With changes in the government’s CSR office, Ben Stimson sets out how and why CSR professionals are working together to ensure their voice is heard at the policy making table.
In June this year my first official duty as chairman of CRG was to join Stephen Timms MP, then Minister for CSR in co-hosting a half day discussion in partnership with the DTI and BITC on the government’s draft International Strategic Framework on Corporate Social Responsibility.
The event provided over 50 CSR practitioners and civil servants with the opportunity to discuss the implications and application of the proposals contained within the International Strategy Framework, as well as an opportunity for the Minister to listen first hand to a range of views on the usefulness and practicality of the Framework from the perspective of a CSR manager.
This is just one example of how the Corporate Responsibility Group provides unique mechanisms for facilitating dialogue on the issues that affect the environment within which CSR professionals operate.
Since it was established in 1986 the Group has grown from a membership of 10 companies to over 75 of the UK’s largest organisations committed to corporate responsibility, but we have remained true to our core values. Our mission is to be an organisation that exists for and is run by CSR practitioners; which seeks to provide a supportive network, access to information and good practice and skills development in order to build our members capacity and credibility so that they can add real value to their companies.
But our role is not to speak on behalf of our members. CRG is not a policy making organisation; we don’t pretend to have one voice which represents the views of CSR professionals from a range of sectors including retail, transport, pharmaceuticals, media and technology.
In these situations CRG’s role is to enable our members to represent the range of views they hold or facilitate an opportunity for those with shared interests to influence and inform policy making through direct engagement with government ministers and officials, as well as leading think tanks, NGOs and business schools, all of whom influence the landscape within which we operate.
That’s why last year CRG facilitated a partnership with the DTI, which bought together not only a number of our members, but also the TUC, Ashridge Business School and Business in the Community under the guidance of our former chair, Sue Slipman, to develop an agreed core set of professional competencies and skills required to develop CSR managers.
The end result, the CSR Competency Framework, has now become the main component of the DTI funded CSR Academy. This is a fantastic and tangible example of good engagement with government and key partners, helping those making policy to do so informed by real CSR practitioner experience.
We hold an annual consultation with members (not a conference!), which also facilitates dialogue between our members as well as campaigning organisations like Friends of the Earth and nef, the new economics foundation.
In all of this our objective is to help our members do their job better, both by sharing experience and skills and by understanding the wide range of debates and thinking going on outside their company, as well as to help shape the wider policy development of CSR using our members’ daily experience and practical expertise.
Ben Stimson is group head of corporate responsibility at BSkyB and chair of the Corporate Responsibility Group
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The Corporate Responsibility Group represents 78 CSR professionals.
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