http://www.ssireview.org/articles/ Strategies, Tools, and Ideas for Nonprofits, Foundations, and Socially Responsible Businesses en nicholas_jenna@gsb.stanford.edu Copyright 2010 2010-02-24T07:00:54+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/a_mandarins_lament/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/a_mandarins_lament/ A mandarin, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is a “powerful official or senior bureaucrat, especially one perceived as reactionary or secretive.” Michael Edwards has had a long career that has featured top positions at Oxfam, Save the Children, the World Bank, and 10 years at the Ford Foundation. Although it is clear he is not a secretive fellow, those beliefs have been poured into his new book, Small Change. Small Change is a follow-up to, and an amplification of, Edwards’ 2008 monograph, Just Another Emperor? The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism, which was a hives-like reaction to the book Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World, by The Economist’s Matthew Bishop and Michael Green (who interestingly enough has had a career similar to Edwards’). Edwards makes no bones about what Small Change is about: “The claim that business thinking can save the world is a convenient myth for those who occupy positions of great wealth and power; and the constant celebration of rich and famous individuals is a dangerous distraction from the hard, public work of finding solutions, all of us together.” Edwards further states in the preface, “Social transformation is not a job to be left to market forces or… Corporate Social Responsibility, Book Reviews 2010-02-24T06:00:23+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/what_works_fun_for_a_change/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/what_works_fun_for_a_change/ In June 2009, people going about their ordinary routines in Stockholm encountered a series of perplexing and—most important—fun diversions. One day, commuters at the Odenplan subway station found that the staircase had been replaced with a musical piano keyboard, replete with sound. Young and old alike abandoned their usual ride on the adjacent escalator to scamper up and down the steps. Couples played duets. Children picked out tunes with their parents. Dedicated soloists hopped up and down, losing track of their destinations. During the one-day test, 66 percent more people than usual chose the stairs over the escalator. Meanwhile, pedestrians out for a stroll in a municipal park came upon the World’s Deepest Rubbish Bin—a trash receptacle with sound effects that made it seem as though items were falling into a deep chasm. Some onlookers circled the container, peering inside to get a glimpse of the mighty crater within. A child eager to hear the sound of falling trash scooped up litter off the ground and threw it in. Apparently she was not alone in her enthusiasm: The acoustically enhanced trash can attracted more than twice as much trash—158 pounds in total—as a neighboring ordinary bin. Other passersby came across… Corporate Social Responsibility 2010-02-24T06:00:15+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/research_tech_clears_the_air/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/research_tech_clears_the_air/ World Trade Organization protesters and other globalization foes may have one less fear to fret about. Although manufacturers in the United States are churning out more and more products, their smokestacks are belching out less and less air pollution — and not just because companies are making poor countries do their dirty work. Instead, green technologies are largely clearing the air, finds Arik Levinson, a professor of economics at Georgetown University. “A lot of [activist] groups think of the environment vs. economics as a zero-sum game,” says Levinson. “But in this case, manufacturing grew, and the environment also improved, mostly because of technological advances” that make industries cleaner, he says. In his fine-grained analysis, Levinson first broke down the U.S. manufacturing sector into 450 separate industries. He then tracked how much air pollution (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds) each industry generated between 1987 and 2001. Finally, he traced changes in air pollution to three different causes: growth, technologies that reduce air pollution (such as scrubbers, which clean the gasses passing through smokestacks), and importation (rather than domestic production) of environmentally unfriendly goods. Levinson discovered that although U.S. manufacturers created 24 percent more goods, they emitted… Environment, Corporate Social Responsibility 2010-02-24T06:00:09+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/case_study_leed_the_way/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/case_study_leed_the_way/ Had the proto-green architect Frank Lloyd Wright lived in the 21st century, he might have built something like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) offices in Santa Monica, Calif. Although framed by a century-old structure, the retrofitted downtown site now includes the latest and best eco-friendly features. Reflective roofing and hanging plants cool its surface. Light wells suffuse the interior. Sensors allow artificial illumination only when rooms have occupants. A smart air conditioning system ignores areas that are already cool. Solar panels generate a fifth of the building’s energy, and wind farms provide the rest. As a result, the building’s total energy costs are 44 percent lower than those of a comparable 15,000-square-foot office space. As befits the NRDC’s mission to protect the planet, its headquarters’ materials are also of the greenest caliber. Named the Robert Redford Building, its wood comes from forestry operations that meet the highest sustainability standards. Its paint and other materials emit almost no toxins. And its renovators recycled all but 2 percent of the waste they generated during construction. For these many environmentally friendly specs, the nrdc headquarters received a platinum rating—the highest possible—by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. Created by… Environment, Corporate Social Responsibility 2010-02-24T05:59:42+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/research_the_business_of_bribery/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/research_the_business_of_bribery/ Police and military checkpoints are a familiar sight on many roadways in poor countries. Although some of the officers are legitimately keeping the peace, others are out to line their pockets with baksheesh. Despite their apparent banditry, though, these extortionists respond to market forces in much the same way as do lawful businesspeople, finds a new study from Indonesia. “My research question was, Are corrupt officials just like any other economic actor?” says Benjamin A. Olken, an associate professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the study’s lead author. “If they are, then we have a wealth of economic tools to help us analyze how bribes are going to behave. And we also have to think about the market structure of bribe-takers before designing reforms.” Olken found that the corrupted officials on Aceh and North Sumatra’s highways indeed act like uncoordinated business monopolies--a situation that is bad for consumers because it raises the price of each bribe. It would be better to consolidate bribe-takers under the umbrella of a single monopolist who sets prices and coordinates activities. For instance, the “one-stop shop” reforms of many governments—which allow citizens to get, say, six permits from one office, rather… Corporate Social Responsibility 2009-11-19T06:00:00+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/research_shareholders_nudge_companies/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/research_shareholders_nudge_companies/ The Dow Chemical Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp. got theirs. So did ConocoPhillips Co., International Paper Co., Weyerhaeuser Co., and Monsanto Co. Between 2004 and 2006, these companies received resolutions from shareholders pressing them to take better care of the environment. And then between 2006 and 2007, these businesses indeed made at least one eco-friendly move: They shared data with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a London-based NGO that compiles and publicizes the largest database of corporate greenhouse gas emissions in the world. These corporations’ tales are part of a larger trend, report Erin M. Reid and Michael W. Toff el of Harvard Business School. “We find that if a [Standard & Poor’s (S&P)] 500 company had a shareholder resolution in its recent past,” says Toffel, “it was more likely to disclose to the CDP.” The researchers also find that shareholder resolutions have a spillover effect: If one firm gets an environmental proposal from a stockholder, the rest of the firms in its industry become more likely to comply with the CDP. “Most of these resolutions initially lose, and lose big,” notes Toff el. “Managers don’t like to be told how to behave by shareholder activists.” But within a few… Corporate Social Responsibility 2009-11-19T06:00:00+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/a_fine_green_niche/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/a_fine_green_niche/ Growing up in Guangzhou, China, in the 1950s and 1960s, Maria Yee dreamed of being a physicist. At the same time, her father, a professor of architecture, inspired in her a lifelong interest in design. But when China’s Cultural Revolution scattered Maria’s family across prisons, mines, and farms and sent her to labor in a rock quarry, neither physics nor design seemed to be in her future. She eventually wound up working in a machinery factory while studying mechanical engineering at night school. Years later, however, Yee immigrated to California. There, she combined her knowledge of engineering with her early interest in design to establish Maria Yee Inc. (MYI), an ecologically friendly luxury furniture company based in Santa Cruz, Calif., that uses traditional Chinese joinery techniques in unique home furnishings. Since its founding in 1988, MYI has become a $30 million-a-year business that distributes its goods through retailers such as Crate & Barrel, Room & Board, and Best Buy’s Magnolia Home Theater. The company also owns its two factories in China—a rarity in the furniture world and a source of competitive advantage for the company. MYI has also earned a reputation as a leader in green furniture manufacturing. The company… Environment, Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Social Responsibility 2009-08-18T23:00:04+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/review_dead_aid/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/review_dead_aid/ As the global financial crisis unfolds, those least responsible—our world’s poor—will be most affected. Many have called upon President Obama to uphold his campaign commitment to double foreign assistance. But Dambisa Moyo’s book, Dead Aid, challenges us to think again. Although we can all agree that ending poverty is an urgent necessity, there appears to be increasing disagreement about the best way to achieve that goal. Born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia, Moyo has spent the past eight years at Goldman Sachs as head of economic research and strategy for sub-Saharan Africa, and before that as a consultant at the World Bank. With a PhD in economics from Oxford University and a master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, she is more than qualified to tackle this subject. In Dead Aid, Moyo comes out with guns blazing against the aid industry—calling it not just ineffective, but “malignant.” Despite more than $1 trillion in development aid given to Africa in the past 50 years, she argues that aid has failed to deliver sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction—and has actually made the continent worse off . To remedy this, Moyo presents a road map for Africa to… Economic Development, Corporate Social Responsibility, Book Reviews 2009-08-05T21:22:00+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/making_the_b_list/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/making_the_b_list/ Reem Rahim and her brother Ahmed don’t always agree. But the two cofounders of Oakland, Calif.-based Numi Tea were both skeptical when the nonprofit B Lab approached them about certifying their business as a B Corporation. B—“beneficial”—Corporations use “the power of business to solve social and environmental problems,” according to B Lab’s Web site. Yet Numi Tea had already received organic and Fair Trade certifications, so the Rahims did not understand why they also needed to earn their B Corp bona fides. They questioned whether B Corporation certification was just another marketing fad. And they wondered whether customers would even care that Numi was a B Corp. But as false claims of social and environmental stewardship increasingly cluttered the corporate landscape, the Rahims sought the B Corp seal of approval. “We were concerned about ‘greenwashing,’ or attempts by typical companies to portray themselves as something that they are not,” says Reem. Although different organizations offered environmental, labor, quality, and governance certifications, no one offered a single, independent, comprehensive standard for a company’s overall social and environmental responsibility. As a result, consumers struggled “to tell the difference between good marketing and good company,” explains Jay Coen Gilbert, one… Corporate Social Responsibility 2009-06-23T02:30:00+00:00 http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_hidden_costs_of_cause_marketing/ http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_hidden_costs_of_cause_marketing/ I do my main charity work once a week—at the grocery store. Like some of you, this week I bought organic yogurt that not only is healthier for my family and the Earth, but also supports nonprofit environmental and educational organizations. I also picked up snack bars that promote peace (no kidding!) and salad dressing that funds various (unnamed) charities across the country. For all of this hard work, I rewarded myself with some Endangered Species Chocolate, which helps “support species, habitat, and humanity,” according to the company’s Web site. Delicious. All of these purchases are examples of what my colleague Patricia Mooney Nickel of Victoria University and I call consumption philanthropy.1 Also known in the business world as cause-related marketing or cause marketing, consumption philanthropy pairs the support of a charitable cause with the purchase or promotion of a service or product. (See “Flavors of Consumption Philanthropy” on page 53 for a description of the types of cause marketing.) One example is the Product Red campaign, which California politician Robert Shriver has led and U2 lead singer Bono has promoted since its launch in 2006. By purchasing select Product Redbranded items from companies like Gap Inc., Apple Inc., Dell… Nonprofit Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, Philanthropy, Responsible Investing 2009-05-21T06:01:13+00:00