University for a Night Recommendations
Corporate Citizenship and Social Responsibility - Global Opportunities and Challenges

The tremendous reach and impact of national and global corporations was a backdrop to discussions at University for a Night. Greater transparency on the part of both business and government was widely cited as a requirement for broad-based economic growth. But specific recommendations were also made on ways in which corporations could supplement the financial bottom line with direct, positive social and environmental results.
 

Persuade corporate stakeholders - shareholders, directors, staff, suppliers and customers - that improvements in corporate citizenship can enhance the companies' effectiveness and value. Corporations should work to educate not only consumers but also their own staff and shareholders about the financial value of good corporate citizenship. By increasing recognition of the importance of corporate efforts to bridge the gap between rich and poor, the sustainability of those efforts can be ensured. This requires both publicizing effective corporate initiatives and articulating the connections between a healthy society and business success. Examples of groups working to achieve these recommendations include:

• Business Council on National Issues (Canada)
• AIM Center for Corporate Social Responsibility (Philippines)
• Conference Board
• Ethos Institute (Brazil)
• Group of Institutes, Foundations and Businesses (Brazil)
• Keidanren (Japan)
• National Business Initiative (South Africa).

Identify and support groups and individuals that directly catalyze and facilitate new corporate-civil society partnerships. Differences in perspective, interests and work-style can make beginning such partnerships difficult - despite the best of intentions. Bridging leaders and institutions can help groups wishing to build partnership identify potential partners, begin to build trust, formulate a clear vision of how collaborative action could be useful, and flesh out mechanisms for communications and joint work. Bridging leaders - individuals with connections to diverse parts of society - can encourage those people with resources to begin partnerships with other actors such as community groups to solve social problems. Examples of groups working to achieve these recommendations include:

• Bristol-Myers Squibb
• Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society (Thailand)
• Comunidade Solidaria (Brazil)
• League of Corporate Foundations (Philippines)
• Hitachi Foundation
• Partners of the Americas
• Philippine Business for Social Progress.

Raise the "bar" in corporate social responsibility. By ensuring that different offices of multinational corporations follow the same codes of conduct and social responsibility as their headquarters and by holding companies from different countries to the same high standards in both environmental and social performance, the social performance of corporations can dramatically be improved. Examples of groups working to achieve these recommendations include:

• Business for Social Responsibility
• Corporate Citizenship International
• Council on Economic Priorities
• Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
• Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum
• Xerox.