Steve Rochlin, the head of AccountAbility North America, and James Farrar, Vice President for Corporate Citizenship at SAP, wrote an interesting piece, which appeared in the Financial Times July 10, about the way in which Web 2.0 social networking tools will push Corporate Responsibility forward.
Calling for an end to censorship, the two execs noted that Web 2.0 facilitates collaboration among "strange bedfellows," prompting sometimes-creative solutions.
Firms stateside, in Europe offer varied approaches to publishing their citizenship updates
As in Europe, substantive reporting on non-financial issues emerged in the U.S. in the late 1980s. Early adopters were those industry sectors, such as oil and gas, chemical and utilities, already experiencing pressure from both regulators and activists. The first reports were typically "single-issue," most commonly focusing on environmental issues. Since the mid-1990s, reports have increasingly evolved into covering a variety of issues: including environmental but also social, community, ethics, and human rights. From the beginnings of reports with purely an environmental focus, the trend today is CSR and sustainability reporting.
