The director of Article 13 on why good corporate governance is no longer optional in today’s economy.
What is Article 13?
Article 13 is a specialist advisor in governance, business responsibility and sustainable development. We develop policy and strategy through the use of research and engagement to deliver innovation, governance and organisational responsibility. We work with companies, governments and academic institutions to meet the growing pressure for better performance, whether it is social, environmental, ethical or economic. We are about ‘breaking the cycle’ and looking beyond traditional responses so we leapfrog to innovative solutions. We use participation and engagement to implement all our work and build innovative strategies, advocacy, policy and communications.
What will be the dominant themes this year in CSR and SRI? Will it be a year of change?
2005 will be all about opportunities for ‘breaking the cycle’, whether it’s the cycle of
the deteriorating state of the environment, deprivation and poverty or individual and organisational behaviour.
For example, the UK government’s presidency of the G8 and the European Union in 2005 provides a unique opportunity for realising the UK’s political aspiration for leadership on issues such as poverty, Africa, climate change and governance. The dominant themes in CSR will echo some of the debates occurring on the political stage around governance, poverty, health and climate change.
With the move towards political regionalisation, another theme for 2005 will be around how companies are practically getting engaged in addressing regional issues. In addition to an ongoing engagement on the above topics, we believe the SRI community may well move their focus on responsibility more locally by looking at what companies are doing in communities and how they are addressing poverty, access and climate change in communities local to their operations whether in the UK or globally.
Is Article 13 happy with the Labour government’s approach to CSR and SRI?
With the long awaited OFR there is a real opportunity to bring CSR into mainstream governance and risk identification procedures in an explicit way. An area where government can practically address leadership in these issues is through their own national, regional and local procurement. This can be mirrored in their own policies, procedures and programmes at national, regional and local offices through CSR or what is more commonly known in the public sector as the ‘Corporate Citizenship’ approach.
Can businesses play a more proactive role in communicating CSR to investors?
Yes, they definitely can. In fact, they need to. Non-specialist investors may not always understand the risk and opportunities the CSR agenda can address. As CSR can reveal intangible risk to value, communicating their approach to investors can inform the more traditional focus on dividends and share price.
Should UK businesses be required to report in depth on social and sustainability issues so investors can better gauge their commitment to these?
It is our experience that if sustainability issues are considered separately, they run the risk of being seen as a stand-alone issue outside of the ‘core business’. For example, the ABI guidelines aim to address this issue. They seek integration of reporting on social, ethical and environmental issues within the main company annual report, providing cross referencing to further detail on a website or separate CSR report. This type of ‘integrated’ reporting demonstrates a wider ‘market-scanning’ for emerging risks, obligations and opportunities and ultimately provides evidence of good management.
Jane Fiona Cumming
Co-founder, director, Article 13 Jane Fiona is a life sciences graduate who moved through retail training and management on to FMCG marketing. From here she progressed into advertising, in the process attaining an MBA in strategic planning. She co-founded Article 13 in 1998 and has since put her strategic planning and research expertise to highly effective use working with corporations, national and local government and not-for-profit organizations, delivering CSR and corporate governance programmes. Highly trained in facilitation, participation and innovation techniques, Jane Fiona cites her major strength as “combining an evidence-based approach with participation to deliver innovation”.
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