Create trust in your CSR strategy – get independent assurance
17th August 2008
Ronald Reagan liked to use the phrase “trust but verify” in dealings and discussions with and about the Soviet Union. Recent events involving Russia and Georgia have reason to bring that phrase back into fashion, albeit by eliminating the first two words.
Indeed, across the entire political, business, and socio-cultural spectrum the word “trust” has lost its power; it has gone the way of Reagan, a recent article on MarketWatch.com reports
We are being asked again and again to trust. But how can we verify? This year some 3,000 companies are expected to publish corporate social responsibility reports to document their policies and performance on environmental and social activities. Of these, just 750 will include a third-party assurance statement addressing the report’s credibility and completeness, according to a new study sponsored by SGS, KPMG, LRQA and The Reassurance Network.
“While CSR reporting has become a basic business expectation, the majority of CSR reports aren’t independently assured. This casts serious doubts on the role, meaning and reliability of these non-assured CSR reports,” the Assure View study says.
Meanwhile, consumers aren’t buying the ethical business label: As much as 80% of consumers in certain areas think that companies simply pretend to be ethical in order to sell more products.