Before corporate citizenship can become a way of acting, it must be a way of thinking, and the only way to accomplish that is to embed it fully into your brand.

By Cheryl Heller

Companies like Timberland, Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia and Seventh Generation were “born” with good genes for corporate social responsibility (CSR). Each company was founded with a mission that included responsibility to the environment and community. In fact, Seventh Generation’s CSR is so deeply embedded, it is the source of its name (to quote from their website): “We derive our name from the Iroquois belief that ‘In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.’” And from its inception, Ben & Jerry’s did things like working with World Wildlife Foundation scientist Jason Clay to develop sustainable ways for Amazonians to produce Brazil nuts for its Rainforest Crunch ice cream.

CSR is second nature to these companies, but that is not to say it is easy for them. CSR takes constant vigilance and discipline. What this early integration does mean, though, is that nobody has to waste time and energy on repeatedly selling the concept within these corporations.
Conversely, companies like General Electric were not created with sustainable standards, yet they are leading the corporate world in transforming themselves and imbedding sustainability into every aspect of their business. In GE’s case, this includes everything from re-examining both its own and its customers’ energy use, to purifying water in developing countries, to creating programming with socially conscious agendas at GE-owned NBC.

Why is this transformation working at GE, and companies like Interface, while at so many other organizations CSR remains a series of unrelated initiatives that never add up to a tipping point? It takes a committed CEO but there’s more to it than that.

The simple answer, which is not at all simple to implement, is that when this kind of transformation works, these values become an integral part of what the company stands for. They are a part of the promise the company makes to itself and its stakeholders—a part of the brand.
What follows are some of the important first steps to accomplishing that transformation.

Rectify the language.
Late in his life, Confucius was asked what his first act would have been, had he ruled the empire. He said he would have “rectified the language,” and made words mean what they were supposed to mean again. Confucius must have lived, as we do, in a time of hyperbole, misrepresentation and argot.

Those of us involved in CSR face serious barriers to success simply because of a lack of understanding of what we are trying to accomplish. How can we succeed and change the behavior and impact of corporations if we have to constantly stop to explain what we are talking about?
Short of someone coming up with the magic name that encompasses all aspects of corporate responsibility and infiltrates the public consciousness, all we can do is be vigilant about not using jargon and try wherever we can to speak in plain English.

Ask the right questions.
I have always been amazed at how frequently people chase the solution to a problem that can never be solved because it has never been defined.
The definition of the problem must be specific to you and your company. For example, some companies have great track records and have accomplished much in the way of responsible practices, but don’t know how to talk about them, like Mohawk Paper, which for years didn’t talk about its admirable forestry and energy policies because they didn’t think anybody cared. Others have terrible things to hide and do not know how to deal with them. Many manufacturers of luxury goods fall into this category because of the materials they use or their sourcing practices.

Taking the time to determine the problem you are trying to solve, and being brutally honest, is one of the most important steps you can take, and the outcome depends on how well you do it. Here are some questions that will help:

• What is the real problem you are trying to solve?
• What do you want to accomplish?
• Who is the audience you need to reach?
• What are you trying to say?
• What evidence do you have to prove it?
• What is success and how will it be measured?

Solve the problem upstream.
Real solutions to any problem occur “upstream,” where things are conceived and planned, not where they are carried out. If you are worried about what to do with the toxic waste your company is producing, it is already too late. If you are having a hard time getting budget allocated to your CSR programs, the time to argue your case is probably past.

The time to address these problems effectively is before they occur—at the upstream stage of defining your brand.

This is not to say that companies should not try to solve the problems they already have. The point is to realize that unless you eliminate the problems before they occur, you will always be in the mode of putting out fires and never moving ahead.

The principal barrier to solving problems upstream is not access to the right people at the right time, but the arbitrary boundaries that we have created: between job titles and descriptions, silos in a company, corporations and activist groups, humans and nature, and so on.

In his most recent book, “Creation,” E.O. Wilson comes to the same conclusion about science, and says we should be less discipline oriented and more problem oriented. When we focus on the problem to be solved and put our boundaries aside, that’s upstream thinking.

The recent proposed takeover of utilities corporation TXU is one example of moving beyond typical boundaries. In its bid, the proposed purchaser consulted with two non-governmental organizations to examine TXU’s energy policies and make a set of environmental commitments part of the takeover proposal. In one fell swoop, they sent a message that TXU would not only have new ownership but also new environmental policies, a step that has sent competitive utility companies scrambling to re-examine their own policies.

Start with the brand promise.
The brand promise is the stated promise that any company makes to its stakeholders. It does not have much to do with the logo, and is not something that should be entrusted entirely to the marketing department. It is the very ideology of the company.

Most brand promises can be expanded in meaning and scope to include CSR. If your brand promise is all about delivering goods at the best price, expand the definition of cost to include the real cost of goods, such as CO2 emissions generated in transporting them, or the cost of healthcare as a result of them, like Les Brown of the Earth Policy Institute suggests in his book “Plan B, 2.0.” If your brand promise has to do only with offering the best quality products and services, redefine quality to mean quality of life on a larger scale.

Find the emotion in it.
Corporate America has to learn to connect with people in emotional ways and inspire loyalty instead of demanding it. One example of this is the work that Pedigree dog food is doing. The industry has long been defined by product attributes like taste, health and longevity. Spot jumps higher, lives longer and is happier. But Pedigree has changed the dynamic, with their new positioning line, “Dogs rule.” In addition to being a clever twist on the master-servant relationship, the concept creates a platform on which Pedigree can talk about its CSR efforts, such as its canine rescue program, without pandering or appearing to force fit a social program into its product promotion. It is one of the most emotional campaigns on the air.

Use the brand promise to dictate behavior.
One of the biggest pitfalls occurs once the promise has been set on paper, the words are approved, and everybody claps the dirt off their hands saying, “great, now that’s done.” But of course, it’s not.

Those clever words on paper have to be transformed into behavior, because it’s action that’s contagious, not promises.
Once you have agreement on the brand promise, you can use it to strategize about how to get there. In other words, it’s a matter of asking these sorts of questions to all the stakeholders involved:

• If this is our brand promise, what do we have to do to make it true?
• What kind of products, processes, transparency and services do we need to develop to fulfill it?
• What sort of culture will this require/create?
• How will we grow the corporation—new products, markets, profits—in ways that make this brand promise more true over time?

If you can bring concrete steps to the strategy, it is hard for anyone to argue with it. The destination will be clear, and though you will still have to work hard and innovate to get there, you won’t have to keep selling the same premise again and again.

Execute last, and less.
One of the hidden benefits for companies that go through this process is the realization that when they reconcile the divergent messages they had been sending out, communicating becomes a much simpler process, requiring less energy, time and money.
When you say the same thing consistently, and then demonstrate it through behavior, you don’t have to keep repeating yourself. The truth creates an energy all its own.

Cheryl Heller develops sustainable branding programs and is founder of Heller Comm­unication Design in New York City. She can be reached at www.hellercd.com .