There are advantages to conducting business in a sustainable and responsible way stretching far beyond the feel-good factor that comes with doing the right thing. According to a major 2014 study by research company Nielsen covering consumers across 60 countries, 55% of people indicated they would be willing to pay more for products and services provided by companies committed to making a positive social and environmental impact. 

These findings are echoed by YouGov polling carried out for SEUK in August 2014 that found that 57% of people are more likely to purchase a product or service from a business with a policy to always use an ethical supply chain. There are major commercial benefits to be found in having a social purpose.

B2B benefits

If anything, the advantages appear even more pronounced in the B2B space. Grant Thornton’s 2014 International Business Report asked 2,500 businesses to rank what was driving their CSR activity. The top answer (67%) was ‘Cost management’ – perhaps not surprising, given the research was among clients of an accountancy firm. Arguably more revealing were the other popular responses that came hot on the heels of bean counting: ‘Customer demand’ (64%), ‘Right thing to do’ (62%), ‘Brand building’ (59%) and ‘Staff recruitment/retention’ (58%).

To put it another way, almost two thirds of businesses believe their customers want them to deliver on CSR and nearly six out of 10 think it plays a role in building their brand. We’re reaching the point where CSR is becoming business critical, rather than a worthy nice-to-have.

So far, so good – as it were. But of course not all CSR activity is created equal. Badly designed programmes will deliver very little of use to a company. And at worst, where responsible values are espoused but not lived up to, may lead to businesses being accused of hypocrisy and cynicism. 

“We do have a CSR policy document, but personally I think the concept of CSR should be ingrained in the company not the document,” says CFH Docmail managing director Dave Broadway. “The document simply represents what we do as a matter of course.

“CSR, like the culture of the company, can only come from the top. Business leaders need to know when to put what is ‘right’ above profits, and automatically take the appropriate action. It ranges from supporting important local causes, through minimising damage to the environment, to supporting and helping employees.”

In Broadway’s opinion, the majority of CSR statements appear to be “box-ticking exercises”. The proof of the pudding should lie in judging a company on what its employees, neighbours, customers and suppliers think of it. 

Everyone knows of certain major global businesses that have invested heavily in CSR initiatives, reported on at length in glossy documents, that are nevertheless still widely viewed as uncaring corporations focused on profitability above and beyond all else. Running counter to this is the simple idea that you shouldn’t ‘put together’ a CSR policy but just write down what you do. 

“We believe that our CSR policy brings together everything about our work that makes a positive impact; to our customers, team, suppliers and community. It crosses customer service, quality standards, environmental considerations, treatment of suppliers, the progression and fulfilment of our team and how we engage with our local area,” says Systematic Print Management managing director Chris Robey. “As such, our CSR approach links closely to other policies, including our quality, environmental, training and ethical procurement policies. 

“That sounds like a lot of policies, but we have found that CSR comes down to the ethos of the business, and responsible business practice has been part of our heritage and culture for 40 years. It’s an aggregation of the many things that can make a business special. Taking a proactive approach to CSR increases the return for all concerned. It generates a feel-good factor for our team and has tangible business benefits. Our profile is raised by positive publicity and some new customers want to work with companies that have an ethical approach to doing business. It also creates benefits for local sporting, environmental and other charities: a win-win scenario!”

The best known CSR programmes such as Marks & Spencer’s Plan A and Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan are of course those conducted by major corporations. It’s fair to say that larger businesses are often more comfortable than smaller companies with writing policies and generating action plans. For a start, they have plenty of staff and other resources at their disposal.

Yet SMEs actually have some great advantages over big listed companies when it comes to embracing CSR. Family-owned businesses and other small firms aren’t beholden to the financial expectations of faceless external shareholders and the burden of quarterly reporting. They can invest in CSR without having to think in the short term – a very good thing, considering sustainability is all about the long term.

Moreover, employee engagement is easier on a smaller scale. And in order for CSR to work, staff need to be behind it. 

“From our experience, we were already doing the hard work of operating in a way that’s socially responsible,” adds Robey. “Having a policy and action plan merely provides structure and a means of evaluating our performance.”

Print’s requirements

Needless to say, the print sector has its own specific environmental issues. Forest Stewardship Council certification to highlight that a business uses paper from well managed sources has become increasingly vital and is often an important plank of CSR activity in the print sector. Its importance will continue to increase. 

“Corporate responsibility is rising up the agenda with big companies and as a result it’s travelling down the supply chain,” says Jacquie Irvine, co-founder of sustainability consultancy Good Values. “Bigger companies want the agencies and suppliers they deal with to have their own strategy because it poses a risk to them if they do not. So you are seeing this trickle-down, cascading effect. More and more smaller companies will have to do it if they want to work with larger clients.”

While implementing a CSR policy is one thing, it’s also key that you communicate that fact. Customers must be informed to be reassured. And everybody has customers who care about things that matter.

“There is a perception that we’re moving towards a much more commoditised world,” says Simon Graham, environmental strategist at Cheltenham-based Commercial Group. “Therefore, in order to differentiate ourselves we need to provide more than simply the product.” 

Commercial holds an annual ‘CSR Day’ and at this year’s event – the ninth – it announced the launch of social enterprise the Commercial Foundations. This includes three brands, one of which, WE DO Print, helps disadvantaged young people gain the skills necessary to start out on a career in print. 

Over 200 people attended the CSR Day launch of the Commercial Foundations and the profile of the event was heightened on social media as the hashtag CSRDay2015 trended on Twitter during the keynote presentations; an example of a business not only doing good but doing a good job of telling people about it. Graham adds that Commercial’s commitment to being a company with a social purpose has galvanised staff, customers and suppliers in a shared vision to provide social as well as financial value and that WE DO Print is seen as a prototype of the way that business can provide real product, purpose…and transform peoples’ lives.

Webmart is another company in the sector with a strong focus on doing good. “All of the interest from Webmart’s cash reserves are donated to charities chosen by clients, suppliers and staff,” says chief executive Simon Biltcliffe. “Over £300,000 has been distributed so far, and the office noticeboards are bulging with cards, notes and photos from the people the money has helped. Staff are encouraged to get hands-on with the causes they care about most, with a Webmart donation of £250 if they spend a day engaging with the charity, whether that’s shaking a collection tin on the streets or using their knowledge of print marketing to add value to new acquisition strategies.”

Webmart is also carbon positive: the roof of its Bicester office is covered with solar panels. It is currently working towards achieving ‘zero to landfill’ status with regards to office waste. In addition, it recently acquired 163 acres of mixed woodland in Scotland to serve the dual purpose of being an environmentally friendly ‘oxygen farm’ while also offering a woodland escape for employees. 

Biltcliffe, who devotes 10% of his time to providing free mentoring via video chats, points out that Generation Y employees actively seek out a moral dimension to the businesses they engage with, “so Webmart looks to top up employees’ karma by looking for ways to do as much good as possible while getting the day job done.”

CSR has become a big deal in every sense. Research published by consultancy ECG in October 2014 concluded that the Fortune 500 companies spend a whopping US $15.2bn a year on CSR activities. 

Clearly, the vast majority of businesses don’t operate at that sort of scale. But with a widespread expectation among employees and customers that companies will behave in an ethical, responsible manner, the onus is on businesses large and small to weave CSR into their culture and strategy. And then to demonstrate how they are delivering on their promises. 

CSR: Delivering on your promises

Make sure you have a clear understanding of who your stakeholders are and how the various elements of your CSR activity will impact on them.

Buy-in and support from the very top of the business is essential.

Involve your whole team in generating ideas and approaches to your CSR work. As the saying goes, engagement creates ownership. 

If you can involve every department in your company, so much the better.

Appoint a project leader or CSR activity coordinator.

Go for CSR initiatives that are in tune with the culture and purpose of your business.

If you have a clear grasp of your company’s social purpose and/or CSR activity that is a good fit for your business and brand, you may be well placed to handle it all in-house. In fact, CSR is generally best conducted by your employees.

If you do need some external assistance, hire a CSR specialist with specific experience of stakeholders like yours. Ideally you are looking for them to point you in the right direction, embed their expertise in your company – and then, job done, put themselves out of work. Look for someone whose ideas are inspiring, because you want your CSR programmes to be inspiring. 

Very few companies start from absolute zero. There are usually some charitable initiatives and so on in place. If these are relevant and popular, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. It may be better to further develop these partnerships and/or augment them with complementary activities.

Check out the content and free tools on websites such as www.csrcompass.com/guidelines for assistance in developing CSR activities that will sit well with partners such as customers and suppliers.

Look into what your peers are doing. Are your competitors much more committed to CSR than you? Is it giving them a significant advantage?

Conduct research among stakeholders and be consistent in how you go about this. Picking good causes to support on a whim is simply not good enough.

Strategy and planning

Once you have identified which CSR topics are the most important to your business and stakeholders, set about ranking them in importance. If one area is head and shoulders above the others, give it priority.

Employees and customers may differ on what they consider important. It may then be a case of identifying topics that work for both groups, or of conducting CSR across more than one topic area. 

As CSR should be an intrinsic part of business strategy, senior management should be involved in the decision making process.

Once you are clear on why a CSR topic is a good area for your business to be involved in, write down a short description of why you have chosen it. This description can then be incorporated into a CSR policy and will help provide clarity for everyone as to why you are going down this route.

A CSR policy can be long or short. It can be expressed over several pages, or neatly summed up in just a few short and snappy paragraphs. Honesty matters far more than word length. In essence, a CSR policy is your promise to stakeholders. So be realistic and don’t leave any hostages to fortune by promising things you may not be able to deliver. 

Avoid being wishy-washy. Aim for measurable outcomes. For example, if you are looking to reduce carbon emissions, set specific key performance indicators on carbon reduction. Vague waffle impresses no one.

Delivering on your promises

Think medium and long term. Environmental and social changes don’t happen overnight. It may be a case of looking ahead three to five years.

Draw up an action plan to get things done.

Avoid being overwhelmed by irrelevant data. Collect only the information that’s important in judging success.

Be clear on who has responsibility for the final implementation/running of your CSR programmes. Do you need a working group? Or simply someone who is head of CSR (for SMEs this will almost certainly be in addition to other roles). 

However you decide to implement, make sure there are sufficient resources available to get the job done. Remember, it’s vital to deliver on your commitments otherwise you run the very real risk of damage to your reputation.

Communicate what you are doing both internally and externally – and not just at the start. Communication is fundamental to the success of CSR. And like good CSR activity, communication should be ongoing.

Talk about CSR on your website but don’t be afraid to use other channels such as social media, company blogs and presentations to get the message across – all the time taking care to ensure that whatever you say is entirely accurate.

Make sure the CSR news you promote is aligned with your overall strategy.

Don’t overlook what owners and employees are doing in the local community.

The European Commission has produced a useful guide to communicating about CSR.