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66 Mapping the Field

shortcomings publicly, going so far as to print them as part of the social assessment
in its annual report to shareholders. A growing number of organizations have since
followed suit, and are among the elite that now publish rather frank society or social
reports that appear alongside financial reports and in which they systematically report
upon their social and ecological performance over the past year.
Yet, at the same time, most of the large organizations around the world still report
little, if anything, about their impact upon society. And, what is worse, many who
have pledged to take CSR reporting on board often put out glossy reports that are
more about style than substance, according to Sustainability, the consultancy that
evaluates CSR reporting of organizations worldwide. A recent report from think-tank
Demos strengthens these observations through its comments that companies view
social responsibility as a PR exercise instead of a refocusing and reshuffling of their
business operations. The Institute of Public Policy Research in the UK equally contro-
versially revealed that only four out of ten company boards discuss social and environ-
mental issues, routinely or occasionally, and that only a third of organizations have a
board member with an environmental remit or with an interest in social issues.
So what appears to be at stake is that despite paying lip service to CSR, many organi-
zations have not yet come round to developing and implementing fully fledged CSR
initiatives within their business operations. This may be due to the fact that it is still
early days, and that transparent standards and benchmarks of what constitutes social
and ecological performance are lacking. As a result, many organizations fence with
CSR, but take it rather easy and loosely when it comes down to implementing it in a
substantial and comprehensive manner. In a recent article in the Financial Times,
Schrage, an expert on social auditing, warned that these days may soon be over. On
a worldwide scale, the public is demanding ever greater scrutiny and more evidence
of CSR activities, and also governments are toughening their stance on what they
endorse as good CSR reporting. Schrage writes: ‘the message to multinational busi-
ness – and to global regulators – is that social accountability demands the same kind
of independent scrutiny as financial auditing’.
There are, however, difficulties with setting clear, unequivocal standards and with
enforcing them, also because (transnational) authorities and institutions that would
develop and guard such standards have not come forward yet. This of course plays
into the hand of the current CSR malpractice and the ‘anything goes’ strategy.
Schrage acknowledges these difficulties, yet advocates that ‘just as the Securities and
Exchange Commission and Financial Accounting Standards Board establish a frame-
work in the US for public accountants to evaluate corporate financial performance,
a new reporting system is needed for independent review of corporate social perfor-
mance’. Such a system, when governments and industries are ready for it, will at least
need clear social standards (in such areas as labour conditions, environmental perfor-
mance and promotion of human rights), a professional corps of social auditors (inde-
pendent of corporate control and accountable to the public), and safe harbours that
limit legal liability (so as to encourage companies to open their businesses to social
audits).
Until that day comes, and in order to be ahead of the pack, here are five guidelines
for CSR reporting that according to Sustainability and others have proven successful:

1. An organization needs to show that it is serious about CSR by setting clear objec-
tives for social and ecological performance annually, and by systematically report-
ing on the results achieved afterwards.