Thought leader

By Emma Smith, business development director, Bond Pearce LLP

For the committed and the smart, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a declaration to be written in green ink.

All aspects of a business must understand the social and environmental consequences of their enterprise and work towards reducing or improving them, as CSR and the green theme move side by side up the contemporary agenda.

Green CSR has become a marketing strategy in its own right in the most confident and thoughtful businesses. It makes sense.

CSR must represent more than a message though. It should embrace the very ethos of a firm – an overarching philosophy covering all activities from the approach a business takes to the impact of its activities; dealing with employees; diversity policies; relationships with clients and suppliers; and its own corporate governance.

But why does it merit significant time and resource? There are several reasons for living by your CSR policy and developing a robust approach that is more than mere words.

Most importantly, it is the ethical thing to do. A question of right and wrong - even if you cannot justify it on the balance sheet by the strictest business criteria. The environment is the essence of our shared planet, our legacy to the next generation, the idiom in which our social conscience should be expressed.

The traditional approach to successful business development focused on meeting client needs with the right product at the right price with the right quality. But the impact of CSR on the marketing agenda should not be underestimated. CSR should now be an intrinsic part of modern business development, not least because it is key to fruitful business.

Clients are interested in the way an organisation expresses and fulfils its social responsibility. They, too, are finding that customers and stakeholders will judge them according to the most exacting benchmarks. It should come as no surprise they are concerned to appoint law firms whose corporate values reflect their own.

CSR is therefore becoming a differentiating factor for winning and retaining business. Corporate law firms are increasingly finding their potential clients ask about their pro bono, community and environmental-impact credentials during business pitches.

Those who make the effort to market themselves must practice what they preach though. Clients and employees will see right through any insincerity.

As for communicating the steps being made, it should be neither spin nor hype. It is not a product launch or a new fad. It should be done because there is a natural fit, because it is believed - and most of all because there is a conviction that gives force to the message.

Take, for example, a PR agency that recently invited environment editors to learn more about their clients’ approach to sustainability. The enticement culminated in an invite to go off-roading in a 4x4!

Marks & Spencer, meanwhile, has improved the link between marketing and CSR. Its ‘Look Behind the Label’ campaign is widely regarded as the most successful consumer-communications campaign in the company’s distinguished history.

Marketing and CSR come into their own when activities are coupled with an evangelical conviction to deliver. That strength of purpose is especially important when current communication of CSR activities has become somewhat moribund – the same drab messages to the same audiences. Good CSR is more pulpit than press release. The conviction behind the messages should pave the way towards a new purpose to communicate because the audience actually wants it.