Implementing CSR Partnering Arrangements

Companies pursue CSR activities for a variety of reasons including not only contributing to sustainable development and addressing important environmental and social issues but also achieving a competitive advantage that improves their own economic performance and sustainability.  Even the largest companies have limited resources and it is not surprising to see that companies of all sizes turn to external partners while executing strategic CSR to gain access to additional knowledge, experience and networks.  One approach has been referred to as “smart partnering”, which leverages the complementary capabilities of both partners to develop creative solutions to address major environmental and social challenges that affect each partner. Smart partnering not only strengthens a company’s reputation, but also improves the company’s core value creation abilities.  While two or more for-profit enterprises can easily and effectively collaborate to address an environmental or social problem, partnerships between businesses and non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”) have become commonplace and provide companies with unique opportunities to align with brands that have become widely recognized and trusted and instantly communicate a desire message regarding environmental and social responsibility.  As with the implementation of CSR commitments generally, CSR partnering is most effective when a deliberate path is followed extending through prioritization and selection of environmental and social issues, vetting of prospective partners, planning for implementation, identification and collecting of resources and monitoring and evaluation of outcomes.

Implementing CSR Partnering Arrangements

Companies pursue CSR activities for a variety of reasons including not only contributing to sustainable development and addressing important environmental and social issues but also achieving a competitive advantage that improves their own economic performance and sustainability.  Even the largest companies have limited resources and it is not surprising to see that companies of all sizes turn to external partners while executing strategic CSR to gain access to additional knowledge, experience and networks.  One approach has been referred to as “smart partnering”, which leverages the complementary capabilities of both partners to develop creative solutions to address major environmental and social challenges that affect each partner. Smart partnering not only strengthens a company’s reputation, but also improves the company’s core value creation abilities.  While two or more for-profit enterprises can easily and effectively collaborate to address an environmental or social problem, partnerships between businesses and non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”) have become commonplace and provide companies with unique opportunities to align with brands that have become widely recognized and trusted and instantly communicate a desire message regarding environmental and social responsibility.  As with the implementation of CSR commitments generally, CSR partnering is most effective when a deliberate path is followed extending through prioritization and selection of environmental and social issues, vetting of prospective partners, planning for implementation, identification and collecting of resources and monitoring and evaluation of outcomes.

Smart Partnering

Keys et al. suggested that companies begin the process of developing an overall CSR strategy by mapping their CSR activities into one of four domains that are generally included in the CSR umbrella: “pet projects”, philanthropy, propaganda and partnering.[1]  They went on to argue that while each of the activities in the four domains had an appropriate time and place, “smart partnering” was the most effective way for companies to create value for both the business and society simultaneously by leveraging the complementary capabilities of both partners to develop creative solutions to address major challenges that affect each partner.  Keys et al. explained that with smart partnering the focus of the business moved beyond avoiding risks or enhancing reputation and toward improving the company’s core value creation abilities and addressing long-term challenges to the company’s sustainability.  As for society, the focus of partnering extends beyond maintenance of minimum standards or seeking funding to make an impact on important social issues such as improving employment, overall quality of life and living standards.  They counseled that companies looking to make smart partnering a strategic imperative and an opportunity needed to focus on key areas of interaction between the company and its environment and address value creation activities at the center of the company’s strategic agenda.  In addition, companies should also embrace smart partnering as a vehicle for demonstrating and executing on their core values.

Keys et al. emphasized the CSR partnering arrangements are like any other business relationship in that they need to be grounded in a solid business case and approached with rigor as to prioritization, planning, resourcing and monitoring.  The premise behind “smart partnering” for CSR is that it will deliver short-term and long-term benefits to businesses and communities; however, those benefits need to be identified and defined in advance so that internal and external stakeholders, including shareholders, can be presented with a feasible story that elicits their support for the arrangement and the investment of resources that will be required from the company.  Keys et al. suggested that the benefits associated with a prospective partnering arrangement could be assessed across three dimensions:

• Time Frame: The time frame is important for CSR partnerships, particularly since the initiatives are typically complex and thus require a longer period of time in order to fully realize their potential. The business case needs to be clear about both short-term immediate objectives for the partnership and longer-term benefits.
• Nature of Benefits: CSR partnerships generate both tangible and intangible benefits, both of which need to be measured in some way and taken into account. Companies are certainly interested in increasing revenues from gaining access to new markets and this can be easily tracked; however, notice and recognition need to be given to important intangible benefits such as development of new capabilities and enhancement of employee morale.
• Benefit Split: Smart partnering is based on generating benefits that are shared between business and society and in order for the business case for the partnership to be effective it needs to be demonstrated that both business and society will be benefit and that the allocation will be appropriate and not one-sided (if they are one-sided what has been touted as a partnership may really be philanthropy or propaganda).

For both businesses and society, consideration needs to be given to short- and long-term tangible benefits and short- and long-term intangible benefits.  While each prospective partnership should be evaluated based on the three dimensions described above, it is not strictly necessary that each of them measure the same way on each of the dimensions; however, each arrangement should fit well into the company’s overall portfolio of CSR partnerships and meet the minimum criteria for partnership status (i.e., there should be both short- and long-term benefits and benefits should not be extremely one-sided).  Keys et al. illustrated the application of the three-dimension evaluation framework, and the room for different yet complimentary types of projects, by considering two partnerships that Unilever embarked on in the late 2000s: Project Shakti, which provided short-term tangible benefits that were extremely clear and powerful, and Project Kericho, which was undertaken to pursue and achieve long-term intangible benefits that were strategically critical for both the business and the communities in which the company was operating.

Project Shakti began as an initiative to financially empower rural women and create livelihood opportunities, including a regular income stream, for them and their families while, at the same time, providing a means for Hindustan Unilever (“HUL”) to market and sell its health and beauty care products to low-income consumers in rural Indian villages that often lie entirely outside the reach of mainstream media and cannot be reached cost effectively through the usual marketing channels.  In order to reach consumers in these villages, HUL recruited local female entrepreneurs, referred to as Shakti Ammas (“Shakti” for power and “Amma” for mother), across 15 states to act as salespeople and brand-builders, and HUL’s products were delivered to central locations where Shakti Ammas purchased the goods and from there to thousands of villages. 

From a business perspective, Project Shakti created both short-term tangible benefits in the form of significant sales growth and long-term tangible benefits through HUL’s ability to scale a cost-efficient distribution and sales network in remote markets.  Intangible benefits to HUL included corporate reputation, education and enhancement of brand loyalty.  As for social benefits, HUL trained and employed thousands of women in villages across India in business basics and distribution management and substantially improved health and living standards (i.e., tangible benefits).  Intangible social benefits from the program included the development of entrepreneurial skills and mindset and support for rural entrepreneurship.[2]   It should be noted that in many cases the benefits identified for society will lead to subsequent opportunities for the business.  For example, development of a community of entrepreneurs will hopefully lead to future partnerships with local firms to develop products that meet community needs and that will be enticing for consumers in those communities eager to support the efforts of their neighbors.

The Kericho Project took place in the Kericho district of southwestern Kenya where Unilever had been growing tea since 1924.  At its Kericho estate, which is Rainforest Alliance certified, Unilever made a decision to provide workers with pay and working conditions significantly above the agricultural workers’ norm and minimum statutory requirements and also offered housing, annual leave pay, transport allowances, paternity and maternity leave, free health care, nursery and primary school education, clean potable drinking water and free meals during working hours.[3]  In addition, Unilever entered in a partnership with the Sustainable Trade Initative and the Kenya Tea Development Agency that has provided training to over 85,000 farmers on sustainable agricultural practices and Rainforest Alliance certification through Farmer Field Schools, including over 45,000 women (53%), and which has resulted in income diversification, higher yields and health, food and nutrition improvements.[4]  Short-term tangible business benefits to Unilever included a positive impact on sales in selected countries and long-term tangible business benefits included control of critical raw material supplies and increased brand strength.  Unilever also realized intangible business benefits such as an engaged, healthy workforce, corporate reputation and eco-friendly brands.  The local farmers and their communities benefitted from increased income, resource and environmental protection, improved skills and entrepreneurial knowledge, improved living standards and exposure to role models for economic development.

Keys et al. explained that the process of using the framework to identify, quantify and categories the benefits available through a potential partnership not only allowed the company to develop the business case for the project, it also provided the foundation for communicating the story behind and rationale for the project to stakeholders.  In order to communicate and report properly and fully, the company must have a clear understanding of the benefits to the business and society and the resources, including time, which will need to be invested in achieving those benefits.  At the same time, the company and each prospective partner must have an understanding of the strategic challenges they are attempting to overcome and the resources they can offer through the partnership to collaborate effectively to address those challenges.  Keys et al. counseled the companies looking to make smart partnering a strategic imperative and an opportunity needed to focus on key areas of interaction between the company and its environment and address value creation activities at the center of the company’s strategic agenda.  In addition, companies needed to look beyond the traditional comfort zones of pet projects and philanthropy and stretch their strategic ambitions for CSR to include smart partnering.  Companies should also embrace smart partnering as a vehicle for demonstrating and executing on their core values.

In order to get started on the journey toward smart partnering for sustainability, Keys et al. recommended that company leaders identify two or three critical interactions between the company’s business and society and for each of these interactions map out what the company has to offer in terms of capabilities, knowledge, resources and relationships that would contribute to overcoming both business and societal challenges.  The next step would be to create a profile of an ideal partner that would include resources that complement those that the company is able and willing to offer.  Returning to the Kericho Project described above, Keys et al. noted that Unilever’s strategic challenge was to ensure sustainable supplies of critical raw materials and enhance its corporate reputation and that the strategic challenges for ideal partners were increasing income and skills or rural farmers and ensuring a long-term source of income through sustainable agriculture.  The partners were able to achieve their objectives by making the appropriate contributions: Unilever offered ongoing, high-volume purchases of tea (i.e., sustainable incomes), agricultural knowledge and experience to help improve quality of farming and crops, long-term perspective to allow time to realize mutual benefits, environmental commitment and reputation and relationships to help build trust with NGOs and governments; and the local partners offered a critical mass of farmers and farming communities motivated to collaborate on activities that would improve sustainability and quality of tea supplies, local and regional government relationships to support improvements in sustainable agriculture and partners with local energy and habitat-conservation knowledge and experience.

Corporate-NGO Partnering

During the first years after CSR began to emerge as an issue for businesses in the 1980s, it was largely a self-regulated activity, with companies making their own decisions about how to manage and report on their environmental and social performance.  While the achievements of some firms were impressive, overall there was skepticism about the honesty of corporate communications on their non-economic performance and many argued that corporate self-regulation was inadequate and that it made it too easy for firms to simply engage in public relations activities to improve their reputations as opposed to making a meaningful contribution to sustainable development and achieving social responsibility.  One of the responses to these concerns was the ascendance of a new model of co-regulation which now includes partnerships of various types between companies and non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”), which have been defined as “formal (professional) independent societal organizations whose primary aim is to promote common goals at the national or the international level”.[5]

A subset of NGOs sometimes referred to as “social purpose NGOs” have played the biggest roles in the CSR arena and include a range of environmental groups, human rights organizations and organizations dedicated to addressing and alleviating serious sustainable development problems such as poverty.  The number and breadth of operations of these NGOs has been continuously expanded and has been accelerated and supported by an overall feeling among consumers and members of civil society that NGOs are trustworthy and reliable.  A number of NGOs have developed their own valuable brands, making them some of the best-known organizations in the world: Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Oxfam, Save the Children and the World Wildlife Fund (“WWF”).  Moreover, as NGOs have become more prevalent, the creativity and complexity of their relationships with businesses has also matured.  In 2014, for example, Poret called out partnerships between Coca-Cola Company and WWF to help protect the world’s seven most important fresh water river basins, Chiquita Brand and the Rainforest Alliance to cultivate bananas in a more environmentally friendly manner and McDonalds and the Environmental Defense Fund to reduce the environmental impact of McDonalds’ packaging.  Another significant contribution of NGOs has come through their roles as standards setters or certifying agencies in a number of fields including sustainable agriculture, fishing, packaging, supply chain management, labor issues, renewable energy, forest resources, health and safety, an important role given that voluntary certification and eco-labeling have become important elements of CSR strategies for businesses of all sizes.[6]

When NGOs first emerged, many of the interactions between and businesses could be characterized as “confrontational”, such as when NGOs supported and organized boycotts of companies based on perceived shortcomings in their environmental or social practices.  As a result, businesses were initially leery of working with NGOs; however, as time has gone by collaboration has become the norm and businesses have become more comfortable working with NGOs and see them as valuable partners in overcoming barriers to acceptance and expansion of CSR.[7]  Poret argued that the emergence of NGOs can be attributed in part to their ability to contribute to solutions of market failures.  As mentioned above, early CSR efforts were widely criticized on the basis that firms were simply setting their own rules and there was no way to verify claims regarding environmental and social performance.  NGOs intervened into the information gap by providing consumers and other stakeholders with an independent source of data that could be used in purchasing decisions.  As time has gone by, businesses know and understand that in order for them to credibly promote a product or service as sustainable they must be willing and able to offer a “warranty” in the form of adherence to certification and labeling systems and standards typically overseen by NGOs.  As explained by Poret: “NGOs act as certifying agencies that assure consumers that the products that they have purchased were produced in a sustainable manner . . . [thus] allow[ing] firms to credibly signal that their products possess sustainable attributes.”[8]  

For their part, NGOs began to see that moving away from constant confrontation with businesses toward a more collaborative relationship could have long-term benefits for them as well.  Obviously, being able to work with a large company allows an NGO to expand its reach beyond what it could do on its own and thus generate greater impact in the environmental and social areas of interest to it.  Collaboration also allows an NGO to increase its own notoriety as word spreads that it is working with a well-known brand, thus strengthen the NGOs credibility, reputation and political influence.  In addition, of course, partnering with for-profit businesses provides NGOs with sources of funding, no small matter given that public funding for the activities typically conducted by NGOs has declined precipitously and competition for capital has increased as the number of NGOs has expanded and fundraising efforts have become more sophisticated.  While it is apparent that NGOs can benefit from corporate partnering, they nonetheless must be mindful of various risks that if left unattended can ultimately undercut their overall mission.  For example, NGOs must choose their corporate partners carefully, since a scandal relating to a partner will almost certainly have an adverse impact on the reputation of the NGO.  NGOs must also maintain their independence and resist the urge to compromise in their standards in order to secure the agreement of a particular firm to implement them.[9]

The level of involvement and mutual commitment of the parties in any corporate-NGO collaboration depends on a variety of factors including the company’s stage of development with respect to CSR and the goals that the company is attempting to achieve through CSR generally and the specific NGO relationship.  For example, if a company’s CSR portfolio is limited to philanthropy, as is often the case when companies are beginning to think about how to integrate CSR into its strategy and operations, it may simply transfer funds to NGOs that carry out charitable activities that the company wishes to support, thus resulting in fairly minimal interaction between the parties.  However, interaction and mutual dependence will increase as companies and NGOs become involved in more complex transactional projects involving resource-exchange activities and some partnerships become highly integrative with deliberative merging of missions, people and activities.[10] 

Poret noted the companies engage in CSR for a number of reasons ranging from altruistic (i.e., “doing the right thing” and fulfilling to ethical and moral obligations to society to act responsibly vis-à-vis all stakeholders, not just shareholders) to strategic to defensive.[11]  Pursuing CSR does and should not preclude achieving a competitive advantage that improves the economic performance of the company and NGOs play important roles in executing strategic CSR including providing companies with access to knowledge, experience and networks that are beyond what companies have on their own.  For example, Poret pointed out that companies could secure their supply chains and use CSR as a source of competitive advantage by creating market niches through sustainable labels on products.  NGOs can play an important role in this area by connecting companies with producers and trading companies that adhere to stringent standards, thus helping companies to develop strong and enduring relationships with high quality suppliers while being able to tout labeling that is perceived by consumers as adding value.  In addition, strategic CSR includes vertical or horizontal product differentiation to gain market power, such as when a company moves to distinguish its products through NGO-driven eco-labeling and ethical labeling in order to compete for socially responsible customers, sell the products at a higher price and/or create a niche market.  Another example of differentiation is linking social contributions to product sales by allowing customers to donate a portion of the price paid for the products to a charitable cause.  Finally, CSR is sometimes used strategically to preempt government regulation, encourage regulation or simply to take advantage of regulation.  This approach is illustrated by the adoption of codes of conduct and participation in cross-sector alliances, each of which can be facilitated by the support and expertise offered by NGOs.[12]

Companies need to realize that NGOs can play a wide range of roles in their CSR programs and initiatives and that the path toward integrating NGOs into their CSR strategy begins with identifying the best and most valuable fit.  Poret explained that companies have partnered with NGOs because NGOs promote societal actions that the company wishes to support, provide technical assistance, elaborate and administer certification schemes, promote and design CSR standards and management and reporting processes and participate in CSR monitoring and auditing.[13]  Common approaches that companies might consider to involve NGOs in their sustainability programs, each of which is distinguished by different levels of involvement and collaboration between the parties, include[14]:

• Companies may enter into a co-branding arrangement with an NGO that can be used to communicate their commitment to a cause or issue associated with the activities of the NGO (for more on strategic branding, see the box below). For example, WWF has established a well-known co-branding program with its Panda logo that has been joined by companies promoting a wide range of products and services who are interested in projecting an environmentally friendly image and strengthening trust and loyalty among consumers.  Eligibility depends on the products meeting environmental and social criteria established by WWF and products must pass independent certification through labeling or certification schemes approved by WWF.
• One of the basic and most commonly used internal instruments of CSR is a code of conduct approved by the board of directors and applicable to officers, employees, contractors and business partners. NGOs are often involved in the drafting of model codes that companies can adopt “as is” or with minor variances to account for specific circumstances.  In those cases, companies may contract with the NGO to act as an independent and knowledgeable monitoring agency of the implementation of the code and the NGO will perform independent compliance audits of all elements of the code.
• In situations where there is no widely recognized code of conduct covering a particular product or activities, a company may form an alliance with an NGO (and other companies) to develop a new code of conduct or a specific standard along with evaluation mechanisms with independent enforcement or certification by parties that have been formally vetted by the NGO as the recognized accreditation body. Obviously this is a challenging and time-consuming undertaking; however, companies may choose this route as a way to both improve their performance in terms of quality and sustainability and establish themselves as innovators in the field.
• Companies may seek the advantages of associating with a well-regarded NGO by conforming their products to the criteria necessary to qualify for certifications or labels owned by the NGO. As opposed to the dialogue inherent in developing a code of conduct in collaboration with an NGO, certification and labeling requires that companies must understand and fully comply with standards that have been established by the NGO in advance and companies must weigh the costs of changes in product characteristics (e.g., design, ingredients, packaging etc.) against the benefits of public association with the NGO.

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Using NGO Partnerships in Branding Strategies

Strategy is a broad concept that extends in many directions.  Poret pointed out that one area in which companies choose to collaborate with NGOs is with respect to development and execution of brand strategies.  One possibility for companies is to develop or acquire a brand that already sells certified or labeled products that signal to consumers a commitment to social responsibility and sustainability.  For example, a company might follow the lead of Unilever, which acquired an existing firm and brand—Ben and Jerry’s—that had already distinguished itself over an extended period of time as committed to social responsibility.  A second strategy was followed by Kraft in its attempt to extend its well-established brand to include a new product differentiated by socially responsible inputs coordinated with a well-known NGO.  Specifically, Kraft pursued a partnership strategy with the Rainforest Alliance to create a new “certified sustainable” coffee product purchased from producers that had received the benefit of Rainforest Alliance support funded by Kraft that included technical assistance and training to improve living and working conditions on coffee farms.  Companies may also create a completely new “sustainable” brand, a strategy that has often been deployed by companies seeking to align with the fair-trade movement and willing to comply with certification standards set by NGOs involved with that movement.  Finally, rather than extending an existing brand or creating a new one, a company may decide to completely convert an existing brand, often a very popular and well-established one, into a sustainability-based brand (e.g., Unilever’s undertaking to convert its iconic Lipton tea brand by sourcing all of its tea in a sustainable manner from estates certified by the Rainforest Alliance).  The success of these various strategies is by no means guaranteed and requires communication and collaboration between the company and the NGO and concerted effort to define and maintain the desired brand meaning and image.  Moreover, the stakes are high with respect to brand strategies, which are high profile “bet the company” initiatives for most businesses.

Source:  S. Poret, Corporate-HGO Partnerships in CSR Activities: Why and How? (Paris: Ecole Polytechnique Department of Economics, 2014), 19-20.

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While each corporate-NGO partnership is unique, it is fair to say that the parties must navigate several universal stages, which have been referred to as formation, implementation and outcome.[15]  Formation begins with self-assessment from both parties during which each of them identifies and evaluates the purposes and goals of any prospective partnership include the skills and resources that the partner would be expected to contribute.  The results of the self-assessment can be used to put together a preliminary list of potential partners and that list can used to initiate dialogue to verify the competencies of the partners and determine whether there is a basis for assuming that there will be good communications between the parties if a partnership is formed.  As the best candidates emerge from this process, attention should focus on creating a clear vision of what the partnership would involve in terms of activities, the contributions from each partner, the governance structure and the ultimate business and social goals of the partnership.  The formation stage ends with the selection of the partner; however, the output of the process should be a roadmap for the important implementation stage that follows and parties are advised to create a letter of intent or memorandum of understanding that include a short business plan for the partnership (or a commitment of the parties to complete such a plan within a specified period of time before full-scale implementation activities begin).[16]

Companies have a finite amount of attention and resources to devote to CSR in general and to partnering with NGOs in particular.  Each partnership diverts some resources from other activities and thinking and acting strategically about CSR means limiting partnering to issues that the company has identified as being most closely aligned to its core competencies.  Strategic CSR means prioritizing its issues and activities and choosing projects, including NGO partnerships, that provide the most efficient path to social impact and competitive advantage.  Proper focus by the company allows it to quickly target the NGOs that can provide the most assistance and eases the process of vetting NGOs to determine their skills and resources with respect to necessary information, technical support and networks.  Companies need to be creative and cast a wide net when identifying their material social issues.  For example, while a construction company may not have the expertise, technology or other resources to carry out health care research, it certainly has an interest in supporting the activities of NGOs focused on treatment and prevention of diseases that might endanger its current and potential workers.[17]

Both parties to a prospective corporate-NGO partnership must carefully weigh the benefits and risks.  For companies, consideration must be given to the reaction of stakeholders, particularly investors, to the partnership and any changes that management will be required to make to existing operations in order to comply with the standards that might be set by the NGO.  If investors are not convinced about the benefits of the partnership, they may withhold the capital that the company needs to pursue its business and social goals.  Companies also need to commit to fulfilling their obligations to the partnership and communicate about them clearly and realistically.  Puffing about a partnership and exaggerating its impact or the company’s contribution can open the company up to criticisms for greenwashing (the NGO will also be harmed by adverse media coverage for one of its partners).  For its part, an NGO must guard against too much dependence on the resources provided by a particular company and must scrupulously protect its independence, particularly when its primary mission is the creation and development of sustainable standards and labels for corporations.  Poret recommended that NGOs differentiate themselves by focusing on specific and well-defined issues and collaborate on those issues with a number of different companies in order to avoid competition and remain objective and independent of its partners.[18]

Specifics of implementation vary; however, it should be anticipated that the partners will need to consider issues relating to partnership building and maintenance, governance mechanisms, management requirements, contribution and allocation of resources and overall commitment to maintenance and success of the relationship.  The success of any corporate-NGO partnership depends on the availability of resources promised by each of the parties during the formation stage and each party also needs to be comfortable that the other will fulfill its commitments in terms of time and resources in order to overcome concerns that a party is simply engaging in opportunistic or free-rider behavior.  Through dialogue, communications and mutual development of internal standards, codes and procedures for the partnership the parties can develop a common culture, language and set of norms for their interactions during the partnership.  The governance structure should ease the process of monitoring commitments and contributions and serve as an “early warning” system to identify problems that might derail the partnership.[19]

The foundation for the last of the three stages mentioned above, “outcome”, should be laid during the first two stages as the parties discuss and agree upon the goals of the partnership and the metrics that will be used to determine progress and success against those goals.  While a partnership may be driven, at least in part, by CSR-focused objectives, the corporate party will nonetheless still be interested in traditional financial- and business-based measures such as sales, market share, retailer response and revenue-to-expense results.  Both parties will be concerned about strengthening and expanding their intangible capital (i.e., reputation, trust, credibility etc.); however, progress in this area is admittedly difficult to measure.  Similar measurement problems arise when assessing the impact that the partnership has had on sustainable development, particularly since it is often difficult to define and by definition occurs over an extended period that goes on long after the core actions have been taken by the partners.[20]

Alan S. Gutterman is the Founding Director of the Sustainable Entrepreneurship Project.  This article is an excerpt from Alan’s book Strategic Planning for Sustainability.  For more information and tools on the subject, see here.

Notes

[1] T. Keys, T. Malnight and K. van der Graaf, “Making the most of corporate social responsibility”, McKinsey Quarterly (December 2009).

[2] See Hindustan Unilever Limited, https://www.hul.co.in/sustainable-living/case-studies/enhancing-livelihoods-through-project-shakti.html; and R. Narsalay, R. Coffey and A. Sen, Hindustan Unilever: Scaling a cost-efficient distribution and sales network in remote markets (Accenture Institute for High Performance, 2012), https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Dualpub_23/Accenture-Unilever-Case-Study.pdf

[3] Unilever’s operation of the tea estates in Kericho became a significant challenge for the company in 2013 following allegations of sexual harassment of female workers and Unilever accepted and implemented accepted recommendations to improve the gender balance among team leaders and the grievance handling system following an extensive independent review of the allegations.  See https://www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/what-matters-to-you/kericho-tea-estates.html

[4] https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/news/sustainable-agricultural-programme-ktda-idh-unilever-improves-livelihood-tea-farmers/

[5] K. Martens, “Mission impossible? Defining nongovernmental organizations”, Voluntas: Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 13(3) (2002), 271. 

[6] S. Poret, Corporate-HGO Partnerships in CSR Activities: Why and How? (Paris: Ecole Polytechnique Department of Economics, 2014), 2-3.

[7] S. Poret, Corporate-HGO Partnerships in CSR Activities: Why and How? (Paris: Ecole Polytechnique Department of Economics, 2014), 3 (citing A. Kourula and S. Laasonen, “Nongovernmental organizaitons in business and society, management, and international business research—review and implications from 1998 to 2007”, Business and Society, 49(1) (2010), 68).

[8] Id. at 11-12.

[9] Id. at 12-13.

[10] J. Austin, “Strategic Collaboration between Nonprofits and Business”, Nonprofits and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(1) (2001), 69.

[11] S. Poret, Corporate-HGO Partnerships in CSR Activities: Why and How? (Paris: Ecole Polytechnique Department of Economics, 2014), 21.

[12] Id. at 8-10.  NGOs also play a role when companies pursue CSR for reasons that are not totally “strategic”: partnering with an NGO can be a good way for companies to pursue a particular philanthropic approach to addressing an environmental or social issue and working with NGOs allows companies to more effectively engage with civil society, a significant stakeholder group.  Id. at 6-7.

[13] Id at 15-16.

[14] Id. at 14-15.

[15] J. Selsky and B. Parker, “Cross-Sector Partnerships to Address Social Issues: Challenges in Theory and Practice”, Journal of Management, 31 (2005), 849.

[16] Id. at 16.

[17] Id. at 18.

[18] Id. at 21-22.

[19] Id. at 16-17.

[20] Id. at 17.