Human rights groups and green campaigners believe that companies’ glossy publications extolling their environmental and social record are unsatisfactory, with fewer than half of 56 leading lobby groups saying that these are ”believable”, a new survey shows.
Alarmed by the fallout from PR disasters such as Shell Expo’s Brent Spar North Sea oil storage buoy, companies are embracing the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement and its demand that they account for more than just their financial record, according to consultancy Burson-Marsteller.
The statements would be more credible, the lobbyists say, if companies admitted non-compliance, poor performance or significant problems meeting the tough new standards they have set themselves.
”With the growing influence of the NGO community, it’s no longer enough for companies to hope that keeping quiet about the challenges they face will make them disappear,” said Gavin Grant, MD of corporate social responsibility at Burson-Marsteller.
Using outside bodies to certify compliance and providing full information about performance on the different standards helps improve credibility, the survey found.
Some lobbyists argue that the CSR movement is no substitute for regulations forcing companies to behave better.
”CSR has a very limited role to play because businesses can only justify it if it makes economic sense,” said Deborah Doane, head of the corporate accountability programme at the New Economics Foundation.
The majority of NGOs (66%) believe the CEO bears the greatest burden for restoring trust in the corporate United States, where reputations have been tarnished by a succession of scandals, from Enron to the controversy surrounding the mutual funds industry. — Â