Survey on CSR and Profits

Dec
2012

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CSR Research Digest – December 2012

Summary

New York based Corporate and investor relations firm Adam Friedman Associates recently conducted a survey on corporate social responsibility globally. The survey of CSR executives focused on how executives within Fortune 1000 organizations develop, measure and report the results of their CSR initiatives.

Key Findings

Profits and CSR are closely linked, and many businesses evaluate the relationship between these two variables when developing strategy.
Some executives believe the CSR function may disappear altogether as corporations begin to absorb CSR into all aspects of their business and make it a part of every employee’s responsibilities.
As companies begin to assess and measure the effects their CSR programs have on the business’s reputation, CSR may increase in both scope and importance.
When evaluating motivations behind CSR policy, results signal that the primary motivation behind CSR initiatives lies in the company’s reputation (88%), followed by the company’s competitive positioning and social consciousness (71%).
Significantly, profitability (38%) and pending or existing legislation (32%) were determined to be motivating factors.
Results overwhelmingly show that respondents believe CSR is either very or extremely important to the mission of their companies (86%).
Results suggest that internally the opinions of C-suite executives (86%) and other employees (76%) are most important when measuring the company’s CSR efforts.
Following the C-suite and board of directors, respondents said the legal (51%) and public relations (45%) departments were both involved nearly half the time when setting CSR strategies, and the sales (24%) and marketing (30%) departments were involved nearly a quarter of the time.
In terms of external audiences, the opinions of customers (73%) and investors (69%) were the most important considerations when measuring CSR strategies.
More than half the time, companies evaluated the company’s media coverage (51%) and government feedback (52%) to assess the success of their CSR programs.
When evaluating communication channels corporations use to disseminate information about the organization’s CSR policies, respondents indicated that they most commonly use the company’s website (95%) and the annual report (72%) for CSR-related communication, but more than half of respondents also indicated that they disseminate information via social media (54%) including Facebook and Twitter.
Respondents said environmental issues were a top focus (96%), followed by health issues (68%), educational issues (59%), human rights (55%), labor issues (50%) and an additional number cited safety (11%) as a program focus.

Author(s)

Adam Friedman Associates

Source

Further details

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