Don’t mess with CSR 3.0

The comment “Screw the divers” posted on Facebook led to Singapore’s largest supermarket chain, NTUC Fairprice to announce they will stop the sale of shark fin products by the first quarter of 2012.

The inflammatory comment was referring to the divers’ campaign against the shark fin trade. It was posted by the sales manager of the supermarket’s seafood supplier on his company’s Facebook while announcing the launch of a new shark fin product.

The November 2011 posting quickly went viral, inciting a storm of protest and criticism on social networking sites and Twitter. Netizens bombarded Fairprice’s Facebook and called for a boycott of the supermarket and the supplier. In January 2012, besides announcing it would no longer sell shark fin products, NTUC Fairprice also withdrew all products from the offending supplier.

No Shark Fin please!
Eating shark fin has been a controversial issue for many years. With the growth of online social media, the effect and pressure of the cause has been felt by both individuals and corporations.

Online and offline campaigns from concerned NGOs has finally been getting some results but this ‘lucky break’ over the comment took on a life of its own and went a long way to helping draw attention to the issue.

Singapore is one of the biggest seafood consumers in Asia Pacific and since 2003, shark fin imports to Singapore have doubled. However, in the last few months we have seen positive changes in corporate attitudes.

In October 2011, Cold Storage became the first supermarket chain to announce a “No shark fin” policy. In January, the day after NTUC Fairprice announced their intention, Carrefour also pledged to no longer sell shark fin after its current stock runs out.

Surprisingly, in previously intractable places in greater China, we are also seeing changes in attitudes. After heavy pressure from environmental groups, Hong Kong Disneyland took shark fin soup off its wedding banquet menu while Hong Kong’s legendary Peninsula Hotel banned shark fin as of 1st January 2012. In mainland China, a restaurant chain owner gave away 500,000 RMB worth of his remaining stock of shark fin because he wanted to stop serving the dish from the beginning of 2012.

The power of Social Media cannot be underestimated in these situations. CSR has become an integral part of most companies’ communications efforts and the public has come to expect it.

Social Media is changing the way CSR campaigns are communicated and corporations need to adapt and move with the trends. Ten years ago, when we set up our CSR team, it was still a fairly new movement. What we have seen in the last few years is a complete convergence of Social Media and CSR.

Let’s look at how iCSR has evolved. CSR 1.0 was about pushing the message out, building awareness passively. CSR 2.0 began engagement with dialogue and interaction, building communities with transparency and accountability. The greatest struggle is attaining and maintaining sustainability.

The latest evolution to CSR 3.0 is about involving communities across geographical, age and socio-economic boundaries, reducing lag time, sustaining stakeholders’ interest and taking ownership.

Jaago Re Campaigns
The Tata Tea’s Jaago Re (Wake up) campaigns are perfect examples of how CSR has evolved. What started as a CSR program with an online hot spot for potential voters now stands for social awakening in a much broader sense.

The ‘Jaago Re One Billion Votes’ campaign aimed to wake up an apathetic and cynical nation to register to vote. The website facilitated voter registration and gave important voting information, resulting in three million visits with 600,000 registrations.

The next Jaago Re campaign, aimed to awaken Indians to fight against corruption, which a World Bank report had identified as the single biggest obstacle facing India today. In addition, they launched a Corruption Index and organized a 38-day bus journey across the country to connect with young people and urge them to pledge against corruption.

This anti-corruption initiative spread globally and similar mini sites popped up everywhere in the region. India’s anti-corruption issue has become a hot topic, fuelled further by the India Against Corruption and Anna Hazare movements, and has spawned anti-corruption themes in recent movies.
Today, the site supports 10 key social issues, from corruption to human rights, from education to healthcare, from civic issues to global warming.

Greenpeace takes on Mattel
Last June Greenpeace released a spoof YouTube video, brilliantly titled “Ken breaks up with Bulldozer Barbie & Her Rainforest Destruction” linking Mattel’s toy packaging to deforestation of Indonesian rainforests. It was viewed more than a million times in multiple languages within ten days.

The campaign resulted in Mattel receiving over half a million emails urging the company to change their ways. Greenpeace‘s website facilitated the email campaign, sharing information on Facebook and Twitter. Even Barbie’s popular Facebook fan page was used as a platform for protest.

Four months after Greenpeace’s global campaign, Mattel announced they would stop buying from companies linked to rainforest destruction in Indonesia. Meanwhile, their competitor Hasbro also unveiled a new procurement policy to ensure their commitment to environmental sustainability.

Online communities can also play a major role in the call to action in times of disaster. Thirty minutes after the Mumbai bombings, Ajay Kumar, a software engineer 1,200km from Mumbai, created a disaster tracking map, flagging it with hashtags to indicate where people were stranded or seeking shelter.

The map had links to useful reports and alerts such as traffic updates, death toll, blood donors and hospital phone numbers. As the information traffic became overwhelming, Kumar had to contact volunteers from as far away as America to help him sift through all the tweets for accurate and timely information

When different online communities play a key role in the call to action for an authentic cause and make an impact beyond expectation, it truly shows the convergence and direction CSR3.0 is taking.
Social media is one of the most effective platforms to communicate CSR efforts and can help to rebuild a sense of community where people help each other to recover from natural disasters. Many companies are recognizing the importance of responding quickly and meaningfully to crises, that being part of a process of engaging with disaster management can help businesses be more resilient.

Impact on Businesses
The best campaigns are the ones that take on a life of their own. Stakeholder engagement is about authenticity and trust. As authenticity plays a greater role, we begin to see the impact it has on the different aspects of business such as strategy, processes, reporting and risk management.

Companies like China Mobile and ITC have started online information services, providing relevant and current information to farmers. Others like retailer Patagonia, have become more open about the impact on the environment by mapping the production process of their products through the supply chain, while Timberland conducts quarterly shareholder calls on CSR issues by an expert.

CSR reporting is becoming the norm, adhering to guidelines such as the ones from Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The impact on risk management is clearly seen in disasters where support can form almost immediately through social media channels.

Authenticity and Sustainability
To be successful, CSR programs must be authentic in order to build sustainability. To do this, there needs to be a common interest, a passionate goal, a similar preference for a lifestyle or profession. The content must be relevant and in real-time or updated constantly. People join communities to contribute, to learn or to obtain information.

Promptness and quality of the interaction is vital and we must continue to encourage honest dialogue until it becomes self-sustaining. Keeping the information simple as well as providing insight will make the engagement appealing. Being present across platforms and communities where you think your potential audience could be present is also vital.

A key element to success is focusing on a company’s core values. Communicate on what you believe in and act on it. This will ensure minimum risk of being attacked. The examples given have shown different audiences using similar approaches, applying the latest CSR 3.0 tools which have converged and created campaigns that have made a strong impact. Companies that do not adapt to the latest iCSR evolution will probably be left behind, while corporations adept at using social media will be the most successful in this field and their success will not be limited to just CSR.

Jean Michel Dumont, Chairman, Ruder Finn Asia