Last week International Paper (IP), a $26 billion company with over 60,000 employees worldwide, issued its 2011 sustainability report, full of goals the company has set for 2020.

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Safeway had a nightmare of a week, and based on the social media firestorm, recent criticism of the supermarket chain over suspending Ryan Young will not stop anytime soon.

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Last week in a very interesting article on HBR Blog, Prof. Gregory Unruh of Harvard offered the explanation that Apple has a reactive CSR strategy, which he described as the “Little Dutch Boy” Strategy. In other words, Apple bothers to act only when there’s a complaint or protest against the company, hoping like the little Dutch boy that poking its fingers in the holes in a dyke will stem the flow and let the company go back to concentrate on designing and selling great products. While Prof. Unruh is certainly right about Apple’s reactive strategy, I believe the CSR problems of Apple go beyond its reactive strategy. Looking at the main issues Apple has been struggling with in the last couple of years, I identified 5 main problems that cause Apple to fail time and again when it comes to CSR

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Volunteer engagements enable your employees to go out in the community, represent your brand, build relationships, and strengthen communities by sharing their skills and passions. Particularly in these difficult times, where the news is dominated by troubling stories, there is perhaps no better way to enhance your image and stand out from the pack than by sharing uplifting stories that demonstrate your company’s social responsibility.

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This week Kohl’s issued its first annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) report, which discusses the company’s energy efficiency and green building efforts.

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Nike has just released its most recent sustainability report, an interactive site that allows visitors to create their own green athletic wear.

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Hershey’s is getting with the program, and its most recent CSR report is a step in the right direction on responsible sourcing and child labor.

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Producing a CR report can be expensive. A broader communications platform can help make the most of your investment. Here’s how to maximize all that great content to promote your company’s corporate responsibility all year round.

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Crowd sourcing and the power of social media are changing the corporate social responsibility and sustainability landscape.

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Who knew men are so sensitive? Well, certainly not Kimberly-Clark (K-C). The company enraged many dads earlier this month with its new “Dad Test” campaign for Huggies diapers. The idea behind the campaign was as follows: “To prove that Huggies diapers and wipes can handle anything, we put them to the toughest test imaginable: Dads, alone with their babies, in one house, for five days.” The whole fiasco was not just a great opportunity to learn about the sensitivity level of modern dads, but also a valuable lesson in stakeholder engagement in the age of social media.

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By Dr. Lawrence S. Levin One of the most essential yet difficult variables that distinguishes top teams from most executive teams is their ability to engage in honest, candid, and authentic dialogue. Dialogue (from the Greek dia-logos) literally means an exchange of ideas. In our work with teams, and in our observation of top teams, [...]

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Valentine’s Day has had a long history, and for centuries has been celebrated as the day of romantic love. It’s been referred in several literary works through the centuries, including Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the Middle Ages, people exchanged hand-made paper cards as tokens of love. Since 1913, when Hallmark started mass producing Valentine’s Day cards, [...]

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Achieving zero waste seems to be the biggest goal with many food companies. Coca-Cola has done it. Kit Kat has done it, and now Kraft is following their footsteps. The company recently announced that it sends no waste to landfills in 36 of its manufacturing plants in 13 countries. Kraft has been steadily working towards building [...]

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By David Jaber When working for more resilient communities or responsible businesses, one pattern that emerges is that they are more process oriented than results-oriented.   This comes across perhaps most clearly in larger-scale planning projects, where a vital piece of the work revolves around stakeholder engagement. As an illustration, a proposed residential/entertainment/hotel complex in [...]

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The biggest farmers market in San Francisco has revised its standards for egg sellers, limiting approved vendors to those who pasture-raise their chickens (i.e. keep them outside where they can peck and scratch and eat grass and bugs) and kicking out farmers who keep their hens in barns and feed them grain exclusively. So far so good. The story gets interesting when you realize that the change impacts only one vendor: Petaluma Farms.

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In recent years, advocacy organizations like Greenpeace, PETA, and others have been able to leverage the stakeholder engagement trend and the power of social media to focus public attention on their key issues and put pressure on companies to take action. Recent news from The Humane Society of the US (HSUS) reveals that these organizations have added yet another influencing tactic [...]

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In late 2009 a private development group, with apparent links to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, submitted a proposal directly to the Prime Minister of Belize and the Ministry of Tourism that called for the establishment of a new cruise port of call in the small southern village of Placencia. The proposal—described by the developers as small scale or “niche” cruise tourism, in contrast to “mass tourism”—catalyzed much discussion and debate on the benefits and drawbacks of this sector in Belize.

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At long last, Walmart has entered the sustainable blogosphere with a new site called “The Green Room” (not to be confused with our own green room project with BBMG). Walmart’s new offering is a self described “platform for an ongoing conversation with NGOs, suppliers, the media, and others who want to share ideas and partner with us [...]

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Michigan Central Station (MCS, or Michigan Central Depot) stands tall as a monument to the time when Detroit was one of America’s most important economic centers. Could it make a comeback?

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Timing is (almost) everything in life. Just ask Qantas, the Australian airline that found itself involved in a social media fiasco. The company asked its Twitter followers, “What is your dream luxury inflight experience?” and suggested that they include the hashtag #QantasLuxury in their reply. This was supposed to be a fun interaction with customers [...]

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When you think about it, with all the progress that had been made with stakeholder engagement, we still know very little about the people behind the corporations. With few rare exceptions, such as Timberland, the best we get is usually a twitter account run by the CEO and maybe a blog managed by the company’s [...]

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By Jeff Klein In the first post in this 3-part series on Stakeholder Engagement Marketing (SEM) I proposed that marketing is misunderstood and suggested that the deeper purpose and potential of marketing are rarely recognized or embodied. I also outlined the context for SEM. In the second post in this seriesI outlined the first phase [...]

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For many companies, stakeholder engagement is no longer looked at as just a way to placate stakeholders or balance their competing interests. Stakeholder engagement work has evolved into a core strategic tool for sustainability practitioners trying to make progress on a variety of issues for their organizations. By collaborating with NGO’s, governments, customers, and competitors, companies can address sustainability challenges on a larger scale and in a more systemic way. This idea was the topic of the “New Art of Collaboration” panel discussion at Opportunity Green 2011.

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In an epic case of stakeholder engagement fail, the Canadian company TransCanada has just seen its signature Keystone XL Pipeline project go down in flames. Yesterday, the State Department announced that it would delay approval of the project pending further review. While this development did not kill  the Keystone pipeline outright, you might as well [...]

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Olfa Strauss’ experience this summer and how her company handled protests over rising food costs and wealth inequality in Israel will be an enduring case study for other companies in the Middle East that will feel pressure to change their ways throughout a region that demands more accountability and dignity from their leaders.

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This post is part of a series on exploring Rwanda as part of the International Reporting Project’s Gatekeeper Editor trip. Follow along on our page here. I’ve been in Rwanda for scarcely 24 hours and an astonishing array of contrasting stories and experience has already unfolded.  Upon arrival, I was immediately struck by the compete [...]

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By Jeff Klein As reflected in the first post in this 3-part series on Stakeholder Engagement Marketing, underlying all business is the opportunity to cooperate for mutual and collective benefit, and at the heart of a conscious business resides deeper purpose that inspires and engages its stakeholders and aligns their aspirations and intentions. When we [...]

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Having endured a painful restructuring, Chrysler Group LLC is on the path towards recovery, and released its first ever sustainability report last week.

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By Jeff Klein Marketing is misunderstood. The deeper purpose and potential of marketing are rarely recognized or embodied. While marketing is often used and perceived as manipulation, it can serve as a process to bring a company’s mission to life and to engage its stakeholders in ongoing and ever-deepening relationships. While all marketing can function [...]

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Is it possible that a memo is going around among CEOs instructing them to engage more seriously with stakeholders in general and NGOs specifically? Just look at the list – Adidas, Nike, Puma and H&M have all made commitments to eliminate all toxic pollution throughout their supply chain following the Greenpeace Detox campaign. The Rainforest Action [...]

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