October Corporate Citizenship Highlights
As corporations work to stay on the cutting edge of corporate citizenship practice, business leaders are becoming increasingly aware of the role that company citizenship plays in overall business strategy, and how—if effectively aligned—environmental, social, and governance dimensions can result in increased performance. The forthcoming 2014 State of Corporate Citizenship study reports that executives whose companies integrated corporate citizenship programs with their overall business strategy and were more likely to report success than those whose companies considered it an add-on activity. In October, we witnessed several Center members aligning their unique values and skill-sets with ambitious corporate citizenship initiates in an effort to combat two of the most imminent global threats: the Ebola virus and climate change. Reynolds American is providing tobacco leaves to produce doses of ZMapp, an experimental drug used to treat Ebola, while Nestlé and Hershey join the fight against the disease by working with the World Cocoa Foundation in an effort to provide aid to affected workers is West Africa. Meanwhile, Cisco Systems, 3M, and Kimberly-Clark are doing their part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by taking part in the Solar Community Initiative, conceived by the World Wildlife Fund, and offering employees solar systems for their homes at lower rates. Corporate citizenship efforts of this scale require support from the top, and leaders can do a lot to drive initiatives when they’re effectively informed and motivated. For more on how leaders perceive corporate citizenship, as well as what corporate citizenship practitioners can do to gain executive support, check out the following offerings from the Center.
