The Conflicts

1
The Conflicts Benefits of Introducing
Sustainability into Business Practices

• The Business Language of Sustainability
• Professor Erik Bichard
• University of Salford

2
Three Languages One Sector

• The Language of the Responsible Reporter
• The Language of the Responsible Retailer
• The Local Dialect Sustainability and the
  Employee

3
Corporate Sustainable Reporting

• Sustainability Reports not for everyone
• Very small pool of winners
• Very small pool of readers
• Language is specialised and refined

4
The Language of BT

• corporate social responsibility, reduced energy
  use, increased recycling, wind-farms ,customers
  first, environmental footprint, inclusive
  society, sustainable economic growth, embed
  sustainability, employees flourish, transparency
  and accountability, responsible behaviour,
  climate change, CO2 emissions, low-carbon economy
• We use the term CSR more often than sustainable
  development or sustainability. We see CSR as the
  voluntary action a company takes to contribute to
  the wider societal goal of sustainable
  development. The three issues where BT has the
  most opportunities to make a difference and grow
  our business are climate change, social
  inclusion and sustainable economic growth.

5
The Language of Shell

• Sustainable development, economically,
  environmentally and socially responsible,
  responsible energy system, climate change,
  security of energy supplies, environmental and
  social impacts, safety, biofuels, greenhouse gas
  emissions, fuel efficiency, responsible energy
  future.
• For us, contributing to sustainable development
  means helping meet the worlds growing energy
  needs in economically, environmentally and
  socially responsible ways. In short, helping
  secure a responsible energy future.

6
The Language of the Co-operative Group

• Ethics, Fairtrade, pesticides, energy
  consumption, sustainable energy sources, wind
  farm, climate change, ecotown, social and
  environmental issues, a more competitive and
  responsible business, responsible retailing,
  sustainability

7
The Language of the Co-operative Group

• Ecological sustainability Nature cannot
  withstand a progressive build-up of waste derived
  from the Earths crust, nor can it withstand a
  progressive build-up of societys waste,
  particularly substances that cannot degrade into
  harmless materials. In addition, the productive
  area of nature should not be diminished in terms
  of quality (diversity) or quantity (volume) and
  must be enabled to grow.
• Social sustainability guided by the
  long-established co-operative values of
  self-help, self-responsibility, democracy,
  equality, equity and solidarity, and the pursuit
  of legislative compliance.

8
The Effect of this Language on the Consumer

• Just 10 of consumers trust what companies say
  about climate change
• 20 are confused about conflicting or hard to
  decipher information
• 50 think it is the governments job to remove
  unsustainable products form the shelves
• Some people are influenced to think companies are
  environmentally responsible because they have
  green packaging
• Enron and many of the banks that recently ran
  into difficulties were leading lights in the CSR
  world
• From various studies undertaken by Consumer
  International (2007) and PWC (2008)

9
What about the workers

• Employee engagements second to External relations
• Internal brand as important as external brand
• Just 18 of FSTE 100 CR reports mention employee
  communications (Futerra)
• Unusual methods including evoking emotion,
  arts-based approaches, and the power of nature a
  long way off, but could/should be the new
  language of sustainability
• Are things changing?

10
Denial
11
Confusion
12
Find out more from

• E.bichard_at_salford.ac.uk
• Positively Responsible, Bichard, E. and Cooper,
  C.L., (2008) Butterworth-Heinemann