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One of the things we have always found a little depressing about the “CSR sector” in which we are bracketed is the failure of many practitioners within it to coherently articulate the importance of CSR concepts. The results of this state of affairs is more confusion, not less, about the what, why, and how [...]

The Accounting Standards Board (ASB) recently published ‘A Review of Narrative Reporting by UK Listed Companies in 2008/2009′. The ASB is an operating body of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). The FRC is the UK’s independent regulator responsible for promoting confidence in corporate reporting and governance.
Of the eight Companies Act requirements reviewed, one pertains specifically [...]

The last few weeks have seen a concentration of stories relating to women in business hitting the headlines. Apparently, female-managed hedge funds lost less money than male-managed ones, Harriet Harman will shake things up in the City and get more women on boards, and we can invest in a fund that specialises in gender-diverse companies.
It [...]

Whilst a significant proportion of global listed companies have, over the past few years, chosen to represent their approach to CSR in the exclusive setting of an annual standalone publication, others have attempted to deploy the latest internet technologies, in a bid to bring this slice of corporate information to life organically ‘on the page’.
What [...]

The United States Chamber of Commerce is a not-for-profit business federation that lobbies and campaigns for the interests of businesses across the US. That’s the idea, anyway. Right now, the US Senate is debating whether to pass the Waxman-Markey bill on climate change, a piece of fairly serious legislation, and the Chamber has stated its [...]

Tomorrow evening I shall be speaking in front of 150 MBA students at the launch of the Net Impact Chapter at Leeds University Business School (UK). Net Impact’s mission is “to make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use the power of business to make a [...]

The other day we received an email here at CO3 Towers, alerting us to a number of forthcoming CSR industry events that we might wish to consider attending. Nothing too unusual in that – we are a CSR consultancy after all. But the email got us thinking: what are the respective merits of these numerous [...]

The Times’ City Diary column recently hinted at a potential “hatchet job” on Michael O’Leary [Chief Executive of Ryanair], by the hand of a well-known and long-standing BBC documentary series.  This got us thinking – as we naturally do – of CSR issues, and specifically here of the question concerning a straightforward business approach to [...]

Financial reform is an area in which clear communication needs to be high on the agenda. Much of the recession, credit crunch, financial crisis, whatever you want to call it, has been attributed to people not understanding what they were buying or selling, or the risks they were taking in doing it. Now, we hope [...]

You may have forgotten but in the UK there is a registered charity called Business In The Community. It describes itself as a membership organisation that “mobilises business for good”. It has significant resources – an income in the region of £23m and around 350 employees.
Seen as something as a [...]