The office of a CSO is unlikely to have the same meaning for an Anglo-American corporation against a major Danish firm, to a German firm, like BMW. The sustainability concern of Anglo-Americans is to identify the charities that basically add to commercial advantage or at least take pressure off the organisation. The latest research that we have on CSR and sustainability in the Anglo-American economies shows that around 95% of CSR and sustainability initiatives are driven because of marketing concerns, and a concern to look good on the annual report.

This approach represents the philanthropic platform assumed in the recent Financial Times article by Anthony Goodman titled, “Sustainability eyes its own corner office”. This model is based on the CSR assumption that people who have made money, or the organisations that have made money, should give something back to society. It is depressing to realize that only 5% or so of CSR initiatives are there to do meaningful good for the community, as opposed to promote the organisation in its particular market.

In contrast, the Scandinavian concern with social redistribution represents a second platform and it is there to do greater good for the community. The Scandinavian emphasis on CSR and sustainability is very high, and their focus has to do with management and governance. Scandinavian companies have had board positions supporting and championing CSR and sustainability for well over a decade. In fact, CSR/sustainability tends to be one of the most important board topics; to be an independent non-executive director your concern is ‘what is the CSR that is happening in this organisation’. In this case, the role of the CSO would be much more prominent.

The third CSR platform is the environment, and this is basically German. For the Germans, concern with what the organisation and the citizen are doing in the streets and on the rivers is a major issue. The board structure of the Germans allows for debate over what it really means to be operating various factories right across Germany, and including people from the community who have a direct interest in the organisation is key. German employment laws require that on a supervisory board up to 50% of board members be workers or employees. Technically on this board one could have a housewife, a doctor, a teacher, or others from the community. This tradition goes back to 1860; for the Germans environmental consciousness is built into the fabric of the organisation.

So the CSO functioning outside of the Anglo-American interpretation of sustainability is likely to gain more traction inside the business and bring about greater impact. Until Anglo-American corporations move away from the philanthropic platform, I do not see the role of the CSO having much effect on the corporate hierarchy.

I have mixed views on this. The intentions behind the ethical business MBA are totally honourable and to be supported, but what is the reality of its success and its own sustainability?

A friend of mine from a foreign government asked me if I could provide contacts within investors to see if the projects of the foreign government would attract the necessary level of funding. One cluster of projects was concerned with green investment, community development and housing redevelopment in this country. The overall rate of return was about 8% or 9% for these investors over a number of years. The second area was arms, and an extensive investment in a whole number of different types of arms and military developments. The return on investment there varied from 17.5% to 20%. The green funds that were attracted came from all over the world. The moment those green funds heard about the arms side to the deal, they immediately switched to that and clamoured to invest in that area rather than the more public stakeholder-orientated requirements of that particular state. I asked some of those investors what had caused them to switch deals and their response was that while the green side is important, the maximum investment that you’re going to get is 9% – rather than the 17% offered by the arms deal. Then I asked about the stakeholder orientation, and they said that while this might be developing, for the next decade it would not have much impact.

So one of the things to watch for is whether we do in fact realise stakeholder value disciplines in a shareholder world. Alternatively, this is perhaps a trend of the day, which is that while the market is in downturn and the private sector and the financial services sector really doesn’t have the capacity to send people on MBA programmes nor has the interest to hire people from MBA programmes, the various universities that provide training in development and business have turned their attentions to third sector.

There definitely is an attempt to think more broadly, in a more sustainable way and in a more stakeholder-orientated fashion. However, when talking to investors, the impression I get is that this will only survive for the next twenty-four months because the markets are down. I really hope those investors are wrong. Yet having seen how the City and Wall Street really seem to be calling the shots even with the national political process, I hate to say that it is likely we will be back to what we saw before by about mid-to-late 2013. In the philosophy and curriculum of the MBA, “stakeholder” will just become another politically correct term with little meaning.

The counter to this is that the upcoming citizen is well versed with how to access information and the values of the new generation coming through could make a difference. The investor thinks not. I think the next 18 months will be a very telling period to see what really happens.

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When Nada and I surveyed a number of UK and US boards in 2007, we did not detect this sentiment. Boards tended to shy away from using language like CSR and sustainability; instead they were focusing on effective risk management, compliance, internal controls, and reputation management. These were critical to the pursuit of accountability and the reduction of risk to shareholders.

It’s fine for executives to ‘feel good’ about their company’s socially responsible activities, including philanthropy, but these activities really need to be embedded in the company’s strategy and provide a demonstrable value to shareholders in order to be successful.

We both think that CSR in theory is a good thing, but often it manifests itself as government absolving itself of responsibiliy and foisting it on the private sector. The sentiment behind the Caux Principles at the beginning of the CSR movement was “Let’s do something socially responsible as businesses before government intervenes and forces us to do something.” Businesses do need to show that they’re sufficiently capable of acting responsibly (and if they want to be successful with their CSR, they need to entwine it in their company’s DNA), but government steps too far when it starts suggesting issues to tackle, and places upon the wealth creation sector responsibilities that business can’t cope with. It’s unfair to ask businesses to make money and then both achieve shareholder objectives and redistrubute it in communities as though they were an informal government.

Looked at closely it’s evident that the current Georgian President, Saakashvili has behaved like an autocrat not a democrat.  He has closed down newspapers, bullied  the media, locked up many dissidents who are  supporters of democracy and has now even imprisoned the son of Gamsakhurdia, the very first president of Georgia after the break  up of the Soviet Union.  In point of fact, his attack on South Ossetia is just one of a series of similar attacks.

The Russians had little alternative than to  try  to protect ‘their own’ people and I suspect that this is what they will continue to do.  It appears that Saakashvili,  working together with Western interests and particularly American and British intelligence, positioned the attack on Ossetia to induce a response from the Russians such that Russians could be presented in a negative light  and thereby lose further credit in the PR war, while defending rights and obligations of  citizens of another state.

In my view, this is no way to deal with a strengthening Russia which has the largest concentration of natural resources  in the world.  Instead of this geopolitical gamesmanship, we should be forming productive partnerships – certainly not accelerating an military aggressive position.  Yes, the  West should encourage democracy in Georgia but then it must ensure that this formal democracy is  accompanied by proactive social integration programmes and policies which protect  minorities. Critically it must allow for representation of the various ethnic groups that are present on Georgian soil.  There are probably now as many Georgians in prison under Saakashvili as there were in the worst days of the Soviet  Union.

It’s a classic dilemma-does Tesco raise the standards and then force higher prices on customers, or does it act in a way that could look irresponsible to an increasing number of aware people? Tesco seems to be somewhere in the middle-they say they are raising standards, but are doing so gradually to not shock the market.

That seems like a sensible decision to me. More and more consumers are becoming aware of issues like these-Tesco will have to continue down the path of greater transparency if they don’t want to end up with yolk on their face.