December 2009: BITCI General Assembly 2009 - Mallen Baker

Business in the Community Ireland Annual General Assembly 2009

The BITCI Annual General Assembly for members took place on Wednesday 9th December, kindly hosted by member company Diageo. The General Assembly meeting is held annually for all member company representatives to take stock of what have been the main activities, outcomes and achievements of our members as well as provide our members with a summary of Business in the Community Ireland's impacts throughout the year. At this year's General Assembly, we invited CSR expert Mallen Baker, a writer, speaker and strategic advisor on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Founding Director of Business Respect. He is a regular columnist with Ethical Corporation, as well as being a member of the Ethical Corporation Advisory Board. Click here to read more about Mallen Baker. You can watch Mallen's presentation at our General Assembly here, uploaded to YouTube - you can access the videos by clicking on the below links to different parts of his presentation: 1. The Rules are Changing (10:33 minutes) 2. Relationship between business & society (04:23 minutes) 3. Who's the hero & who's the villain? (04:32 minutes) 4. The Governance Gap (03:55 minutes) 5. Transformative Business Model - Power of Marketing in influencing Consumer Behaviour (05:04 minutes) 6. The Values Driven Company (06:27 minutes) 7. The CSR Professional's Challenge (03:41 minutes) Mallen spoke about the current state of corporate responsibility and how the rules are changing in the role that business can play as companies are faced with various issues. Recent history tells us that there is a need to reinvent business and the relationship between business and society is constantly changing. Moreover, CSR professionals are increasingly faced with cynicism and having responsible business efforts branded as 'greenwash', when it is never clear what is right or wrong, who is the "hero or villain" in the business world. According to Mallen, it's time for business to change the game and begin transforming the business model, which can be done by changing product and service offerings, such as the Interface example, and more and more we're seeing companies using the power of marketing to speak to consumers and seek to influence them to consume differently. Also, the important thing to remember is that CSR works best when it comes from a basis of values within your organisation, which ultimately means that from the front desk to the boardroom, everyone is aware what the values of the organisation are. Finally, Mallen discussed how a CSR professional's role is to ensure the company is well guided in dealing with dilemmas and making difficult decisions in a world where expectations are changing, so therefore it's crucial to find the right language to use inside your companies in order to get your voices heard and for doors to open. For more information, visit www.mallenbaker.net