Shifting corporate social responsibility

Issues surrounding corporate social responsibility are shifting, according to Stratfor. Whereas the current focus is on global companies operating according to international standards on labor, the environment and human rights, the emerging shift is towards a narrower set of issues dealing with personal choices in the marketplace.

This movement advocates better corporate responses to consumer demands – demands that might not exist yet – for energy-saving light bulbs, cars that get better gas mileage, products whose materials do not pose a health risk to users and so on. Although it expects corporations to lead the way, it will also demand that people see the impacts of their purchases on their health, their safety and the environment.

Sustainable consumption activist Paul Hawken has written a book about the emerging values-based movement and appears to be leading the way in advocating this new set of corporate standards. Hawken envisions a new industrial revolution that will be marked be a new relationship among businesses, society and the environment; business will declare their own corporate values through their products.

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