CSR

‘ESG: Farce of Force for Good?’ – An Interview with Sander Tideman (‘Triple Value Leadership’)

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‘You need to provide recyclable note paper to demonstrate the commitment of our company to sustainability’, I was told when I co-organized a meeting where the vast majority of participants arrived by airplane, most of them on intercontinental flights…

I have always been quite cynical about ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives from public companies.

Some of my favorite examples include:

  • A “Big Oil” company using the “greenness” of suppliers as a selection criterion in the purchasing process
  • A Financial Services company that directly contributed to the Euro crisis but gave its employees an afternoon off to paint schools in derelict areas to “give back to society”
  • ESG leaders flying en masse to conferences in New York to discuss how to make the world a more sustainable place
  • Companies that started “recalibrating” their DEI efforts in the aftermath of the last US presidential election.

The behavior of most pubic companies in the ESG and CSR space always strikes me as ‘Do as I say, not what I do’. Not because the leaders of these companies are inherently ‘evil’ or ‘immoral’, but simply because, when push comes to shove (most often under pressure from their supervisory boards, or activist shareholders), they do not seem to have an alternative but to let Shareholder Value prevail in their decision-making process.


‘People, Planet, and Profit. But the greatest of these is Profit…’

🎙️ ‘A big conversation with big questions’, that is how Sander Tideman characterized the conversation I had with him about ESG and CSR.

Sander is a researcher, author, entrepreneur and executive coach in sustainable leadership. He works with leaders to build flourishing organizations equipped to address the unprecedented challenges of today. He has worked for and consulted with leading organizations on three continents, and is publicly known for his work with top leaders in, for instance, Unilever.

In the 31th episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I interview Sander about the question if and how pubic companies and our society should adopt ESG and CSR concepts.

During our conversation, we discussed the following topics:

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The why and how of corporate ethics – An interview with John Hollwitz

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Our society is more complex than ever. For the first time since WWII two nations find themselves at war on the European continent. At the same time our economy is slowing down, inflation is on the rise, whilst technological developments in the AI space are more unpredictable than ever, and we are still trying to find out if these will be our friend or foe… 

In times like these ethics, and a sense of purpose are more important than ever. Therefore I was glad to have the opportunity to have a conversation on these topics with John Hollwitz.

John Hollwitz is a University Professor of psychology and rhetoric. Before coming to Fordham, he was the A.F. Jacobson Professor of Communications at Creighton University and dean of arts and sciences at Loyola College in Maryland. He also has been the vice president of academic affairs at Fordham.

Our interview was focused on the why and how of corporate ethics. During our conversation, we discussed, amongst others, the following topics:

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Developing compassionate leaders – An interview with Sophia Town

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Our expectations of leaders and ideas about leadership have changed dramatically in the last couple of years.

Recently I was introduced to Sophia Town, Ph.D. , an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Gabelli School of Business of Fordham University, who is at the forefront of academic research in this area.

In the classroom, Professor Town’s curriculum is guided by the question: “How can we develop compassionate leaders in service of a flourishing world?”

SophiaTown leads Fordham’s Human Flourishing Project (FHFP), a mixed-methods, interdisciplinary research lab that explores behavioral, psychological, communicative, and spiritual development in business education. Related to this project, Dr. Town serves as a Research Affiliate and Advisory Board Member for the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University.

During our conversation, we discussed, amongst others, the following topics:

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How to engrain ethics in your corporate culture? One decision at the time!

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Ethics deal with what makes something morally right or wrong.

Almost any sizeable company nowadays has a code of ethics. The main catalysts for these were the corporate scandals in the early 2000s (Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, and others). Also, in the last couple of years having a sense of purpose has become pretty much en vogue.

As a result, every year millions of employees now dutifully complete e-learning modules and sign declarations (‘To the best of my knowledge…’).

If you think about this on a philosophical level, it is actually quite sad. Apparently, companies need to invest millions of dollars each year because a shared understanding of what is morally right or wrong to do on behalf of the company, is not a given.

Obviously, from a pragmatic point of view, companies have no choice but to invest in this type of training. First of all, it helps individuals to avoid taking decisions that can create reputational and compliance-related problems for the company. The second reason is the need to demonstrate institutional compliance to governments, regulatory bodies and other stakeholders.

Limitations of codes of ethics

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Corporate Social Responsibility starts with looking after your own employees

Dirk VerburgLeave a comment

A couple of days ago my bible app opened with this verse of the day: ‘To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice’ (Proverbs 21:3). 

This text reminded me of the way some companies deal with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Rather than doing the right thing, they do the wrong thing and compensate for this by deploying CSR initiatives. There is even a special term describing this phenomenon: ‘Greenwashing’. In this context, it is no wonder that two professors from IMD (a leading Swiss Business School) published an article in 2018 with the provocative title: ‘Why nobody takes corporate social responsibility seriously’.

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