THE EMERGENCE of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been both rapid and significant. Twenty years ago it was a subject of marginal interest to businesses, but now every organization of any size has a policy on CSR. The growth of CSR is a reflection of the continuing (although sometimes resisted) move to a stakeholder view of capitalism. Some well established businesses had long practiced this philosophy based on an understanding of the inter-connectedness of all their stakeholders; that social well-being, engaged employees, satisfied customers and suitably rewarded investors were inextricably linked. However, for many, CSR has been seen as more utilitarian: a sticking plaster that could heal a company’s reputation and improve its appeal. The challenge here is that in such organizations, CSR is a peripheral activity rather than core to business thinking.

Getting to the core
Organizations often see CSR as a tool to improve the legislative climate, enhance media attitudes and inspire current and potential employees. As a consequence, business television and newspapers are awash with advertising that makes claims for the social virtues and long-term perspectives of corporate brands. Yet most of the activities, while laudable in themselves, remain superficial. Scratch the surface and you find that CSR does not run very deep. When it comes to facing up to dilemmas about doing the right or the expedient thing, there is a temptation to take the easier option and satisfy the short-term needs of shareholders.
   Lorna Tilbian, Executive Director of the London-based bank Numis stresses that reputation-building is about being principled and having a long-term perspective—both of which are subject to pressures. She says, ‘Short-termism influences the managers of the company to cut corners to keep performing on a quarterly basis. The only test that really matters is the test of time.’
   For a business to really commit to CSR, it has to be truly integrated into strategic thinking. This seems to be easier for organizations which are not publicly owned. For example, the privately owned, outdoor sports clothing business, Patagonia, has a long-term perspective and a mission statement that says, ‘to use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.’ The ideal implied here has led the company to move out of businesses that it believes are environmentally damaging, to provide customers with a lifetime guarantee (on the basis it’s better to keep the product you have rather than buy a new one), to provide full traceability on all its products, to develop new materials that are recycled and recyclable and to support actively environmental causes. At Patagonia environmentalism is not an add-on—it permeates everything the company does and says.
   When the whole organization (and its customers) is engaged in adhering to a principle, then it creates a focus for decision-making and moves idea about CSR to the core. At Patagonia there is no CSR department as such, although there are individuals specifically concerned with looking at CSR based issues, rather every person from the receptionist (who developed a frisbee from recycled materials) to the designers (who are driven by environmentalism) delivers on the mission day-in, day-out. It’s part of the reason that Fortune magazine labelled Patagonia the coolest company on the planet.
   Similarly, the Dutch financial services’ group, Rabobank, which has 60,000 employees and 9·6 million customers, has long adhered to policies that are designed to connect it to all its stakeholders. This is not surprising given that it is a cooperative bank that is owned by its members. The continuous dialogue the bank enjoys with its customers and other stakeholders helps ensure it delivers on broader social needs as well as meeting its performance goals. As a symbol of this closeness and the integration of its audiences, anyone who is approved by the bank can visit its new headquarters and wander freely throughout the building.
   Both Rabobank and Patagonia are adept at balancing and integrating different stakeholder needs, but you have to search harder for publicly quoted businesses that deliver on this score. The requirement to deliver ever-increasing returns to shareholders tends to hinder a full-blooded commitment to CSR. We might, for example, look at the Norwegian oil company, Statoil, and its approach to extracting oil from the sands of Northern Alberta in Canada (a contentious issue) and argue that they have been socially responsible in consulting with communities and using sound extraction methods, but we could also counter that true social responsibility would argue against being there in the first place and avoiding the environmental damage.
   One business that has been trying to tackle the dilemma of competing interests, head-on, is Unilever. Last year, CEO Paul Polman stopped providing earnings guidance to investors, in an attempt to move the focus away from short-term returns. Seeing his mandate as more concerned with long term success, he also railed against hedge funds, when he said, ‘They would sell their grandmother if they could make money. They are not people who are there in the long-term interests of the company.’
   Unilever has been integrating its approach to sustainability across its brand portfolio, focusing on renewable resources (such that all the palm oil it sources will be from renewable supplies by 2015) and thinking about the implications not only of the act of purchase but also the use of product.
   Unilever has 400 brands that are used 2 billion times a day around the planet, with about 70 per cent of the greenhouse gas imprint occurring during use. Encouraging sensible and environmentally responsible use of products, therefore, can have a big impact. As Santiago Gowland, VP of Brand & Global Corporate Responsibility, argues, ‘Marketers, with their expertise in innovation and behaviour change, can, and should, be making a significant contribution towards societal goals by enabling consumers to make more conscious choices and encouraging people to adopt conscientious consumption habits.’

Conscientious brands
At the Medinge Group, our annual awards, known as Brands with a Conscience tries to uncover and reward organizations that have integrated corporate responsibility into the core of their thinking: brands such as One Water, that exist to give all their profits away to water projects in Africa, the Swiss private bank, Pictet et Cie that demonstrates a long term perspective and a commitment to environmentalism and Merci, the Paris-based lifestyle retailer whose very existence is based on the idea of improving the lives of people in Madagascar. These brands are all genuinely people-focused and reap benefits in terms of highly motivated employees, committed customers and supportive communities. The interesting challenge is to see whether more businesses (especially larger organizations that can have a significant impact) can fully integrate CSR and become truly conscientious.

Summary: In January 2011, the Medinge Group’s annual Brands with a Conscience (BWAC) awards will be announced for their eighth consecutive year. The awards, created by a Stockholm-based international think-tank on branding, single out exceptional organizations and individuals for distinction in humanistic branding. What does this term represent? What are the awards, how were they created, how are they decided, who has won in the past and how can they be viewed in retrospect? This paper assesses the BWAC initiative, its evolution and possible significance.

OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS, we have lived through a generation of disillusion with organizations and the brands they represent. Criticized in works like No Logo by Naomi Klein, corporations were handed blame for all of the world’s ills, and brands demonized as sinister and insidious forces bent on the destruction of society. There has even been the suggestion that brands contribute to an irreconcilable east–west divide. A great dialogue grew out of these accusations, challenging the idea that financial gain was the only driver for defining an organization’s success or merit. It was out of this dialogue that the Medinge Group was founded in 2000, when a group of interdisciplinary brand professionals came together to debate, foster and articulate ideas of what they called humanistic branding. The group asserted that brands had the potential to do well by doing good, that ethical behaviour needed to become a cornerstone of corporate governance. The group’s annual Brands with a Conscience awards were created out of this extended conversation. Over a period of seven consecutive years (2004–10) companies large and small, known and invisible, young and old, drawn from all categories, have been singled out for distinction as recipients of Brands with a Conscience awards. There is no monetary prize attached to the awards, though winners are permitted to use the BWAC logo in their own communications. But an array of categories, sizes and nationalities can be seen, even in a short list of names drawn from past winners: Grameen Phone, BP, IKEA, Toyota Prius, Sanrio, Pictet et Cie., Slow Food Movement, Innocent, Happy Computers, Alibaba, architect Paolo Soleri, Virgin Fuels.
   The Medinge Group initiated the BWAC awards concept in 2003, intending to recognize brands whose conduct demonstrated humanistic values, and to call attention to or to encourage them. The first nominations were made via group-wide emails. Lively internet-borne debate followed. In making their nominations, members were asked to evaluate from brands’:

• reputation and self-representation;
• history;
• direct experience a member might have with the brand nominated;
• media presence of the brand;
• and an assessment of the organization’s expressed values of sustainability.

   Over the years the system of nominations and judging has evolved into a formalized automated process which today employs on-line nominating and voting, while preserving the collegial internal debate in the run-up to the final balloting. The voting is a closed process, and only members of the group may nominate, discuss and vote.
   From August until October, Medinge Group members post their nominations. Members carry out their own due diligence to support their nominations. Once the nominations are posted debate begins among the membership. Medinge members consider six elemental criteria on any nomination:

• leadership: how committed is management to brand and its cause? Does the leadership team live out the values of the brand?;
• authenticity: how well articulated is the brand visually and experientially? How evident is its ethical programme, and the degree to which it is sincere?;
• humanity: how evident are the human implications of the brand? How motivated is the brand’s humanity? How visible is the brand’s conscience?;
• community: how heavily does the brand invest in relationship-building? How deep an advocate is the brand for "caring for one another"?;
• accountability: is the brand visibly accountable for its actions? Does the brand apologize when things go wrong?;
• belief: does the brand take risks in line with its beliefs? Does the brand acknowledge that we are all equal?

   Following the nomination and debate phase, around November 1, a ballot is sent to all members of the think-tank and voting occurs. Members are also given the opportunity to abstain. There are normally 40 to 50 nominees and only seven or eight winners. The first week in December BWAC winners are announced to the membership. In the first week of January the winners are made public through a PR campaign. In the first week of February the Brands with a Conscience certificates are presented at a ceremony during the annual Medinge Group meeting in Paris. In 2006 the group added a unique category commendation, the Colin Morley Award, recognizing exceptional achievement by an individual or non-governmental organization. Colin, a member of the Medinge Group, died in the London Underground bombings on July 7, 2005. The award commemorates his visionary work in humanistic branding. So far the winners of the Colin Morley Award have been Shakespeare’s Globe, Star Schools, Paul Newman and Muna Abusulayman.
   Though the awards are granted by a group of 20 international brand professionals—mostly white, mostly European and mostly male—the variety of BWAC winners over the years has shown a commendable range in size, visibility, location, and segmentation. A small collective in rural Nepal was named in the same list as a huge British multinational petroleum company in 2006. A tea producer in Sri Lanka appeared as a winner in the same year as an American carpet manufacturer. The BWAC awards tend to contextualize historically what the climate of business was at the time they are given. 2009’s awards had several winners focused on issues of water. Twenty ten’s awards lauded two financial institutions in an era of criticism against that segment of business. The same year both an Indian and a Chinese company appeared in the winners’ list, acknowledging the world’s largest emerging markets. The Brands with a Conscience awards are extended not only to acknowledge results, but may be given for the promise they carry, with attention paid to the potential for change they can influence. Virgin Fuels was encouraged in 2007 for their innovative model on alternative energy. Fetzer Vineyards received an award in 2008 in recognition of their sustainable wine-making programmes. BP was lauded for their green reidentification and renewables’ policy in 2006. Yet in some instances the award has been granted in spite of other mitigating factors, such as in the case of IKEA, who were recognized in 2007 for their strong anti-corruption stance in Russia, while no mention was made of their promotion of consumerism or destruction of forests in the manufacture of their products.
   In any altruistic endeavour there is bound to be blowback, and the Brands with a Conscience awards are no exception. Medinge’s 2006 award to Toyota Prius did not anticipate the massive recall of this particular model in 2010, nor the Chairman’s public apology for subjecting its customers to such a massive safety issue; the brand is still in recovery. BP has been a succession of bad-news stories which demonstrate how it has gone nowhere near ‘Beyond Petroleum’. In the year following Whole Foods’ BWAC award it was revealed that the chairman had been manipulating his own stock price and savaging his competition with pseudonymous weblog posts. Virgin Fuels never came close to its own promises on green policy. Kiva was forced to admit that it could not verify disposition of funds dispersed in microlending as it represented on its website. Freeplay Energy introduced a line of visionary alternative energy products but showed catastrophic financial management.
   The Brands with a Conscience awards have also showcased brands whose humanistic qualities endure. Grameen Phone’s founder, Mohammed Younis received a Nobel Prize in 2009 for his innovative work in microfinance for developing economies. Holland’s Chocolonely stands as a brilliant and inventive example of ethical branding, which brought to the forefront issues of slavery and the production of chocolate. Innocent continues to make the world a better place through its recycling initiatives and its abiding relationships with local producers. Happy Computers is consistently named as one of the top workplaces in the UK, with its solid values and productive community work a testament to humanistic vision. Patagonia remains a brand true to its stated values in a conflicted market-place. The American actor–philanthropist Paul Newman posthumously retains his distinction as the most generous man on earth on a per-capita basis, having given away over $240 million to worthy causes during his lifetime.
   Today the speed of information factors in the creation and destruction of brands. A reputation can be built over a century and ruined overnight. The yearly interval for naming these awards could be a fail-safe for their validity. It is the hope of the Brands with a Conscience initiative that organizations which understand humanistic and ethical principles will thrive, and that these annual awards can celebrate their potential and urge their emulation. The Medinge Group’s work continues, questioning the way that brands are built, what they stand for, how they affect the world we live in. Until humans achieve perfection and the world transforms into a utopia the Brands with a Conscience awards will retain a unique relevance.

Special thanks to Patrick Harris, Nicholas Ind, Ian Ryder and Jack Yan for invaluable help in the preparation of this article.

Alibaba Group/China
Co-op Bank/UK
Marks & Spencer/UK
Merci/France
Pictet et Cie./Switzerland
SAP/Germany
Selco Solar Pvt. Ltd./India

The Colin Morley Award is given to:

Muna Abu Sulayman/Saudi Arabia

Detailed descriptions and web links follow:

Alibaba Group
www.alibaba.com
A young Asian brand built on the idea that it must exist as an experience to elevate their own or other people’s level of happiness. Jack Ma founded Alibaba in his cramped apartment with 17 colleagues. A decade later, Alibaba Group is the largest ecommerce company in China, with 15,000 employees and more than 100 million users. It also has a B2B unit with a community of more than 42 million registered users from more than 240 countries and regions. This year Alibaba will unveil partnership plans for Grameen China, a project to significantly increase access to micro-credit for poverty alleviation in Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. (Medinge named Grameen Telecom a Brand with a Conscience in 2005, and its parent Grameen Bank was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2008.) Employing the Grameen Bank microcredit model, the group hopes to impact more than 72,000 lives in its first five years.
   Ava Hakim, IBM exec and member of the Medinge Group, remarked that Alibaba is a business ‘built on trust, one which respects intellectual property rights and will remove sites which infringe upon the rights of others.’ She also was impressed by the six core values named, which they have successfully applied to their business.

Co-op Bank
www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1193206375355,CFSweb/Page/Bank
The Co-op, founded in 1872, from its origins has focused on serving local communities. Today the Co-op is the only UK clearing bank to publish an ethical statement. Medinge director Patrick Harris lauded the brand, noting that ‘since 1992 Co-op has been building its ethical stance by asking its membership to vote on issues such as animal welfare, human rights and ecological impact.’ It claims to have turned away over £900 million in loans to businesses not in keeping with the Co-op Ethical Policy. The commitment to improve their food business’ ethical and environmental performance is in line with expectations arrived at in consultation with 100,000 members. Co-Op was double-nominated this year, for both its banking and food businesses.

Marks & Spencer
plana.marksandspencer.com
In her nomination, Medinge director Erika Uffindell emphasized the focused approach to climate change, waste and sustainability that Marks & Spencer have adopted. With their Plan A campaign, the company established 100 commitments to achieve in five years, clear targets for their business, actionable by people across the group. Uffindell finds the brand very accessible and involving: they have engaged 17,231 customers in making pledges to support climate change and a commitment to sustainability.

Merci
www.merci-merci.com
Merci is a 1500 m² shop for fashion and home furniture based in Paris, France. All sales profits are destined for women and children in Madagascar. The store sells new or artist-reworked donated goods and has had a huge impact. Some goods are sent directly to Madagascar. Merci’s website is especially minimal and modest, yet effectively states the store’s mission. In his nomination, Medinge’s Philippe Mihailovich expressed the hope that Merci’s actions influence others to follow.

Pictet et Cie.
www.pictet.com
This Swiss-based private bank started in 1805. Medinge director Nicholas Ind cited two significant aspects of the brand.
   First, its focus on sustainable development and the redirection of funds in this direction by encouraging the maximum investment in sustainable areas for a given risk: the bank’s management of a water fund, launched in 2000, which has become the world’s largest of its kind, with over €4 billion in assets; and a Clean Energy fund. The second aspect is the Prix Pictet—the world’s first international prize dedicated to photography and sustainability—mandated to encourage the use and power of photography to communicate vital messages to a global audience. This year’s theme is Earth.

SAP
www.sap.com/about/SAP-sustainability
Today, many B2Bs are silently doing a fantastic job to adapt to our global challenges. Medinge’s chairman Thomas Gad nominated Germany’s SAP, a software company whom he admires because ‘they actually help other companies to create usable metrics in their CSR and sustainability.’ Over the past 10 years, SAP has been recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for upholding ethical, environmental, social, and governance values in products and services.

Selco Solar Pvt. Ltd.
www.selco-india.com/index.html
Medinge CEO Stanley Moss described Selco as an interesting small business, 14 years old, who supply solar power solutions, mostly in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. They rely on microfinance loans, employ 140 people, and have done around 100,000 installations of small to large size. They are partially funded by Grameen. Moss was impressed by their cradle-to-grave attitude about product, longevity in the marketplace after a tough start-up, good work on the individual level, private ownership, and the understanding of need for innovation.

The 2010 Colin Morley Award to Muna Abusulayman
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muna_Abu-Sulayman
Simon Nicholls, a member of Medinge, nominated Muna Abu Sulayman, who receives 2010’s Colin Morley Award, for excellence by an individual or NGO, acknowledging their contribution to the betterment of society through sustainable, socially responsible and humanistic behaviour. In giving this award, the Medinge Group recognizes Muna’s outstanding work in educational development, poverty alleviation and strategic philanthropy; as Executive Director of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, developing and implementing operations for humanitarian assistance across the globe; her role as the first woman in Saudi Arabia to be appointed by the United Nations Development Programme as a Goodwill Ambassador; and for exceptional reporting as co-host on popular MBC-TV social programme Kalam Nawaem, in particular her advocacy of rights for women. As a public and media personality, she speaks about issues relating to Arab society, media, building bridges of understanding between east and west. Since 1997, Ms Abu Sulayman has served as lecturer on American literature at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. She frequently appears as a panelist at the Davos World Economic Forum, Jewish Economic Forum, C-100 of the World Economic Forum, Brookings Institute Conferences and other venues.

   Patrick Harris, a Medinge director, added, ‘In the list of 2010 Brands with a Conscience winners, we can see a clear focus on commerce and finance. This is no accident. Instead, this is a sign of the world’s markets responding to the need for responsible and inter-generational business activities.’
   Regarding his nomination of Co-op Bank, Harris said, ‘The UK’s Co-operative Bank is a prime example of a highly principled business within a traditional competitive landscape. The Co-op are being recognized by Medinge for their values-led business focus and for the impact that they bring to a beleaguered sector.’
   Jack Yan, a director of Medinge said, ‘Again, the Medinge Group’s international influence has resulted in a global list of winners, all of which practise our ideals of humanistic branding. I’m thrilled we’ve recognized our first Chinese and Saudi Arabian winners this year.
   ‘In particular, Selco Solar of India shows a commitment to green energy that is very poignant in the 2010s. Just because fuel prices have dropped from their 2008 highs does not mean that the energy crisis is over, a fact the Medinge Group recognizes.’
   Medinge Group member Ava Maria Hakim commented, ‘The message to the world—and Alibaba’s 100 million users—is that China’s Alibaba Group has set a global brand and business benchmark that goes beyond corporate social responsibility to building an integrity-based business driven by long-term vision. Alibaba Group is a Brand with a Conscience of the future.
   Erika Uffindell, a director of Medinge, commented, ‘Marks & Spencer is a great example of an organization living by its beliefs. M&S has been recognized by Medinge for creating the innovative Plan A—an initiative that involves customers and partners in their ambition to help combat climate change and reduce waste. Plan A focuses on five key areas: climate change, waste, sustainable raw materials, health and being a flair partner. Marks & Spencer’s ability to involve their stakeholders in such a simple and accessible way has been reflected in their significant achievements to date.’
   Nicholas Ind, a founding director of Medinge stated, ‘This year, the Medinge Group’s Brands with a Conscience awards shows impressive diversity and reflects the commitment that brand owners are demonstrating around the globe to building organizations that meet the needs of all parts of society. The 2010 winners come from the UK, China, India, Switzerland, Germany, France and Saudi Arabia.’

Special thanks to Medinge’s 2010 BWAC nominating committee
Paulina Borsook
Thomas Gad
Ava Hakim
Patrick Harris
Pierre d’Huy
Nicholas Ind
Philippe Mihailovich
Sergei Mitrofanov
Stanley Moss, chairman
Simon Nicholls
Anette Rosencreutz
Erika Uffindell
Jack Yan