Corporate Social Responsibility On The Rise
Canadian companies expanded their socially responsible initiatives last year, but real results remain weak, according to a new report by the The University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business and Jantzi Research.
The report found that Canadian firms are investing significant resources into programs with a positive impact on society, and are increasing that investment. However, the actual outcome of these worthy initiatives remains lacking.
Some of this lack of program efficacy can be attributed simply to the lengthy amount of time it takes policy to create significant change. That being said, the study’s authors place significant blame on ineffective management of the programs.
Other major findings of the study:
- On the whole, the improvement in socially responsible initiatives was widespread – driven by many firms making positive changes, not just a few firms making large leaps.
- 65% of firms improved their CSR score between 2006 and 2007, and only 1% made no change at all.
- At the industry level, positive changes were seen in key sectors such as banking and oil & gas. However, the retail, telecommunications and insurance industries appear to be lagging.
- Canadian firms showed little improvement in the category of natural environment. Just over 40% of firms improved their performance, 27% went backwards and 32% of firms maintained the same score in 2007 versus 2006.
Taking a more long term view, the authors conclude that corporate awareness is “significantly different” than when data began to be kept a decade and a half ago.
Canadian (and other) firms may want to take note of the latest report from the Social Investing Forum. The report found that, from 2005 to 2007, Socially Responsible Investment assets increased more than 18 percent while all investment assets under management edged up by less than 3 percent. The group cites such factors as rising institutional investor interest, growing demand for climate-related renewable energy alternatives, concerns about the Sudan humanitarian crisis, and the emergence of new products.
The report identifies $2.71 trillion in total assets under management using one or more of the three core SRI strategies — screening, shareholder advocacy, and community investing. In the past two years, social investing has enjoyed healthy growth from $2.29 trillion in the 2005 report.
Today, nearly one out of every nine dollars under professional management in the United States today is involved in socially responsible investing.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
