Building a responsible business goes beyond fulfilling your mandated Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR). It starts from the core values and beliefs on which you found your business. Our selection of CSR quotes highlight how a responsible business pays attention to the well-being of its employees, the environmental impact of its operations, and the sustainable development of its micro and macro-community.
Consumers, now more than ever, consider the responsibility of the businesses they patronize. So much so that if your company lacks this orientation, it runs the risk of failure. CSR has thus evolved from being 'charity of choice' to being a matter of survival of your business, as Cameron Sinclair puts it.
The following CSR quotes illustrate various expert perspectives on the need for responsible businesses, and their importance in the protection of people, resources, and the environment.
Successful people have a social responsibility to make the world a better place and not just take from it.
With over 70 million albums sold worldwide, Carrie Underwood is one of the most successful musical artists of all time. Underwood rose to fame after winning the Season four of American Idol and has since released critically-acclaimed country albums, including Some Hearts in 2005 and Blown Away in 2012 (both on amazon).
Underwood is also a philanthropist, channelling her energy into giving back to youths education particularly in her Checotah hometown. For Underwood, the best part about being successful is that you finally have the means to give back. To contribute positively to society and the world at large.
Sustainability includes how you run your business, and my bottom line includes how you treat your people. Sustainability starts with your staff.
Tom Douglas is a Delaware-born American Chef, restaurant owner and Author, who won the Best Northwest Chef at the James Beard Awards in 1994. Douglas authored Tom’s Big Dinners and Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen in 2001 (both on amazon).
Douglas believes, as stated in his responsible business quote, that you cannot truly claim to have a sustainability plan if your employees are not first-priority. An ideal sustainable development approach starts with the welfare of your staff; a good health plan, ideal working environment, top-notch labour practices and labour conditions.
Corporate social responsibility is measured in terms of businesses improving conditions for their employees, shareholders, communities, and environment. But moral responsibility goes further, reflecting the need for corporations to address fundamental ethical issues such as inclusion, dignity, and equality.
German-born Klaus Schwab is the Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, a platform he founded in 1971. Many laud Schwab as one of the pioneers of the multi-stakeholder approach to businesses, as well as encouraging private-public partnerships across the world. Schwab also created the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship which has, since its establishment in 1998, supported over 350 Social Entrepreneurs across the world.
In this quote, Schwab explains the need for corporate sustainability plans to move beyond the traditional means. Apart from just planning for the employees, the community and the environment, businesses should look towards more issues. Such as racism, and the lack of equal opportunities and inclusion in the societies in which they operate.
Sustainable development is a fundamental break that's going to reshuffle the entire deck. There are companies today that are going to dominate in the future simply because they understand that.
French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault is the president of Groupe Artemis, a French holding company which owns controlling shares in the Kering. Kering, headed by Pinault himself, specializes in luxury goods and is the owner of the Gucci brand. Kering, under Pinault’s leadership, was awarded the “top sustainable textile, apparel, and luxury goods corporation” in the Corporate Knights Global 100 index, in 2018.
Sustainable development practices and CSR are now, more than ever, subject public perception. Corporations which recognise this have a better chance of getting in front of their target customers.
All company bosses want a policy on corporate social responsibility. The positive effect is hard to quantify, but the negative consequences of a disaster are enormous.
Named by Vogue as “one of the world’s most inspiring women”, Noreena Hertz is an Economist, author, and strategic adviser to some of the world’s leading businesses. Hertz is a board member of Warner Music Group.
As a business owner, you may not be able to place a monetary value on the positive effects that CSR has on your company. The implications of failing at it though would be glaring. From government agency clampdowns to breakdown in consumer relationships, Hertz feels the potential effects of a bad CSR reputation is enough reason to do it right.
In order to have a meaningful impact, companies should value diversity and inclusion from Day One.
Christine Tsai has spent most of her professional career developing brands and investing in Silicon Valley. In 2010, she founded 500 Startups, where, as the CEO, she grew 500 businesses to over $500million committed capital and over 100 team members.
Companies should adopt sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and inclusion early enough. Tsai advises that it is much easier and impactful to adopt these values from inception. It not only signals the intention of the company to the public, but it also helps to direct strategies and operation.
The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production - in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation - essential as they are, make people sick and die.
Barry Commoner was an educator, biologist, author, former presidential candidate and environmental activist. He is most noted for being one of the first persons to raise alarm on the dangers of modern technologies (from nuclear weapons to pesticides) on the environment.
Commoner believed that scientists and production engineers had a responsibility first to the environment. In the course of using technology for production and transportation, innovators should be wary of its possible adverse effects on the environment.
It is vital that a company's culture shows a willingness to invest in employee wellbeing with no stigma or penalty attached to prioritising good health.
Dutch Economist and Business strategist, Frans van Houten, is the CEO of Royal Philips. He joined Philips in 1986, rose through the ranks, and is currently spearheading the company’s drive to make the world healthier and more sustainable. In 2017, in recognition of his efforts at corporate sustainability, Fortune named him amongst their Top 20 Global Business Leaders.
As the head of one of the world’s leading health technology firms, van Houten recognises the importance of employee wellbeing. Your staff drives your innovation. therefore they also drive your business. Investing in their general wellbeing is therefore non-negotiable.
It is not possible to have a strong, functioning business in a world of increasing inequality, poverty, and climate change.
Paul Polman is a Dutch business executive. He held roles in some of the world’s biggest firms. Including Unilever; as the CEO, Nestle; as the Chief Financial Officer, and Procter & Gamble; as the Western Europe president. His more recent ventures are sustainability-related, forming Imagine- a group dedicated to combating climate change and poverty- in 2019, and leading the Consumer Goods Forum in its sustainability efforts.
Polman believes that businesses should consider the presence of poverty, inequality and climate change when building in society. As implied in his responsible business quote, you can’t say your company is truly successful if the people around you- and the environment- is in distress.
Economists treat economics as if it is a pure science divorced from the facts of life. The result of this false accountancy is a willful confusion under cover of which industry wreaks its havoc scot-free and ignores the environmental cost.
British Businesswoman, Vivienne Isabel Westwood, is a fashion designer largely credited for popularizing the Punk fashion style and her ability to blend fashion and music. Her major break came in the 1970s when she made designs for Malcolm McLaren’s boutique in Chelsea, England. She soon expanded her brand throughout the world and many know Westwood for her civil rights and climate change activism.
The decisions economists make on the other hand have a direct impact on the world. On the environment. Both businesses and government bodies take their advice when developing policies and rules. Therefore, economists must consider the people aspect of the work they do. Understanding this, according to Westwood, is one of the keys to CSR.
When you run a company, you want to hand it off in better shape than you found it. In the same way, just as we shouldn't leave our children or grandchildren with mountains of national debt and unsustainable entitlement programs, we shouldn't leave them with the economic and environmental costs of climate change.
Henry Paulson is a US businessman, China Expert and author of the Bestsellers On the Brink and Dealing with China (both on amazon). He served as the 74th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States between 2006 to 2009. In 2011, he founded the Paulson Institute, dedicated to improving the relationship between the Us and China, and maintaining Global Order.
Just as CEOs work to leave a company in better condition than they met it, stakeholders in business should strive to leave a better environment to the next generation.
I admire companies that give back to communities. It is an absolute essential for organizations to watch, mitigate, and improve their impact on the environment, people, communities, their health and overall well-being. But this is a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition.
Shiv Nadar is an Indian industrialist and entrepreneur, and the founder of HCL, an IT enterprise. Nadar is most noted for his philanthropic ventures, empowering individuals in the rural areas and transforming the Education landscape of India through the Shiv Nadar Foundation, established in 1994.
Organizations need to be conscious of the environmental impact of their processes, and the well-being of their local community. This, Nadar feels, is not just a PR option; it is a necessity.
While the general ideas of CSR and Sustainability are used to describe a responsible business, there are slight differences. CSR is more immediate and local-community oriented, while the concept of sustainability is more global and futuristic. As our CSR quotes show what is clear though is that businesses must take better responsibility for their roles in/contributions to society.
More brands are waking up to their social responsibility and doing good work through cause marketing campaigns. Yet too many still go about it the wrong way. I mean 'wrong' in two senses. Firstly, they are marketing ineffectively, and secondly, as a consequence their positive social impact is not maximized.
When you run a company, you want to hand it off in better shape than you found it. In the same way, just as we shouldn't leave our children or grandchildren with mountains of national debt and unsustainable entitlement programs, we shouldn't leave them with the economic and environmental costs of climate change.
We'll continue to see more and more brands integrate social causes, charitable components and environmental issues as underlying themes to their campaigns and messaging. Humans connect with humans after all, and brands are using this as a point of connection to engage with their audience, especially charity-minded Generation Y.
I believe in 'business has a force for good.' You know, business has an impact on society. Of course, it creates jobs. It creates prosperity, but on the other hand, we also leave a negative footprint behind.
Economists treat economics as if it is a pure science divorced from the facts of life. The result of this false accountancy is a willful confusion under cover of which industry wreaks its havoc scot-free and ignores the environmental cost.
Business is one of the most powerful institutions on Earth for creating wealth and opportunity and helping to lift people out of poverty. When you think about it that way, then business is not separate from development policy.
I have committed my life to helping the poor, and I believe that if more companies followed Wal-Mart's lead in providing opportunity and savings to those who need it most, more Americans battling poverty would realize the American dream.
There's a rising tide of environmental awareness and activism among consumers that's going to continue to swell in the 21st century. Smart companies will get ahead of that wave and ride it to success and prosperity. Those that don't are headed for a wipeout.
We need business to understand its social responsibility, that the main task and objective for a business is not to generate extra income and to become rich and transfer the money abroad, but to look and evaluate what a businessman has done for the country, for the people, on whose account he or she has become so rich.
At Cisco, we believe everyone has the potential to become a global problem solver. We strive to inspire, connect, and invest in opportunities that accelerate global problem solving by empowering people everywhere to work toward eradicating poverty, unemployment, climate change, and hunger.
The bigger and more successful Salesforce becomes, the more we'll invest in our public schools, the more we will invest in homeless, the more we will invest in public hospitals, the more we will invest into NGOs.
For me, I've learned about what it means to focus on a culture, to build social responsibility, and the idea of a company as a super-organism.
We have an unwavering commitment to our social responsibility program; it's good for business, and we know it's the right thing to do.
It's not just about checking the box on corporate social responsibility. It's about hitting our bottom line.
Many business leaders are seeing the relationship between long term success and sustainability, and that's very heartening.
Taking on corporate greed is an environmental concern.
Companies should not have a singular view of profitability. There needs to be a balance between commerce and social responsibility... The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the companies that make more money.
When sustainability is viewed as being a matter of survival for your business, I believe you can create massive change.
Business is a very beautiful mechanism to solve problems, but we never use it for that purpose. We only use it to make money. It satisfies our selfish interest but not our collective interest.
We now see numerous examples of brands working together to address issues such as environmental degradations, climate control, pollution, poverty and disease.
It took a generation for companies to recognise their responsibilities in terms of labour practices and another generation for them to recognise their environmental obligations.
We can no longer pretend that business is immune from the rising tide of environmental or social challenges or that companies can create value in isolation from the communities of which they are a part.
We'll continue to see more and more brands integrate social causes, charitable components and environmental issues as underlying themes to their campaigns and messaging. Humans connect with humans after all, and brands are using this as a point of connection to engage with their audience, especially charity-minded Generation Y.
An organization's culture of purpose answers the critical questions of who it is and why it exists. They have a culture of purpose beyond making a profit.
We can no longer pretend that business is immune from the rising tide of environmental or social challenges or that companies can create value in isolation from the communities of which they are a part.
The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has long been used as an effective lens through which to examine the actions business can take toward ensuring mutual long-term well-being and sustainability.
We now see numerous examples of brands working together to address issues such as environmental degradations, climate control, pollution, poverty and disease.
Look at your business and the activities that you undertake. Then, start to think about not just your economic concerns, but about social and environmental impacts that businesses have.
I believe very strongly that corporations could and should be a major force for resolving social and environmental concerns in the twenty-first century.
Brands are facing a new competitive landscape in which self-definition, core values and purpose will increasingly define their ability to reach customers that only allow what is meaningful in their lives to pass through their filter.
I think CSR, corporate social responsibility, is something that is becoming front and center.
If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story.
The tourism industry has considerable potential to be a sustainability role model in its role as a buyer of goods and other services, from building materials and green construction standards to farm produce.
I wear two hats. The one is business and increasing my shareholders' value; the other is social responsibility.
Immigration and openness to refugees is an important part of our country's success and, quite honestly, to Uber's.
Ethics or simple honesty is the building blocks upon which our whole society is based, and business is a part of our society, and it's integral to the practice of being able to conduct business, that you have a set of honest standards.
Resources businesses must contribute to sustainable development if we are to continue to have access to resources.
The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production - in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation - essential as they are, make people sick and die.
Through their own actions, customers can hold companies responsible to higher standards of social responsibility. Through collective action, they can leverage their dollars to combat the force of those investors who myopically pursue profits at the expense of the rest of society.
We believe that business is good because it creates value. It is ethical because it is based on voluntary exchange; it is noble because it can elevate our existence, and it is heroic because it lifts people out of poverty and creates prosperity.
Transparency, accountability and sustainability have become the slogans of the market leaders. Companies carry out environmental and social audits to court the consumer, and even the bluest chips woo organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty.
Taking on corporate greed is an environmental concern.
Executives must place a priority on wellbeing if they want to attract the right people, keep their best people, and drive their company's financial performance.
The more a business is able to develop and articulate a core purpose and engage with millennials, who equate purpose with business excellence, the greater chances for long-term success.
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