Oct 9, 2006 12:38:54 AM cite

Corporate responsibility is possible when we, as a society, demand it. All the while we, as a society, are prepared to accept products created by our fellow human beings in substandard conditions, so that at that end of the day the Chief Financial Officer can get up in front of ‘the Board’ and gush over how much money they made and how much money they did not spend to make it, there will be angst in the air over the lack of corporate responsibility. But also at the end of the day, it is not about corporations being socially responsible, it is about US being responsible.

by RedSevenOne

Sep 10, 2006 12:45:05 AM cite

It is possible however certain things have to change. Currently most forms of government suffer from a conflict of interest: Serving the People vs Economic Growth. One would think that the 2 would compliment each other but they don't. Not until we have governments that make up laws and rules for corporate functions that serve the people as a whole while being profitable.

by notcriswell

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: Yes, it is possible. I have considerable experience in it, I have many friends creating and living in communities. I think that this is the future, these small social communities, families. WE have to understand, that the whole world is a single family, that we are organisms of the whole, and when we hurt someone on a one side of a planet, we hurt ourselves. We should feel that. When we will feel it, we will act in a completely different way. Yet a person is born and lives in a family, and the family grows. He lives in a country, in a village, or in a town, he goes to school. There is some collective, a circle of friends. And the milieu is very important for education and development of a human being. And people have to learn not to be parasitic to a state and not to say that someone has to do this or that, and then they unite in a society, in a community with common interests. And in the future it happens. They would try to do a great contribution in their small community, because it is an organism. A human being cannot live alone in space, whether he would live in a castle or in a hut, he cannot be alone. He has to become emotions, some positive and even some negative experience from outside and share it with his colleges, friends, and family. And this starts and continues, as I already said, in a family, in a group. And when a person starts to feel social responsibility for what happens in a small formation, he grows out of it and feels responsibility in a bigger dimension, in a global dimension. This is a new stage of human development.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Abbas Beydoun: Of course there are many social obstacles in culture and education which minimize the importance of women in the society. Societies are still dominated by men and feminism is a dream that we are all looking forward to achieving, but we can not because there are new differences that are continuously created and feminism looks easy to achieve but practically it is difficult to get. We should struggle for better situation of the women, more respect for them and for a culture of equality. It is not bad thing that there are no women in the power, because I personally believe it is kind of respect for women and women generally do not like to be in power on the contrary to men. Women can live depending on the others which is a great advantage that we should keep.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: It is not only possible, but it is an obligation and a necessity. There is actually a social corporative responsability in my country which is “in fashion”. But it cannot only be a sort of fashion. This is the only possibity that we have to survive. The companies that are led by material wealth have to share wealth with the society. Once again I have the opinion that it is not a subject of generosity or good intentions but a subject that has to do with the only possibility that we have to survive in this world. Either we accept that the good of everybody is the unique condition for the growing of humanity or humanity will be lost.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Andries Botha: It is possible. Not much of it is around. Everyday, it does exist. The assumption being, of course, that the individuals who profit feel that there is a limit to that which they need and that which is extra, they can redistribute. So first of all, before it becomes a legislative phenomenon, it needs to be an individually-realized necessity. An individual who makes money needs to feel that their needs are sufficiently met and that the excess needs to be redistributed in some sort of way. But I guess, we as people, as a civilization [value rise] this excess in such [inaudible] problematic, difficult to understand the social necessity of sharing our excess. I think government seemed to institute making its own way by one’s excess. They need to institute a mechanism whereby one’s profit can be reintegrated into the society. However, that will never happen until individuals realize that they profit, their excess needs to be distributed and not hoarded.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Adam, it’s not just a source of responsibility. It is totally a source of responsibility. The corporate responsibility people don’t understand and thus the corporations are making money, money, money, money. And do they distribute that money? I don’t think so. Look at the banks, Adam. They charge you, in North America, they charge for every transaction you do. They charge you money. And they have profit. I live in Canada and those five big banks in Canada, they have billions of dollars in profits they make based on the charges they do for every transaction 40 million people do. And look at United States. Look at Germany. Look at all the places in the world, each bank makes money. Not just the banks, then comes the corporations. It was asked earlier today about brand names. They make money upon money. Do they distribute their wealth to those who bought their products? No they don’t. It is really funny. The other day, in a big corporation that you were talking about how important it is for having social responsibility. One of the corporations in Canada was proudly announcing, “We have a foundation.” Did you know that they have more than many billions of dollars of profit? Their foundation was 10 million dollars. Is that social responsibility? They claim it to be. But 10 million dollars versus billions of dollars in profit. At least they began. Will they succeed in really meeting that social responsibility? I pray to the Great One. But again, Adam, we need your help for that.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Anthony Arnove: This is actually a great question because there is - I think a lot of people are right now talking about corporate responsibility, talking about socially conscious corporations. And really, I think that this is a very problematic notion because corporations exist for a reason under capitalism, which is to make profit. And at the end of the day, that is what corporations will do. And that goal, that imperative of making profit is completely at odds with social responsibility, it’s completely at odds with questions of concern having to do with the environment, treatment of workers, social concerns that are raised by those who talk about corporate responsibility, social responsibility of corporations. Ultimately, corporations, if they believe that they might be socially responsible, will find themselves at an economic disadvantage from corporations that are operating without any such concerns. And in that kind of condition of competition that exists under capitalism, those corporations will be able to drive out a competition, which has concerns that will raise the cost of production, that will raise the cost of doing business for those corporations. So, whatever the intentions of individuals in those corporations, the Directors, the CEOs, or so on, they will find that their investors, their Board Advisors or their competition will pressure them economically, and thus equilibrium on the system will then return to an equilibrium, which is based on exploitation or based on denial of any social concerns.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Anuradha Koirala: If you have connection towards the social issues, yes. If you have connection towards the social issues, yes. There is responsibility of corporate -- there is corporate responsibility that is responsible for causes. If you have social [conscience] – social issue[conscience], then there is possibility of corporate responsibility.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Anuradha Mittal: I think as long as corporate social responsibility is voluntary, are dependent on the corporations to adopt the standards, it is not possible. Unfortunately, it has turned into a public relations exercise where we see corporations like Monsanto talk about through biotechnology feeding the world, it is nothing else but PR campaigns; it is nothing else but poor washing. Or they talk about their technology will result in less use of pesticides; that’s green washing. And we saw from the Rio Summit that corporations did emerge as these partners, these public-private partnerships that emerged from the Rio Summit, [inaudible] Summit and suddenly these corporations instead of polluters became partners. Now as long as we have corporate social responsibility as a pure tool where they are underneath obligation to fulfill the codes that they sign up to, we will see a world where corporations are using it for their fancy advertising. Chevron and Shell can have their participants to talk about environmental protection with these fancy slogans, “Do people care?” But the truth is we need to ask, “Do people kill?” And, yes, these corporations are still killing. So, as long as it is voluntary, as long as corporations are not regulated, as long as they are not tied, their hands are not tied behind their back in terms of respecting human rights and respecting workers rights and respecting our environmental codes, we will see a world where basically corporate social responsibility will be nothing else but basically a pure exercise whereby the corporations can get away with basically using it to promote their interests but without being accountable to anyone. Also, along with these codes, you need not just independent monitoring by civil society, but we also need governments implementing these codes of conduct, that these governments instead of being in the pockets of corporations are actually ensuring that these corporations are living up to the ideals that they have signed up to. And if we do not do that, whether it is Global Compact between the UN and companies such as Shell, we will not really see reality change on the ground. And last thing I would say is for corporate social responsibility, it is really important that environmental regulations go hand in hand with principles of equity. You cannot separate environmental ecology and equity. And we have to have codes of conduct for corporations that basically apply on all these areas of ecological [audio ends]

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Ashok Gangadean: Not only is it possible, it must happen. And I think it is happening into this global world as culture shifts from an older form of ego-based separate culture where the bottom line for corporate life and evil capitalism has been the bottom line of the maximum profit and money for the corporate system. But now it’s being seen as we shift to a more whole systems approach of seeing our interconnectivity with each other, and with different economies and with different peoples and cultures and with nature. We’re shifting to a more integral form of corporate life and this new evolution and revolution in corporate responsibility. There are clearly new corporate leaders that have begun to develop a sense of corporate business ethics in a global scale and realizing that we must really be sensitive. It makes to all of the different stake holders in our economic life, not just the bottom line of the corporation making profits, but to tend to the welfare of workers, to be sensitive to the relationships with all of our different dimensions that lead to that corporate productivity, the workers and whether they are being exploited. It is now clear that a triple bottom line that is more rich and enriching is better business. So that it pays now. It’s being seen just in terms of entrepreneurial survival. It pays to be good. Goodness pays. And being right is much better business and more profitable even than the other ways, the older ways that only looks at the egocentric, more myopic bottom line of maximizing profits and money.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: Definitely corporate social responsibility is possible, but more than possible it is increasingly becoming a necessity as people are becoming more socially conscious and socially minded. They want to be able to have corporations exercise social responsibility as well. And will ultimately support those corporations and the products that they consume and buy, or not, depending upon whether or not the corporation ultimately will be able to present a positive image, be able to promote the common good of people around the world. So I think that corporations are recognizing this need to behave in socially responsible ways and to let the consumer know that they also have an aspect of the corporate funds which are used to promote poverty alleviation, promote education, promote activities that benefit youth, a variety of ways that corporations are increasingly demonstrating their connectivity to the communities in which their businesses are located and that they cannot divest themselves of having a responsibility to their communities and to their consumers to behave in ethical, responsible ways. Are there corporations who do not yet understand or embrace corporate responsibility? Yes. But I do believe that more and more corporations are beginning to see that the image that they create in the world has a lot to do with how they're able to demonstrate to the public their ability to be able to serve the needs of the members of the community as well.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Again it depends in some ways, but I would say yes. It is possible, it is definitely possible. There are corporations who are being socially responsible. The way that corporate or corporation to be socially responsible is not looking at the bottom line. It’s not looking at, that we have this one bottom line of profit and that’s all we are looking at. We must look at a triple bottom line. We must look at the, not only the profit, the monetary gain, we must also look at the economic, or let’s say economic. We must look at the ecological bottom line and also the social bottom line. If we take all three of these things into considerations in the way that we design and plan, the way that the corporation functions, and we hold these as a core ethics. Taking care of the earth, taking care of the people that will allow for an abundance and actually a corporation is limiting itself tremendously by not taking in their social responsibility. If you have a corporation that values its people, its culture, its community, they only enrich them. They are happy people, they have coops and they have community lead organizations that working in a cooperative model. They have LLC, Limited Liability Corporations that hold these ethics possible. So, yes, if we looked at the triple bottom line, holding true to our ethical responsibility.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Benson Venegas: Jacintha, this is a very interesting question, and from my heart I would like to say that this is not necessarily what's happening. What you can notice is that this disbalance the way education is approached in our societies. Where people have more access to better education and other people have less access to education. So for education system to really have children bloom you need four things. The first thing is that we need to prepare our children to work, or to live, in a post-modern society. We need to help them to bring, or create a synergy, between old and new values. The old values of the old world and the values of the new world. Secondly, we need to equip kids and children to really live and develope in a economically context. And this is very important, because economy is going globally, so we need to prepare our children to really - to work in this new dimension of things. There's a third and very important aspect. And it has to do - and I think this is one of the places were we have made a mistake sometimes in schools -that we really need to bring in the classroom all the diversity of learning, the richness of the diversity of learning aspects that is present in the classroom, where kids from different cultures, from different perspective, from different backgrounds, can really enrich, in a more participatory way, the knowledge that they're getting from the system. And fourth, and what is very - least and not important - is that we need to really narrow the gap of the disbalance of education, where some places people have access to better education, and others really have less possibilities for education. We need to narrow that gap to be able to help children to bloom in a broader way. And that education can be very keystone in a process of transforming people lives.

by Benson Venegas