How to lay the groundwork for framing event-based CSR programs.
Event professionals are conditioned to organize corporate social responsibility using the familiar "triple bottom line" or possibly the nine APEX categories and their impact on energy, waste and water. There are other ways of describing the complexity that is CSR.
Let’s explore the six "Cs" based on the ISO 26000 Guidance, which take into account the expectations of stakeholders and applicable laws.
Communication provides both information and transparency. It will differ based on whether the audience is internal or external; on the medium chosen, such as social media or print; and on the objectives of the event, such as to reduce waste or change the behavior of attendees.
There is also the possibility stakeholders will view communications as the primary objective—a situation called greenwashing. According to MITSloan Management Review’s spring 2013 edition, this might result in a "boomerang response," where organizations achieve exactly the opposite of what they had hoped.
Collaboration is essential to successful CSR through community events. Event professionals need to reach out and genuinely listen to the people in the community and their needs. The result can be what Bowen, Newenham-Kahindi and Herremans, in their paper, describe as the difference between transactional CSR and the more stakeholder-focused transitional or transformational CSR.
This raises the specter of another "C": compliance. For example, a corporation that sponsors a local charity, which is the favorite of a local official, may create the appearance of bribery for the intent of creating a business advantage. Event professionals should, therefore, collaborate internally to ensure that they are not contravening any law before planning CSR events in overseas locations.
The context will determine how your CSR policy, goals and objectives interact specifically with the local community. No CSR program expressed through events happens in a vacuum. The local context provides specific stakeholders, location-dependent issues (for example, the availability of composting, regional water shortages or human rights issues).
Organizational commitment to CSR is critical. The "tone from the top," or the messaging from the organization’s top leadership, is an important component of management systems such as ISO 20121 and reporting structures. If you have made a commitment to reporting and to frameworks including the United Nations Global Compact, make sure your decision process reflects those commitments.
The comment "culture eats process for lunch" was so widely repeated in my recent MBA program I began to watch more closely and concluded that this is true. If the culture of your organization, as influenced by the leadership (both messaging and actions), does not support CSR and the supporting processes, then you will inevitably be perceived to be greenwashing.
These create a type of decision tree for event professionals. Decisions depend on the type of organization for which you are creating the event; existing laws and policies; stakeholders; location; the culture, goals and objectives of your organization; and, finally, the event’s location-specific context. These don’t replace the concept of the triple bottom line or take away the importance of standards. One+
