Sustainability, Global Order and Human Rights: Did we miss the boat?
Prof. Dr. Michael Hopkins is CEO of MHC International Ltd (MHCi) a research and advisory company on CSR, employment and development, with HQ in London, UK. Author and commentator on development issues and CSR with a strong focus on jobs, skill analysis and development. His fourteenth book appeared in Jan 2016: CSR and Sustainability - From the Outside to the Mainstream A Text Book (Greenleaf, UK, 2016). See https://www.csrfi.com/publications
I thank Dr Sofia Santos for allowing me to write a few words on what is deeply disturbing me and closely related to the title of this short piece. I have spent nearly twenty years and three books advocating the cause for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability which, in short, means for any set of bodies or institution be they private, public or NGO that they treat their stakeholders responsibly. Curiously the other half of my past twenty years has, nonetheless, been dealing with the questions that now trouble me – for instance I am working on projects to create youth employment in several countries and, more particularly, to create one million jobs for youth in Somalia.
But, I now see that working with corporations has meant that I (and they) have ignored many big issues where social responsibility is key but only vaguely covered by corporations and the private sector in general. After several generations working on social and economic development issues I started working on CSR just after the fall of the Berlin Wall when the hateful Soviet regime fell apart and the two Germany’s came together in a joyful shower of public delight and unity. The end of despots and a return to democracy, human rights, the rule of law and a free press. Such Joy!
The new optimism led me to think that now the private sector has been given its head and to avoid the collapse of capitalism a la Marx, the new way must be a mixture of public and private economies with a strong dose of responsibility.
And since that heady time what have we seen? Amazingly CSR has taken root and every large company, and many Governments, have adopted CSR.
Yet is the rise of CSR/Sustainability (or whatever we call it) enough? Since that time we have seen the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the disastrous Iraq war mistakenly conducted because of 9/11, the collapse of the Middle East and the rise of the most vicious and nasty group of fanatics known as IS since the Nazis and it seems increasing violations of human rights. More recently we have read the stunning analysis of a few greedy American capitalists in Jean Mayer’s Dark Money leading to the rise of the amazing gibberish of Trump and the disastrous Brexit.
Take Brexit which I voted against. The EU has never been perfect but the mixture of isolationism, underlying racism and anti-immigrants that characterise, to my mind, Brexit does seem a cause too far. It also seems to me that the vote against was composed of people worried about their jobs in the North outside London and the out and out racists in the South also outside London - i.e. mainly political against the equally dreadful Cameron and Corbyn.
Then come all the lies from that awful racist Farage as well as the even more awful Boris Johnson (GBP 350 million[1] in costs to the UK from the EU per week – an out and out lie which would then be spent on the UK’s National Health Service – now denied by the same Brexit people)… more awful since like the father Le Pen in France smart people using racism to win an argument, even though they can easily argue both sides, totally disgusts me.
So why do intellectuals such as John Redwood, the former head of Margaret Thatcher’s think tank and one of the brightest persons I have met – but my conversation with him on Brexit has weakened my view of him - he continues to support Brexit seeing that it is likely to do more damage to the UK (if no Brexit Brexit) than two world wars as Scotland, Northern Ireland and possibly Wales leave the UK? Let alone the uncertainty regarding the 'confidence fairy' in the UK economy.
So as CSR rose, the world falls apart. Was I wrong to put my life for twenty years into CSR? Is it worth continuing that work or should I now turn into an activist and try to influence even one person who has fallen into the trap of nihilism and anti-immigration? My forthcoming new book will discuss these issues in more detail with the title: ‘It’s the new way, the right way! Social Responsibility must evolve from CSR/Sustainability’. But all the above has simply made me angry at what has happened to ideas, countries and people that I respect and I am not sure how to deal with it right now. I guess that is why people like me write books, so as to explore ideas and learn from all the influences that books generate.
In summary my main topics are:
1. Has CSR/Sustainability failed?
2. Can it be expanded to cover the key isues of the day (listed above)
3. Would companies be interested in doing any of the above?
4. It is positive that companies now talk about global warming, living wage, exec salaries, skill training, volunteering etc. but not much about jobs, robotics, immigration, refugees (except natural disasters), terrorism, human rights (well just starting thanks to Ruggie), income distribution, and feeling of hopelessness leading to Trump, Brexit, Le Pen, etc etc ?
Meetup notes from 13 Sept 2016
In response to the above and presentation by Michael the following comments were elicited:
Most things done by our company haven’t been driven by CSR
Company’s care about their bottom line more than anything and venturing too far away from their main purpose could lead to collapse
Despite all the good things coming out of Nestle, my own experience there led me t wonder if they actually had a Sustainability Department, the main focus being on their profitability
The world is not Cartesian, it is highly inter-connected and needs system thinking to untangle the various webs
Why, anyway, should companies sort out these big issues?
The World Economic Forum, that does discuss at least some of the big issues with companies is pretty strict in its focus despite listing 29 Global Risks while only looking at a few of them [see below]
Issues such as human psychology, supply chains and sustainable consumption, the application of the SDGs can help re-address the balance although I cant see how CSR would help anti-jihadism movements
The big issue is ‘why should they?’ i.e. what’s in it for companies, sad but true! Our society deals in silos so even the SDGs will probably only be window dressing for companies – a PwC report just out highlighted such a position.
On the other hand, CSR works well when there is growth and not recession and happily many poor people DO have values that are oten repressed because of their lack of opportunity.
The World Economic Forum 29 Global Risks
Economic Risks
1. A housing/commodity or share bubble in a major economy that pops! (Big Impact Risk: 9)
2. Very low inflation or deflation in a major economy over a long period of time
3. The collapse of a large financial institution or the failure of a financial system that would impact the global economy
4. The failure of a important infrastructure (energy, transportation, communication) network – which has repercussions on the wider economy
5. A major financial crisis in a influential economy (Big Impact Risk: 7)
6. High unemployment and / or inadequate use of the employed population over an extended period of time (Most likely Risk: 7)
7. Illegal activities such as illicit financial flow, tax evasion and organised crime (Most likely Risk: 10)
8. A sharp energy price increase / decrease (Big Impact Risk: 5)
9. Out of control inflation
Environmental Risks
10. Unusual and severe weather, and the associated damage such events can cause to the local environment and infrastructure (Most likely Risk: 2)
11. Inability of government, authorities and businesses to implement effective measures to counter and adapt to any climatic changes (Most likely Risk: 3) (Big Impact Risk: 1)
12. Environmental damage that could result in ecosystem damage or even loss (Big Impact Risk: 6)
13. Natural disasters such as a volcanic eruption, earthquake or tsunami (Most likely Risk: 5)
14. Man made environmental disasters such as an oil spill or radioactive contamination
Geopolitical Risks
15. Inability to govern, resulting in civil unrest, corruption and / or political gridlock
16. Local, national and international conflict (economic, military, cyber..) which results in regional tensions (Most likely Risk: 4)
17. Terrorist attacks
18. State collapse or in deep crisis – for example a military coup or civil conflict (Most likely Risk: 6)
19. Deployment of weapons of mass destruction (Big Impact Risk: 2)
Societal Risks
20. Badly planned cities resulting in social, health and environmental difficulties
21. Food crisis – where food is inadequate, unaffordable or unreliable
22. Mass migration due to civil conflict, natural disaster or economic uncertainty (Most likely Risk: 1) (Big Impact Risk: 4)
23. Social unrest resulting in social instability (Big Impact Risk: 10)
24. Disease resulting in death, and social and economic unrest (Big Impact Risk: 8)
25. Water crisis (Most likely Risk: 9) (Big Impact Risk: 3)
Technological Risks
26. Unforeseen and negative consequences of technology resulting in human, environmental and economic damage – this is the Terminator scenario!
27. Digital infrastructure and networks suffer an outage resulting in disruption
28. Widespread cyber-attacks
29. Data breaches – incorporating data fraud/theft (Most likely Risk: 8)
Source: http://www.sepaforcorporates.com/payments-news-2/29-global-risks-via-world-economic-forum/
Leaked documents reveal secretive influence of corporate cash on politics
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/corporate-cash-john-doe-files-scott-walker-wisconsin
“When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump, who is now soliciting contributions, once said of political donations. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/14/john-doe-files-scott-walker-wisconsin
[1] About $25bn a year but doesn’t take account of EU transfers to UK, about half that, nor the likely loss of $65bn of taxes from financial institutions in the City of London who may well move elsewhere