we marketing types do at times
look into our souls and make an effort at doing the right thing. So this post
is about what I’ve been hearing this week, and the upshot for ethics in
marketing.
Three separate streams of information and
conversation caught my attention: The first was about the term “e-mail blast,”
the second regarding plagerism and CV puffing among “social media experts,” and
the third a report about advertisers monitoring people's online activity, and the potential for regulation of
the practice.
Dag Blast
It!
My week in marketing ethics began with a
super-brief Marketing Profs post on the term “e-mail blast.” It’s a term that is in common use – a
potential client just asked me recently if I had email blast experience – yet
has many detractors. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of a blast. The Marketing
Profs post ends with a quote from Justin Premick, who wrote this at the AWeber blog:
Terms like
"blast" are dangerous, not only because they make you sound like a
spammer, but also because their repeated
use can influence how you view your subscribers and campaigns. Words like
"email blast" to describe campaigns suggest the sender doesn't see
subscribers as people, but rather as targets to shoot offers at until they
score a hit. [emphasis mine]
Covered Wagon Medicine Show
Stealing intellectual property is nothing new on the internet.
Conversation this week was not so much about stealing content as it was about
plagiarism, just plugging in someone else’s information and claiming it as your
own. The next step is selling your services ala Snake Oil Sales based on other people's work and some smoke and mirrors. Peter Kim and
David Armano, both of Dachis Group wrote separately about their concerns. And
there was an excellent post by Leigh Duncan-Durst titled "On Plagiarism, Snake Oil, and Prayer."
There is more to these and other posts than tantrums about lost income. It becomes a
credibility issue when someone passes themselves off as a “Social Media Expert”
while stealing content and screwing up with clients because they don’t know
what they’re doing. (Note: I don’t tout myself as an “expert” in social media. Via
Twitter and the blogosphere I am, like you, merely social media expert-adjacent.
And as with all intellectual property, it is that adjacency, that easy access
that is the conundrum-causer.) Kim and Duncan-Durst have a few good starting points to call out the "worst practitioners" and protecting your ideas without being a prima dona.
Like Peter Tosh said, “Regulate
it!”
Actually Peter Tosh said “legalize it” and was of course referring to
something else entirely. Audio business magazine Marketplace (from American Public Media) ran a brief story on research out of University of Pennsylvania and UC Berkley suggesting
that few people want their web browsing habits monitored, except (for some) if
it leads to offers of discounts on products and services they have a
demonstrated interest in using. The question becomes should there be greater attempts
to regulate (not just self-govern) those who would track our buying habits and
interests?
These streams lead toward what I think is the heart of the matter: Are you, as a marketing professional--or really in any aspect of business or life--really interested in adding something of worth to the lives of people your work is serving? Does every decision we make in each moment of the day serve that purpose? Probably not, but heading toward that goal, that's the point. Doing something more nuanced than "blasting" the people receiving your next e-mail missive is a start. Kicking butt and taking names when you find a faux social media expert dispensing half-digested advice. Go to it! And regulation of what happens online is a HUGE question. Self-governance is a laudable goal, but worst practitioners will always be out there. Somebody needs to monitor those who are monitoring our online activity.
See, and that's just one week's worth of marketing ethics! Shine up the Pope-mobile because us marketing types are soon gonna need it!
The green revolution is not evenly dispersed.The companies that are revolutionizing how we drive, produce electricity, and build often stick together in specific locales forming cleantech clusters.As old industries struggle, cities are building up their emerging cleantech clusters as new centers of economic growth.San Diego is one of the cities vying for a position in the cleantech revolution with government, schools, businesses, and other groups all helping to make it happen.
San Diego has beaches, sunny weather, and Seaworld, but that’s not all.San Diego has world class universities and research centers, and strong biotech and hi-tech business communities.It has a unique asset in the San Diego Zoo, a world class institution that educates and inspires innovation.San Diego also has a city government that sees cleantech as an important opportunity for future economic growth.All of this has helped to attract over 279 cleantech companies to the city (June 2009 data compiled by CleanTECH San Diego).
Cleantech clusters don’t develop in a vacuum – they are shaped and grown by their local environment, including the efforts of government at all levels.Jacques Chirazi is the Program Manager of the Cleantech Initiative in the Mayor’s Office for the City of San Diego.His job is to help green companies get started in San Diego, and attract new ones by making the startup process as quick and easy as he can.
At the September 22, 2009 meeting of the Eco Investment Club, Chirazi described how he can help businesses interact with the city, acting as their “project manager”. Walking the halls at City Hall and collaborating with the local business community, he expedites processes from permits to partnerships.“I’m also helping to create the policies that help cleantech companies in San Diego, and create demand for their products,” says Chirazi.
One example of the policies the City of San Diego is working on is implementation of funding for green initiatives for renewable energy and energy efficiency in homes, based on AB 811.AB 811 provides for cities in California to fund home projects like renewable energy, creating special tax assessments on homes and allowing homeowners to pay back the money over a long period of time through their property taxes.Creative funding like this removes one of the biggest reservations homeowners have about green projects – the initial cost. Already started in PalmDesert and Berkeley, AB 811 based funding is being adopted by more towns in California like San Diego. San Diego is working to scale up this financing method for solar and energy efficiency projects in homes, and to expand to include projects like fuel cells and water conservation in the future.As the demand for solar power and energy efficiency increases from these efforts, local businesses that meet this demand will also benefit.
The City of San Diego is also supporting innovation with efforts like the Biomimicry Symposium they are partnering to support with the San Diego Zoo and the Biomimicry Institute October 1-2.Biomimicry looks at how living organisms in nature solve common problems like saving water or protecting themselves, and then finds ways to adapt nature’s solutions for innovative industrial applications.Qualcomm, a sponsor of the symposium, has developed its innovative mirasol display for phones based on how butterfly wings and peacock feathers produce colors, for example.
With initiatives like this, bringing together researchers and business people, San Diego can generate the next generation of businesses commercializing more innovations like this, driving economic growth for decades to come.For the city, efforts like this should have a bright future and a big payoff.
Glenn Croston is the founder of StartingUpGreen.com, helping entrepreneurs and small businesses to start and grow greener businesses, and delivering the Green BizBlast to connect those seeking and selling green products, services, events, and opportunities. He is also the author of "75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make a Difference", and the author of "Starting Green", a nuts and bolts guide to starting and growing a successful green business (Entrepreneur Press, September 2009).
Do business with others as you would have them do business with you.
As it is said — this is the whole of the Law; the rest is commentary.
‘Do unto others’ is the sum total of every inspiring word every written or spoken about sustainable business, social investing, local living economies, green jobs, social enterprise, and the rest of it (not to mention that it lies at the center of every faith). The Golden Rule Across Cultures
Like most truths, it is simple to understand, but difficult to manifest. Sustainability – like God and the Devil — are all in the details. Business, like life, is an applied science. Dov Seidman, the Bill Clinton-and Thomas Friedman-quoted CEO from LRN companies, says it’s all about How. Indeed.
I was reminded of this truth while skimming through the cover article in the Atlantic on Happiness. A 72 year longitudinal Harvard study exploring what makes for ‘a good life’ offered no more surprising or compelling conclusion that the most important thing in life is the quality of our relationships. Nothing else – not money, not achievement, not recognition – came close to determining the quality of our lives.
This seems worth noting. The ‘good business’ seems to be no different than the ‘good life’. It’s goodness is nothing more or less than the sum total of the quality of its relationships.
We don’t often think about relationships in business. We too often think about transactions. About deals. About tasks and to do lists. Relationships are nurtured over time. Transactions happen in a moment.
Good business thinks first about relationships. The relationship between the business and the community in which it exists. The relationship between owners, management, and staff. The relationship with customers and suppliers. The relationship between its actions and its impact on the environment. Relationships are nurtured over time. Transactions happen in a moment.
A business that thinks deeply about relationship is a business that is likely to do business with others as they would have other so with them.
As it is said – this is the whole of the Law; the rest is commentary.
Millions of people come and go from New York’s iconic Empire State Building every year. The 102 floors bristle with keyboard-clicking, ballpoint-wielding, paper-shredding cubicle dwellers, none of which would appear out of place in an episode of “The Office”. But something very different is happening on the fifth floor - - a magical workplace that may soon transform the entire skyline of a big city near you.
At the recent Clinton Global Initiative conference (CGI) in New York, I caught up with Marc Porat of Serious Materials (www.seriousmaterials.com). He’s part of a team working on the Empire State Building, doing a retrofit of windows, insulation, and electric motors that will cut the energy consumption - - and the carbon footprint - - by nearly 40%. Old radiators on brick walls were transmitting much of the heat outside, so just by adding insulation between the two, the energy needed to warm the interior drops by half. Replacing windows with an energy-saving model keeps warmth inside during winter and heat outside during summer. But how can you replace thousands of old windows when people have to work near them every day?
“We have a workshop on the fifth floor,” Marc told me. “Every day we rebuild fifty windows and every night, after the workers have gone home, we pull fifty old ones out and put the rebuilt ones in their place.” With 6500 windows, the project will take half a year, but not a single office work day will be lost to the remodeling project. This clever workaround is the key to getting more skyscrapers to join the energy-saving revolution, as I learned from another CGI hallway conversation.
A JP Morgan Chase banker told me they approached several major real estate owners about financing such retrofits and were told that tenants (notably big law firms) demanded huge “inconvenience fees” to give owners access to install energy-efficient light fixtures, not to mention outright refusal to allow any displacement for something like replacing windows. The workaround project at the Empire State Building solves that problem.
As for the lighting, what if you could cut energy consumption by up to 80% with a new bulb instead of a new fixture? That’s what Lighting Science Group (www.laminaceramics.com) has engineered - - LED bulbs that screw in or plug into existing fixtures, saving big upfront costs and tenant displacement. Up to now, such bulbs cost upwards of $100 each, but Lighting Science cut that cost for some of the most popular types to well under ten bucks. The energy savings pays for the retrofit in months and no one is inconvenienced.
That’s what all of these stories have in common - - profitable ways to cut carbon. The Empire State Building project will be repaid in 3.1 years from savings on energy bills. The guy from JP Morgan Chase said all of their branches are being built or remodeled with the highest efficiency materials, lighting, and electrical appliances that will slash operating costs 30%. The recently announced retrofit of Chicago’s Sears Tower will save 80% of that building’s energy consumption.
There’s a long-term benefit to this trend too. A lot of work is going into perfecting electric cars (battery or hydrogen fuel cell powered) as a means to fight climate change, but the grid is at the breaking point already and can’t handle parking lots full of plugged-in cars. But if buildings cut energy consumption somewhere between 40 and 80%, think of all the extra infrastructure serving those structures - - many with parking garages already - - that could then be used to recharge batteries or electrolyze water to make hydrogen.
The Empire State Building is one of America’s oldest skyscrapers, but is proving that you can teach an old dog new tricks. The real question is not “what is happening on the fifth floor?”, but “why hasn’t every building owner done the same thing?”
Every night from June to August, we watched as town
hall meetings erupted into screaming matches. On September 9, South Carolina
Republican Rep. Joe Wilson yelled "You lie!” at President Obama during his
speech to a joint session of Congress. And just the other night, throngs
of opera aficionados booed loudly at The Metropolitan Opera’s opening night
performance of “Tosca”.
Booing at the Opera? Really? Decorum seems to have
left the building, and I keep wondering what will be the next victim of this
anger.
As consumers, we boo all the time. When we make
choices, when we pick one product over another, we are in a sense booing
against the competitor. So which side of the booing will your product be on? To
make sure your offering won’t be the next casualty of this surging consumer
rage, you want to understand where this fury comes from.
Luckily there are answers. In the past we have
covered principles that shed light on the mechanics of boos and cheers. By
understanding these you may be able to manipulate them to your advantage.
Essentially, boos emerge as a three step process:
A consumer sees you or your product and initially they like it -
they relate to it. As neurologist and neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni explained
in my
blog a few weeks ago, consumers are wired to initially be empathetic
and find common ground with you or your product.
Then the consumer categorizes you. They call you republican or
democrat, traditional or modern, like me or not like me. Buddhists and
Carl Jung would call these “re-cognizing” you. Iacoboni says it’s these
categories or “labels” that actually divide us.
Then they like or dislike you, based not on who you are but on what
category you hold.
The key then is to skillfully manage step two. Play
with categories to make sure you end up in the cheering section.
Apple does this well. Apple's marketing strategy
essentially creates two sides - Apple and PC - and tries to convince people to
boo from the Apple side. They have defined what it is to be a “Mac” person, and
have created a consumer identity with a loud cheering section.
Credit card companies and banks do this poorly.
They are booed millions of times per day on "corporate hate" Web sites.
Picking the right category can be worth millions. Creating
a whole new category can be revolutionary. TiVo is a good example of this: it transformed
the US TV Industry by creating a new category, the DVR. By doing this, TiVo avoided boos (no one hated
DVRs) and built an enthusiastic cheering session. Gatorade did the same thing with
drinks. By preempting Coca-Cola and other competitors, Gatorade disrupted the existing
drink market and created a whole new category - sports drinks.
Turn boos into your advantage. Ask yourself these questions:
What new product or service can you develop
that creates a new space or category?
How can you market this new product or service
to build a cheering section?
What do you want this product or service to
say about its users?
How can you convince people to want to be a
part of your brand?
How can you discourage booing by being good to
everyone?
I had a very negative visceral reaction to Newsweek’s inaugural “Green Rankings” of America’s 500 largest corporations. My personal disgust was directed mostly to their choice for #5: IBM. Most people don’t know that my hometown of Endicott, NY is an EPA superfund site, and one of the potentially responsible parties is --you guessed it -- IBM.
When a company dumps toxic chemicals on your hometown and covers it up for almost 30 years, it changes your opinion of them, to put it mildly. Your neighbors get cancer. They can’t breathe the air in their own homes.The Erin Brokovich attorneys get a lot of new business.
So I left. A lot of us did. The moral dilemma that I can’t get over is that I know the problem will still be there for a long time.
Like many people, sometimes I have an issue separating logic from emotion. IBM is doing many great things to become a sustainability leader. In the past, companies (like IBM and potentially Endicott-Johnson in my hometown) dumped toxic chemicals at will because they weren’t regulated. IBM is slowly cleaning up their messes throughout upstate New York. There comes a time in a company’s history when they have to leave their past exactly where it is. In the past.
Despite trying to talk some sense into myself, my gut feeling about IBM remains. IBM’s marketing and PR machine helps them get positive press for their sustainability work nearly every single day.To find something negative about the company in the press, you’d have to dig pretty deeply. What does this say about the state of sustainability reporting? Are we, as media consumers, getting the full picture? I feel duped.
I have admired Maria Eitel since I met and interviewed her at last year's CGI. Talking with her again this year reminded me why. Imagine that just a few years ago, she was asked to create a purpose and a plan for the Nike Foundation. What she presented to the Nike Board of Directors was The Girl Effect-- the idea that when you invest in girls, you change the world. Eitel explains: "A girl is the mother of every child who is born into poverty, and a girl will determine the future of the next generation. The Girl Effect: you don't just transform her life, but the family's, the community's, the nation's."
As you saw in my Genzyme and Goldman Sachs posts from CGI, and previous posts on firms like Clifford Chance, these are the innovators that identify needs and opportunities. They also consider the resources they can offer to make a meaningful contribution, and build a corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy that's aligned with the corporate mission. They envision the greater potential for the community and the world, and how their company can help make it possible in a way that makes sense for the business.
Find me a company with a robust, sustainable, and high impact CSR initiative, and I'll bet the CEO can tell you how and why the board supports the program--and why it makes sense to shareholders. Nike board member Jill K. Conway, former President of Smith College, and former board member Michael A. Spence, Nobel Prize winner in Economics in 2001 and Professor at Harvard University, led the way in supporting Eitel's proposal for The Girl Effect when she made her proposal. Eitel recalls how Spence declared that this initiative was the "smartest economic contribution that we could make as a foundation."
Just a few years later, Nike and Eitel are recognized as leaders at the forefront of one of the most prominent global movements by Muhammad Yunus and former President Bill Clinton. Eitel's partners and collaborators in helping girls and women include Peter and Jennifer Buffett, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, and The World Bank Group, among others.
If your corporate social responsibility (CSR) program is ancillary to your corporate strategy, it's on the chopping block--or already in the waste bin. This is especially true in today's economy. On the flip side, you have a chance to gain a competitive advantage by creating a unique approach to making the world a better place.
Say the CEO or the board asks why the company is spending money on a particular CSR program. You need to have an answer ready, but you should also see it as an opportunity to make the case for a sustainable, strategically integrated CSR program.
Twenty years ago and earlier, with rare exceptions, the only corporate charity was a bit of gifting by the CEO, perhaps to the arts. Ten years ago, corporate philanthropy and volunteerism became popular as an a la carte add on. In these posts from the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), I'm turning the spotlight on the avant garde of CSR: companies that make community and global problem-solving part of their business platform, thus making "doing good" sustainable.
Genzyme, one of the world's leading biotechnology companies, is a good example. Through its Humanitarian Assistance for Neglected Diseases (HAND) initiative, Genzyme supports efforts to discover and advance novel treatments for neglected diseases such as malaria, Chagas disease, and sleeping sickness. According to Genzyme, "The company does not seek to profit from the commercialization of any products it helps to develop under this program."
Sounds fantastic, but I wanted to know: "Why would a for-profit company do this?" I posed that question to James A. Geraghty, Sr. Vice President, Corporate Development, Product Acquisition, and Partnering Transactions, Genzyme. "If we don't do it, who will?" he replied. That response mimics what I heard from speakers at CGI--Genzyme saw a global problem, and used their company's expertise to solve it.
But I pressed him on this: "What's the case to shareholders, and how does your board of directors support this?" Geraghty explained that historically, pharmaceutical companies have not had great relationships with governments in developing and emerging countries. Yet those are, of course, important markets for companies like Genzyme. "Governments are the decision makers. We want to develop their respect as partners, so that we can bring forward our commercial portfolio in the future." Genzyme's portfolio includes drugs for rare inherited disorders, renal disease, cancer, orthopedics, and diagnostic testing.
If your corporate social responsibility (CSR) program is ancillary to your corporate strategy, it's on the chopping block--or already in the waste bin. This is especially true in today's economy. On the flip side, you have a chance to gain a competitive advantage by creating a unique approach to making the world a better place.
Sounds fantastic, but I wanted to know: "Why would a for-profit company do this?" I posed that question to James A. Geraghty, Sr. Vice President, Corporate Development, Product Acquisition, and Partnering Transactions, Genzyme. "If we don't do it, who will?" he replied. That response mimics what I heard from speakers at CGI--Genzyme saw a global problem, and used their company's expertise to solve it.
