Mr Wicks is Labour’s fifth CSR minister in four years. However this time CSR comes under the same brief as energy, sustainability, fuel poverty and nulclear security rather than social enterprise and small business policy.
Mr Wicks’ appointment means Labour now has its fifth ‘CSR minister’ in just over four years. Sticking with tradition, incumbent Nigel Griffiths was promoted, leaving the impression that, well, CSR may not be a priority in the greater scheme of things.
This time CSR comes under the same brief as energy, sustainability and the environment, fuel poverty, nuclear security and export control (phew!), rather than social enterprise and small business policy, as it did when Griffiths was in charge. This is disappointing, since we think the government stands a better chance helping smaller business make the link between responsibility issues and performance than adding value to the CSR agenda of larger companies (as guest editor David Grayson argued in CCB 81). The message this time round appears to be ‘macro CSR’, rather than ‘micro CSR’.
There was even talk that CSR would in fact be ditched as a separate ministerial portfolio, something, which even some proponents of CSR argued would have been no bad thing. After all if CSR is becoming as integrated into mainstream business practices as people say it is there is no reason why the policy framework should not reflect this. The evidence suggests that this may not have been too far away from current government thinking, although a DTI spokesperson strenuously denied this. CSR continues to be important to the government, although admittedly it did take some time to iron out the responsibilities following the reshuffle (CSR was in fact missing from the DTI website for the week following the election). In fact, CSR “sits very comfortably with sustainability”, the DTI spokesperson confirms to Briefing.
This all reflects what guest editor John Elkington (p.4) predicts is likely to happen in the private sector; specifically the downsizing or total disbandment of many CSR departments as their activities become fully integrated. It will certainly be interesting to see how things fan out on the official CSR agenda throughout the next governmental term, although we predict little major change (except perhaps another couple of CSR ministers).
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