Good for businesss: Corporate Social Responsibility report 2010
By macleans.ca - Monday, June 14, 2010 - 3 Comments
Our second annual survey of companies in Canada that prove it pays to have a conscience
For many successful companies, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is no longer just a boardroom buzzword, but a key to business. So, for the second year in a row, Maclean’s has partnered with Jantzi-Sustainalytics, a global leader in sustainability analysis, to present the country’s Top 50 Socially Responsible Corporations.
While the reasons each company was selected vary—from Gildan Activewear donating more than half a million dollars to Haitian relief efforts, to Loblaw’s commitment to acquiring all of its seafood from sustainable sources by 2013, to Nike making World Cup jerseys for nine national teams out of bottles found in landfills—the underlying goal is the same: make the world a better place. As well as the Top 50 list, which begins on page 42, we look into how CSR might help with major PR problems, like BP’s oil spill, and whether the recession made the business world any less socially responsible.
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Top 50 Socially Responsible Corporations
By macleans.ca - Monday, June 14, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 28 Comments
These companies have made doing good a big part of their business
Click on a company name for more details:
Adidas Group
Ballard Power Systems Inc.
BCE Inc.
BMO Bank of Montreal
BMW
Brookfield Properties Corp.
Cascades Inc.
Catalyst Paper
CIBC
Dell Inc.
Direct Energy
Enbridge Inc.
Gap Inc.
General Mills Inc.
Gildan Activewear Inc.
H.J. Heinz Company
Honda
Hewlett-Packard Company
HSBC
IBM Corp.
ING Group
Intel Corp.
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Kinross Gold Corp.
Loblaw Companies Ltd.
L’Oreal
Manulife Financial.
McDonald’s Corp.
Nexen Inc. .
Nike Inc.
Nokia
Oracle Corp.
Puma
RBC
Rio Tinto-Alcan
Scotiabank
Sony Corp.
Stantec Inc.
Starbucks Corp.
State Street Corp.
Sun Life Financial
Suncor Energy Inc.
Talisman Energy Inc.
TELUS Corp,
TD Bank Financial Group
TransAlta Corp.
Transcontinental Inc.
Volkswagen
Westport Innovations Inc.
Xerox Corp.For the related article and methodology, The Jantzi-Maclean’s Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2010 click here.
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When things get messy
By Jason Kirby - Monday, June 14, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments
Can corporate social responsibility help clean up a PR disaster like the one caused by BP’s oil spill?
Judging from events of the past year or so, it may seem like the best response to a corporate crisis these days is to retreat to the boardroom and pray like hell that someone else gets walloped worse.Back in the spring, the story of Toyota’s runaway cars looked like it would drag on for months. Then Goldman Sachs conveniently landed in the crosshairs of legislators and securities regulators, taking the heat off the automaker. In turn, the bankers on Wall Street got a reprieve at the expense of the pelicans, fish and residents of the Gulf of Mexico, courtesy of BP.
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Gilbert and Sullivan Explain the Aughts For Us
By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 10:45 AM - 0 Comments
Not everything in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Utopia, Limited came true in the decade that is now coming to an end. The vision of a world where every single individual becomes a corporation (“There is not a christened baby in Utopia who has not already issued his little Prospectus!”) will have to wait until the ’10s. But the explanation of how corporations work, and how no financial disaster can ever affect the “seven men” who form those corporation, seems like as good an explanation of the events of 2008-9 as any.
Here is the D’Oyly Carte audio recording of the song (and the Act 1 finale that follows) with lyrics:
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.4307125&w=560&h=340&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]
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The Jantzi-Maclean’s Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2009
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 8:40 AM - 5 Comments
Exclusive report: A conscience for business
Does Rio Tinto Alcan really deserve special recognition for hiring a woman as CEO? Given that women make up more than half the population and have been protected against discrimination by human rights legislation for decades, one would hope that such an event is now so commonplace that it doesn’t merit a mention at all. Same goes for Nike’s decision to focus on eliminating child labour from its supply chain, or BMW’s decision to introduce a hybrid car. Aren’t these things that companies should be doing anyway?The reasons for recognizing them are stark and simple. In the mining sector where Rio Tinto operates, like it or not, women CEOs are still a rare find. Similarly, in the apparel sector, many of Nike’s competitors are still blithely unaware of the working conditions at their foreign suppliers. By the same token, BMW’s willingness to embrace novel technology for the good of the environment is still uncommon among luxury carmakers. It requires a leap of faith, for which the economic return is far from guaranteed.
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Jantzi-Macleans 50 Most Socially Responsible Corporations 2009
By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 25 Comments
Exclusive report: These top companies are making Canada a better place
Click on a company name for more details:
5N Plus Inc.
ARISE Technologies Corp.
Ballard Power
Bank of Montreal
Bank of Nova Scotia
BCE Inc.
BioteQ Environmental Technologies Inc.
BMW
Brookfield Properties Corporation
Canadian Hydro Developers
Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.
Cascades Inc.
Catalyst Paper
Dell Inc.
Gap Inc.
General Mills Inc.
Gildan Activewear
Great-West Lifeco Inc.
H.J. Heinz Company
Hennes & Mauritz (H&M)
Hewlett-Packard Company
Honda
HSBC Holdings
IBM Corp.
ING Group
Innergex Renewable Energy Inc.
Johnson Controls Inc.
Kinross Gold Corp.
Loblaw Companies Ltd.
Manulife Financial
Nexen Inc.
Nike Inc.
Novelis Inc.
Petro-Canada
Plutonic Power Corp.
Rio Tinto Alcan
Royal Bank of Canada
Stantec Inc.
Starbucks Corporation
Sun Life Financial
Sun Microsystems Inc.
Suncor Energy Inc.
Talisman Energy Inc.
Telus Corporation
Toronto-Dominion Bank
Transalta Corp.
Transcontinental Inc.
Westport Innovations Inc.
Xerox Corporation
Zenn Motor Co.For the related article and methodology, click here.
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Giving to boost the bottom line
By Susan Mohammad - Monday, November 17, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 2 Comments
When business gives to charity, it’s about more than generosity
Thirteen years ago, the phone ringing in David Cooper’s office gave him a bad feeling. Every month, he had to turn down $1 million worth of used office furniture from businesses wanting him to take it off their hands. What a waste, he thought. But the owner of Cooper’s Office Furniture didn’t have enough space in his 50,000-sq.-foot store to accept it. Realizing there was a vast amount of used and unwanted furniture out there, Cooper started diverting some of the free items to charities since it was cheaper than paying for storage. Word of his donations grew in the community surrounding his downtown Toronto shop, and so did the number of calls begging him to take other free items like computers and clothing. Cooper founded the not-for-profit organization Supporting Today’s Underprivileged For the Future (STUFF) Canada in 1995, which brokers the exchange of surplus items between businesses and non-profit organizations in and around Toronto, at no cost.
STUFF Canada is one of the various ways in which Canadian businesses invest in their communities, as described in a new report released this week by Imagine Canada, a national charitable organization that researches and promotes the non-profit sector. The report systematically tracks the contributions of Canadian businesses to charitable and non-profit organizations, and describes the efforts of 93 companies giving back to their communities. It’s the first report in Canada to take an in-depth look at business community involvement, after a two-year survey of over 1,500 businesses to compare philanthropic initiatives of some of Canada’s largest corporations (with revenues of over $25 million per year) and other members of the broader business community.
The aim is to provide insight for the non-profit sector and companies looking to assess their contributions as more corporations realize the business benefits of having good community investment programs. “One of the interesting things was that there was a sense [for businesses] of ‘it’s the right thing to do,’ and there are other reasons to help as well. It can help their business, and for some of the larger organizations, we saw that community investment is becoming an important thing for them to recruit and retain employees,” says Georgina Steinsky-Schwartz, CEO of Imagine Canada.
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