The New CSR

A panel discussion was held at the Heritage Foundation onThursday, June 7 to discuss potential problems with enforcing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) mandates.

The panel consisted of Heritage’s own research fellow and data analyst James Roberts and two guest panelists—Chair and professor at Grove City College Andrew Markley and Director of International Affairs James Kelly III.

In simple terms, CSR, also called Corporate Citizenship, is a philosophy of the responsibility that corporations have to the society in which they operate, whether economically or morally.

“It’s kind of something that looked good… Who could be opposed to corporate social responsibility? But then we decided to scratch the surface and dig a little deeper into what’s really going on here and what’s on the agendas at work that are pushing this issue,” Roberts said.

The panel discussion was in response to the International Organization for Standardization’s mandates that would be compulsory instead of voluntary. The website for the ISO claims it to be the largest developer and publisher of International standards that is nongovernmental.

“For advocates of CSR, for those who would like to push it forward, the lack of a specific terminology and in fact the lack of a specific definition has been, I think, a source of frustration in general and of course has led perhaps CSR advocates making accusations against business that they weren’t really taking (CSR) seriously,” Markley said.

The definition of CSR has changed due to codes such as ISO 26000 according to Markley. The original definition was a model for business to be accountable to the shareholders, but the new model makes business accountable for something Markley refers to as the triple bottom line—social, environmental and economic returns.

“Codes like ISO 26000, and we’re not talking about generalities, now we’re talking about comprehensive standards which are now in print, claiming to be the new standard of corporate social responsibility,” Markley said. “The definition that we’re seeing for corporate social responsibility is one that redefines the nature of businesses and indeed the markets in which they operate.”

Kate Powley is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.

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