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Happy New Year from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative. This newsletter summarizes our research and engagement activities during the summer and fall of 2007. Thank you for your interest and participation.
Core Programs News
Other External Engagement
Building Corporate-Community Partnerships
Events
Publications
The CSR Initiative’s research programs focus on two main areas: (1) Governance and Accountability – to explore new multistakeholder models of accountability in addressing issues such as business and human rights and environmental quality, and (2) Business and International Development – to explore how business, working with others, can mobilize resources for development, with a focus on expanding economic opportunity and strengthening public health systems.
GOVERNANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY PROGRAM
The Role of Business & Human Rights
Since CSRI Faculty Chair Prof. John Ruggie was appointed as the UN Special Representative to the Secretary-General (SRSG), he has held numerous multi-stakeholder consultations to encourage dialogue and inform his work on the role of business and human rights. The most recent five multi-stakeholder consultations covered the main issues he will address in his recommendations to the UN Human Rights Committee: the state duty to protect, the corporate responsibility to respect, and the need for more effective grievance mechanisms to populate the relatively barren space between litigation and campaigns against companies.
- 5 November 2007: In his role as the SRSG, John Ruggie and the NGO Global Witness convened a consultation in Berlin entitled "Business and Human Rights in Conflict Zones: The Role of Home States. This workshop considered whether there are certain warning signals to which home governments should react and for which they should provide guidance to companies originating from their jurisdiction.
- 6-7 November 2007: John Ruggie and the Clean Clothes Campaign convened a consultation at the Dutch Foreign Ministry in the Hague entitled, "Business and Human Rights: Improving Human Rights Performance of Business through Multi-stakeholder Initiatives." Participants considered best practices for the governance of multi-stakeholder initiatives, the benefits and limits of monitoring, and the appropriate role of governments. Click here for a summary of the consultation.
- 8-9 November 2007: John Ruggie convened a consultation at the Danish Foreign Ministry in Copenhagen entitled "Business and Human Rights: The Role of States in Effectively Regulating and Adjudicating the Activities of Corporations with Respect to Human Rights." Topics included how state economic policies, investment, and trade interact with human rights, as well as steps states can take to regulate the relationship between corporations and human rights. Click here for a summary of the consultation.
- 19-20 November 2007: CSRI hosted the second multi-stakeholder workshop related to the work of a project led by Caroline Rees, CSRI Research Fellow, and Dr. Simon Zadek, CSRI Senior Fellow, entitled "Corporations and Human Rights: Accountability Mechanisms for Resolving Complaints and Disputes." The workshop brought together a broad group of expert stakeholders to explore enhancing the effectiveness of complaints or dispute resolution mechanisms in the business and human rights arena. It was co-convened with the Kennedy School's Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.
- 4-5 December 2007: John Ruggie convened a consultation at Palais Wilson in Geneva under the auspices of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights entitled “The Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights.” The meeting was primarily composed of business representatives of varied sectors. The discussion centered around “due diligence” processes that businesses can undertake to demonstrate to themselves and others that they respect (do not infringe upon) human rights. These include setting policy, devising compliance regimes, assessing potential human rights impacts, and providing grievance mechanisms.
New Directions in Environmental Accountability
- The CSR Initiative is studying the experience of voluntary environmental programs in the United States to draw out lessons about the potential of voluntary approaches more generally. One focus of this work has been a study of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Performance Track program, which EPA considers to be its “flagship” voluntary initiative. This study, entitled Constructing the License to Operate: Internal Factors and Their Influence on Corporate Environmental Decisions, co-authored by CSRI Executive Director Jennifer Nash, along with Jennifer Howard-Grenville and Cary Coglianese, appeared in the January issue of the journal Law & Policy.
- Jennifer Nash serves on the U.S. EPA’s National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology
(NACEPT) and co-chairs the Council’s environmental stewardship workgroup. At the request of EPA’s Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, in 2007 Nash helped prepare the report “Everyone’s Business: Working Towards Sustainability through Environmental Stewardship and Collaboration.” The report makes the case that environmental protection, much like other social goals, cannot be realized by government working on its own. It provides detailed guidance to EPA on ways it should reframe its mission and operating practices to collaborate more successfully with others.
BUSINESS AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Expanding Economic Opportunity
The CSR Initiative and FSG Social Impact Advisors along with the IBLF, IFC, UNIDO and Microsoft hosted over 100 leaders from major companies, business coalitions, donor agencies, and non-governmental organizations at a leadership dialogue entitled “Expanding Economic Opportunity through Collaborative Action” on 18-19 October 2007. This dialogue was a component of the Economic Opportunity Program led by CSRI’s Director of Policy Studies, Beth Jenkins. At the event, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, Permanent Secretary of the UK Department for International Development, presented a keynote on the role of growth, collaboration, and competition in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. As background for the meeting, the Initiative produced a framing paper on the role of large firms in increasing options for entrepreneurship and employment as well as papers exploring different ways in which companies in the following seven industry sectors are implementing these options, often in partnership with government entities and nonprofit organizations: extractives, financial services, food and beverage, health care, information and communications technology, tourism, and utilities. See the publications list below for titles and links to these papers.
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- John Ruggie was invited to write for Ethical Corporation Magazine on Standards & Practices - Guiding Principles for Human Rights.
- CSRI Director Jane Nelson made a number of presentations on business and poverty eradication over the summer at events including: UN's Economic and Social Council Ministerial Rountable in Geneva; a Brookings Institution seminar on "Global Poverty, Conflict and Security in the 21st Century;"’ the annual Brookings Blum Roundtable in Aspen; the World Economic Forum's Africa regional summit; the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit; and a workshop on corporate responsibility at Stanford University. She made presentations in two All-Academy Sessions at the 2007 Academy of Management meeting, which focused on the theme "Doing Well by Doing Good."’
- Four members of the CSRI Team were quoted in the Economist's special report on corporate social responsibility on 19 January 2008: John Ruggie in " The next question: Does CSR Work?;" John Ruggie and Simon Zadek in "Going Global;" Jane Nelson in "Do it Right;" and CSRI Senior Fellow Mark Kramer in "Just Good Business." John Ruggie, Jane Nelson, and Simon Zadek were also quoted in the 6 September 2007 Economist article "In Search of the Good Company," highlighting the debate surrounding the social responsibilities of companies.
- Beth Jenkins and CSRI Research Fellow Amy Lehr were invited by Ethical Corporation Magazine to write on Business & Human Rights - Beyond corporate spheres of influence.
- Jane Nelson and Mark Kramer served on the judging panel for the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy 2008 Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Awards. Jane Nelson also served as a judge for the Schwab Foundation's inaugural UK Social Entrepreneur of the Year award. Jennifer Nash served as a judge for the
2007 Ceres-ACCA Sustainability Reporting Awards.
- David Grayson, CSRI Senior Fellow and Professor at the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at the Cranfield School of Management, gave his inaugural lecture in October 2007 on "Sense and Sustainability" at the Cranfield Management Research Institute and at the Merrill Lynch European headquarters in London.
- CSRI Senior Fellow Mark Kramer along with Sarah Cooch published "The Power of Strategic Mission Investing" in the Fall 2007 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review. Kramer is also Founding Director of FSG Social Impact Advisors.
- CSRI Senior Fellow Holly Wise travelled to Kazahkstan in October at the invitation of the US Department of State as an international expert on Corporate Social Responsibility. She spoke, did radio and press interviews, and participated in roundtable discussions with corporate, NGO, media, university, and host government representatives.
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- On behalf of Microsoft, CSRI convened a dialogue entitled “Achieving Boston’s Potential: Working Together to Maximize Our Impact” in November. The purpose was to gather senior executives from Microsoft’s key partner organizations in Greater Boston to explore areas where they could work together more effectively to leverage their activities and maximize their impacts. Over 20 organizations participated in the dialogue to discuss and to identify some specific proposals and ideas to take forward.
- CSRI has been studying different practical and policy-related ways that companies can support disaster recovery efforts in cities such as New Orleans. This effort is part of the joint commitment the CSR Initiative has made, with Shell, Walter Shorenstein, Doug Ahlers, and others, to the Clinton Global Initiative. Together with these partners, the Initiative is focusing efforts in Broadmoor, a neighborhood severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, and will facilitate a workshop there on corporate-community partnerships this spring.
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During the fall, CSRI sponsored and co-sponsored 10 seminars by leading CSR scholars and practitioners. Agendas, PowerPoint presentations, and research papers are now available for many of these gatherings.
CSRI SPECIAL FALL KICKOFF EVENT
As a way to kickoff the academic year, CSRI held a special panel entitled “Corporate Social Responsibility: What does it mean? Where is it headed? Why should we care?” Over 120 people attended this discussion on the current state of CSR with content from panelists:
- Brian Burke, Director, State Government Affairs, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft Corporation;
- Reeta Roy, Divisional Vice President, Global Citizenship and Policy, Abbott Laboratories;
- Sandra Waddock, Professor of Management, Boston College Carroll School of Management;
- Allen White, Director, Corporation 20/20 and Senior Advisor, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR);
- Moderated by CSRI's Director, Jane Nelson.
VISITING PRACTITIONERS SERIES
Our Visiting Practioners Program brings
together leaders in the public, private, and
civil society sectors with students and
other members of the Harvard community through
dialogue and seminars around emerging trends and
critical issues in corporate responsibility.
CO–SPONSORED with the MOSSAVAR-RAHMANI CENTER for BUSINESS and GOVERNMENT
The Business & Government seminar series provides a forum for engaging preeminent scholars and practitioners in exploring the shifting balance of responsibilities between the state and private enterprise, as well as innovative approaches to structuring business-government relations.
- Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, on "The End of Government As We Know It: Making Public Policy Work"
- Andrew King, Associate Professor of Business Administration, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth University, on "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Assessing the Functionality of Industry Self-regulatory Institutions"
- Richard M. Locke, Alvin J. Siteman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Political Science at MIT Sloan, on "Virtue out of Necessity? Policing vs. Pedagogy in the Improvement of Labor Conditions in Global Supply Chains"
- Joshua Margolis, Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
and Hillary Anger Elfenbein, Assistant Professor, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, on "Does It Pay to Be Good? Looking Back (and Ahead) at Research on Corporate Social and Financial Performance"
- Alan Trager, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, on"Public-Private Partnerships: Navigating the Intersection of Public and Private Value"
To learn more about the Mossavar - Rahmani Center for Business and Government, go to their website.
CO–SPONSORED with the REGULATORY POLICY PROGRAM
The New Directions in Regulation seminar series, organized and hosted by the Regulatory Policy Program, engages scholars and practitioners in an exploration of emerging trends in regulation. For the fall, the theme of the series was Energy & Environmental Regulation in a Time of Global Climate Change.
- A. Denny Ellerman, Senior Lecturer, Sloan School of Management, MIT, on "The EU Emissions Trading Scheme"
- Jody Freeman, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, on "Global Warming Litigation: The Supreme Court's Decision in Massachusetts v. EPA and its implications"
- Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government and Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, on "Proposal for a U.S. Cap-and-Trade System to Address Global Climate Change: A Sensible and Practical Approach to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions"
To learn more about the Regulatory Policy Program, go to their website.
Go to a complete list of all of CSRI’s Fall 2007 events and upcoming Spring 2008 events.
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Since our previous newsletter in May,, the CSR Initiative has completed nine reports and three working papers. All of our publications are available to download on our website.
REPORTS
WORKING PAPERS
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