After the general election the new coalition published its programme for government just as Briefing went to print. With Vince Cable at the helm of the business department, there’s much in it to delight proponents of corporate responsibility and sustainability.
Here at Briefing over the last 18 months we’ve covered the changing Conservative thinking and held two breakfast briefing events under the speculative title “Red goes Blue goes Green?” Albeit via a route we certainly didn’t anticipate, arguably that’s exactly where we’ve ended up.
The programme promises “urgent action… to support green growth and build a new and more responsible economic model….. make our economy more environmentally sustainable and improve our quality of life and well-being.” Numerous initiatives are envisaged to move us to a low carbon future.
The programme goes further, making changes to corporate governance, notably by resurrecting the OFR. Old hands will recall the ten year effort by Tomorrow’s Company and others to extend reporting of company directors’ social and environmental duties, before Gordon Brown unceremoniously dumped it in his days as chancellor. Now it’s back, along with a pledge to promote more women on boards.
Myriad micro initiatives are heralded too: a green investment bank, a social responsibility levy on banks to fund a national financial advice service, restriction on supermarket expansion, local enterprise partnerships to replace RDAs, ‘honest’ food labelling, curbs on alcohol sales, restrictions on advertising to children, a National Citizen Service, a Big Society Bank funded from dormant bank accounts, and so on.
But looming over everything is deficit reduction, largely through spending cuts. But even here, as Peter Truesdale argues in this edition, the implication is a greater role for companies, with pressure to step in to fill the gaps. The agreement is loud on its support for the third sector of mutuals, charities and social enterprises.
How it all works out is another matter, of course. To make sense of the implications for practitioners, we are holding another of our “Red goes Blue goes Green” breakfast events towards the end of June. Let me know if you’d like to attend.
Mike Tuffrey is founding editor of Corporate Citizenship Briefing, and founding director of Corporate Citizenship. In addition, he is an elected member of the London Assembly and has been appointed by the mayor to the London Sustainable Development Commission.
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