Corporate Social Responsibility – at a bargain price

We all know about Corporate Social Responsibility, don’t we?  Or at least we think we do.

Professor Denis Fishbacher-Smith http://www.managers.org.uk/policy/academic-advisory-council/denis-fischbacher-smith , one of CMI’s Academic Advisory Council members wrote to me about a pan-European initiative in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility that the University of Glasgow is involved in called TEMPO.  http://www.csr-tempo.eu/

This prompted me to look at Corporate Social responsibility discussion on our online community.  The thing that struck me about that conversation was that there was some ambiguity on what the term actually meant, and not a little sentiment that CSR was too expensive for business to afford, or a ‘nice to have’.  Yet we know that CSR is a component in many high-performing companies.  The European Commission  decided that it is of such importance that it has set the goal of making Europe a ‘pole of excellence’ for CSR and sustainability.  So, is this ‘just for the big boys’, ‘Eurobabble’, just a fad, or an essential for your growth plan?

For those who are seriously thinking about CSR for their organization, the programme at Glasgow could be a worth a look.  The TEMPO programme is international in its approach and brings together an international group of research led universities to deliver the programme over seven, three day modules. It is designed to expose senior executives to a range of competing perspectives on CSR. The project has been funded by the EU and is due to run as an initial pilot in 2011/12. As part of this initiative, the EU is effectively sponsoring places on the programme and the initial fee is Euro 1500 which includes tuition but excludes travel and accommodation.  The normal fee for the programme in subsequent years will be Euro 8500.   If you are interested, please contact Denis Fishbacher-Smith at denis.smith@me.com