The Sustainability Learning Forum

Managing Corporate Legitimacy and the UN Global Compact

Prof. Andreas Georg Scherer, University of Zurich
Dr. Dorothée Baumann-Pauly, University of Zürich

In this article, we explain why managing legitimacy is vital for corporations and how business firms can employ strategies to maintain their legitimacy. We then discuss the organizational capacities that each legitimacy strategy implies and point out their inherent tensions. Based on the results of an empirical study, we show how two large corporations have handled these tensions and successfully introduced organizational prerequisites for managing legitimacy. In the final part of this article we elaborate on how participants of the UN Global Compact can use the initiative to strengthen their legitimacy. more[...]

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Keynote Roman Dashkov

Roman Dashkov, Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd.

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Integrated Reporting

Growing expectations of stakeholders and legislators as well as the steady growth of global trade f ows have added signif cantly to the complexity of businesses. This comes along with the call for a more holistic reporting of companies’ f nancial and nonf nancial performance. This is the core idea behind integrated reporting: It wants to provided in a coherent way a clear link between economic drivers, f nancial information, and social and environmental impacts. While the concept is clear, the roadmap is still vague. The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) shall help to overcome this. more[...]

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Unpacking the CSR-CFP Link

Prof Francesco Perrini, Università Bocconi
Prof Angeloantonio Russo, LUM University
Prof Antonio Tencati, Università degli Studi di Brescia
Clodia Vurro, Università Bocconi

The continuing financial crisis calls for different managerial paradigms and a broader definition of business success. The narrow and exclusive focus on short-term monetary results has led to counter-productive and negative consequences for business and society. All over the world, different approaches are emerging. Thanks to innovative corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, a great number of firms have been working with stakeholders in order to support broad and shared value-creation processes that are able to benefit the different constituencies, including not only shareholders but also employees, customers, suppliers, the community in which the company operates, and others. more[...]

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When does it pay? Linking Carbon and Financial Performance

Prof Timo Busch, University of Hamburg

Why do firms have a management orientation toward sustainability? How should society reconcile the dilemma of maximizing satisfaction today without placing an undue burden upon ourselves in the future? In the strategy literature, a related question remains fiercely debated: Does it pay to address ecological and social issues? more[...]

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What Are the Benefits of Integrated Reporting?

Nicolette Behncke, PwC

Integrated reporting moves beyond a silo approach of information gathering and reporting toward a more comprehensive assessment and presentation of a company’s value and performance. This offers various benefits, such as giving organizations a more holistic view of information relevant to their strategies, business models, and abilities to create and sustain value in the short, medium, and long term. more[...]

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Integrated Reporting: Old Wine in New Bottles?

Christoph Dolderer, EnBW AG
Dr Lothar Rieth, EnBW AG

This contribution strives to answer the following questions: Why do we need to realign corporate reporting? Is it old wine in new bottles or does it contain revolutionary ideas about corporate reporting? What is the additional value of integrated reporting and what does EnBW’s path toward integrated reporting look like? more[...]

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Keynote Dr. Kurt Bock

Dr Kurt Bock, BASF

As a founding member of the UN Global Compact in 2000, we strongly support the role of the UN Global Compact as a peer-learning and dialogue platform. By combining high-level commitment with hands-on learning at the local level, the UN Global Compact has gathered experience with concrete best practices in the area of sustainability, and it has a unique competence in the field of facilitating multistakeholder dialogue and projects. more[...]

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Young and Old: The Best Connection

Dominique Alhäuser, Weidmüller Interface
Weidmüller Interface GmbH & Co. KG

Actively encouraging junior staff as well as the more experienced is sustainability in action for the family-owned company Weidmüller, and it is also a way to counteract the effects of demographic change. more[...]

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Managing CSR Across Boundaries

Andrew Lofts, Ricoh Europe
Ricoh Europe PLC

From the very beginning, Ricoh has been energized by combining innovative products and services with a sustainable approach to business. The company’s founder, Kiyoshi Ichimura, nurtured a unique pool of thinkers who envisioned a world where business, society, and the planet are interconnected. For Ricoh, which is present in more than 200 countries and employs more than 100,000 people, it is a major challenge to share a consistent theme and to ensure a clear message that is understood everywhere. As a group, we have a regional framework whereby we connect to the collective imagination and creativity of all our people. To support Ricoh’s goals and meet social expectations, accurately and promptly, the Ricoh Group actively introduces internationally established CSR frameworks throughout its supply chain. more[...]

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Managing CSR Across Boundaries

Andrew Lofts, Ricoh Europe
Ricoh Europe PLC

From the very beginning, Ricoh has been energized by combining innovative products and services with a sustainable approach to business. The company’s founder, Kiyoshi Ichimura, nurtured a unique pool of thinkers who envisioned a world where business, society, and the planet are interconnected. For Ricoh, which is present in more than 200 countries and employs more than 100,000 people, it is a major challenge to share a consistent theme and to ensure a clear message that is understood everywhere. As a group, we have a regional framework whereby we connect to the collective imagination and creativity of all our people. To support Ricoh’s goals and meet social expectations, accurately and promptly, the Ricoh Group actively introduces internationally established CSR frameworks throughout its supply chain. more[...]

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The Global Social Enterprise Action Hub

SK Telecom

As social and environmental issues change and become more complex, a new approach is required beyond the existing efforts of governments, NGOs, and corporations to tackle global challenges. In this regard, social enterprises are becoming significant players in bolstering global sustainability and addressing social challenges in innovative and sustainable ways. With the objectives of creating both economic and social value, social enterprises adopt managerial efficiency and market mechanisms in their social operations to offer more customized and efficient solutions that deliver larger and more sustainable impacts. more[...]

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Combining Sustainability with Happiness

Uwe Kleinert, Coca-Cola Deutschland
Coca-Cola Deutschland

Coca-Cola has been operating in Germany for more than 80 years and was named the world’s most valuable brand yet again in 2012 by Interbrand. Consumers increasingly expect the manufacturers of their favorite brands to operate in an ecologically, socially, and economically responsible manner in order to protect the natural resources of society – today and in the future. In 2011 Coca-Cola Germany was presented with the Silver Award for Sustainable Manufacturer by Die Verbraucher Initiative e.V. (consumer initiative association). more[...]

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Occupational Safety Management – A Systematic Approach to Achieving Success

Bernhard Schwager
Bosch Group

Occupational health and safety management for associates is one of a company’s key processes. This applies primarily for humanitarian reasons but is also true from an economic perspective. Occupational accidents, illnesses, and diseases are costly for companies and society. Today, technical safety aspects combine with the requirements of ergonomics, user-friendly organization of work, and health protection to form a system-oriented approach to occupational safety. more[...]

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Ayeyarwady Bank’s Commitment to the Community

May Myat Thu, Ayeyarwady Bank
Ayeyarwady Bank

Ayeyarwady Bank commits to making the United Nations Global Compact’s Ten Principles part of its strategies and practices, focusing on fulfilling corporate social responsibility toward the communities it serves. more[...]

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