Corporate Social Responsibility in Sponsorship

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Corporate Responsibility (CR) not be confused with Cause Related Marketing (CRM)... It's got many names and many definitions, and that's just the problem, it means different things to different people and therefore execution of Socially Responsible (SR) Sponsorship can be deemed a failure by a consumer whose interpretation differs from those who activated it. It's enough to make you join the CAAG

I've just listened to a conference on Corporate Responsibility and a lot of it was good to hear, but I think the big picture has been missed!

Corporate Responsibility is about being responsible. FULL STOP. Responsible to your staff, responsible to your customers, responsible to the/your environment, responsible to (do I dare say it) your shareholders... to the business itself.

Greenwash is a popular term used to describe talking about being environmentally friendly whilst not actually doing anything, it means to paint over a non-environmentally friendly policy or business etc. portraying one which is "green". I think most talk about Corporate Responsibility is exactly that... C(S)Rwash.

Everyone talks about how they spend their money in a responsible way... knock knock... hello?... anyone there?... it's not about how you spend your money, its about how you MAKE your money.

Have you made your money in a responsible way? Every decision made should have an appropriate level of "is this decision responsible to [insert as appropriate]". Look at Honda and specifically a conference speech by David Butler. Honda thinks about responsibility from the bottom up, not just in the PR department; what light bulbs do we use in our factories? Where is our electricity sourced from? What percentage of our waste goes to landfill? What transport do the staff use to get to work? What paper are the press releases printed on?

You can't do everything in a positive way, some decisions have to be made for the good and longevity of a business and outcomes can easily be criticised in parts, if not as a whole. BUT you should be using an appropriate level of responsibility in every decision you make.

That is what Corporate Responsibility is.