RSE é real?

Um artigo publicado no jornal The Philippine Star, por Boo Chanco, questiona se a Responsabilidade Social Empresarial é algo real ou não. Está em inglês mas é tranquilo de ler e segue a este post.
No final, o autor tem a seguinte conclusão:
RSE é de verdade e que ela está aqui para ficar. Pode significar coisas diferentes para diferentes sociedades e culturas, mas a característica comum tem a ver com a necessidade de corporações darem uma melhor resposta para a sociedade e o ambiente que compõem a sua base. E como a GE, Figaro e Cebu Pacific têm demonstrado, entender a RSE pode ser a chave para fazer negócios rentáveis nos tempos atuais.

Confira a seguir a íntegra do artigo:

Demand and SUply
by Boo Chanco
The Philippine StarFor the last few years, one popular business concept that has taken the corporate world quite by storm is corporate social responsibility. To those of us who had been around the block a few dozen times, we couldn't help being a little skeptical that a) it is really that new; b) it is here to stay and c) the big guys who are endorsing it at Davos and other top level management conferences really know what it is or could even truly care less. It sounds pretty much like plain old philanthropy that had been repackaged for the brave new digital world of high technology and globalization. But the concept is apparently getting some amount of academic respectability. Early this week, I sat in a meeting with one such academician specializing in the concept. The League of Corporate Foundations invited Prof. Bradley Googins to share his views and I took the opportunity to disabuse my mind that CSR is merely a passing fad. Prof. Googins of Boston College's Center for Corporate Citizenship did his best to connect CSR or corporate citizenship to business strategy. He talked about how global corporate citizenship is the new paradigm that goes several steps over traditional philanthropy. It is, according to Googins, based on a pragmatic integration of corporate citizenship and good business performance. What he means, I guess, is that if today's corporate leaders know what is good for them and their organizations, they would be more sensitive to the issues held important by society. The alternative is hell to pay, as we are now seeing with the American car industry. Detroit had been for years, fighting demands for more fuel efficient engines. They were too satisfied with their SUV sales that they hardly noticed Toyota and Honda had introduced hybrid car models that used energy more efficiently and drastically reduced dependence on petroleum. They kept saying the market was not ready for hybrids… and they were wrong. The market responded positively to hybrids as concern for global warming became more widespread. There was also growing worry over how dependence on petroleum aggravated dependence on a volatile region of the world. It didn't help that people realized tremendous amounts of wealth are continually transferred to the Middle Eastern sheiks that fund terrorists. Detroit missed all those signs of change… and according to a column of Tom Friedman in the New York Times the other day, Detroit still doesn't get it. In contrast, Googins cited General Electric and its Ecomagination, "a world-class example of how to co-create value for business and society." Through this concept, GE is trying to prove that a corporate commitment to greener products, systems, and technologies is not only environmentally responsible, but financially rewarding as well. I checked out GE's Ecomagination on Yahoo and I confirmed the reasons why Googins was enthusiastic about it. Ecomagination puts into practice GE's belief that financial and environmental performance can work together to drive company growth, while taking on some of the world's biggest challenges. Apparently, GE realized that the only way for them to grow is to develop products that respond to society's current concerns. Thus, GE came up with their four commitments: Double Investments in Clean R&D, Increase Revenues from Ecomagination Products, Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Keep the public informed. As their Ecomagination homepage says it: "Welcome to our vision of a healthier world." CSR in this sense, is a corporate survival strategy in today's world. Googins pointed out for example, corporate recruiters who go out to the universities to interview potential staff always come back with the feedback that they get asked questions about the company's commitment to corporate social responsibility. No one wants to work, if he had the choice, in a company that pollutes the environment, uses Third World sweat shops to manufacture products, and indulges in questionable financial practices. Tech savvy young people today want to use technology to respond to the world's greatest needs. The concept of social entrepreneurship and social venture capital excite them as much if not more so than just a fat pay check. They are looking for companies that "ensure the decisions they make impart the least amount of harm possible to society and the environment." Thus, Googins explained, companies are now moving from the relatively non-strategic practice of philanthropy, towards a highly integrated and strategic citizenship tied to business success. But it must be emphasized, CSR is not about how a company gives away its money: it's about how it makes its money. Additonally, as Bill Gates is showing, CSR is making sure that everything a corporation does creates an impact towards the creation of a better world. Locally, Chit Juan of Figaro presents a good example. She isn't just selling what some people think are overpriced cups of coffee. Unlike Starbucks and the other American franchises, she is using Figaro to promote the livelihood of coffee farmers all over the country, paying them more than what the farmers would get from traders and expanding the areas where coffee is grown in this country. But make no mistake about it… what Chit Juan is doing impacts Figaro's bottom line as much as the lives of coffee farmers. She is at the same time, helping develop a viable coffee industry here, from growing the beans to consuming every flavorful hot cup in well designed outlets here and abroad. I felt some amount of national pride drinking a cup of Philippine Barako coffee in a fashionable Figaro outlet in Shanghai. It helps to know that each cup of Figaro Barako coffee also helps reduce our poverty level somehow. The other local example I can think of is Cebu Pacific. They sharpened their pencils to produce a business model of a no frills airline service with fares so low that many people are, for the first time in their lives, now flying in airplanes in this archipelagic country rather than traveling by boat or bus. OFWs in neighboring countries can also afford to come home more frequently. Yet, Cebu Pacific's cheap airfares are hardly philanthropic… they made P2 billion net income for the first half of this year. Those examples must be what Googins was talking about when he said "business is also taking a greater role in the major social issues of the day somewhat blurring the traditional lines that have existed between the public and private sector and between the corporation and the community." Helping marginal farmers become economic success stories should be the Department of Agriculture's turf. But it had little chance of happening until Figaro stepped into the picture and integrated a solution to the farmer's problem into their business operations. As for Cebu Pacific, Lance Gokongwei changed the rules of the domestic aviation industry by using market power rather than rely on government regulators to bring down airfares to benefit consumers… and bring in profits. The corporate bureaucracy responsible for CSR is also starting to evolve from the traditional HR and PR functions into the specialized CSR professional. Googins recalled that corporate head hunters often seek his help in defining the qualifications and job descriptions of the CSR executive. There had apparently been demands from client companies for assistance in hiring such a person and the standards are just now being defined. Yes, Googins assured me, CSR is for real and is here to stay. It may mean different things to different corporations and cultures but the common characteristic has to do with the need for corporations to be more responsive to the society and environment that influences their bottom lines. And as GE, Figaro and Cebu Pacific have shown, understanding CSR could just be the key to how to do profitable business in today's times.