The recession is a test of companies’ commitments to doing good
IN JUNE Gap, a big retailer based in San Francisco, will hold a strategy meeting for its corporate social responsibility (CSR) team. In previous years that meant flying in people from 20 countries around the world. But this time the company plans to bring them together virtually, via online meetings. The main reason for the switch is not to help save the planet by reducing Gap’s carbon footprint, but to help save money. “Everyone’s looking to become more efficient,” explains Dan Henkle, who leads the company’s CSR activities.
As firms grapple with a brutal economic downturn, they are taking a long, hard look at the resources they devote to everything from supporting charities to making their activities carbon-neutral. That is hardly surprising: cutting back on CSR, or “sustainability” as it is sometimes known, would seem to be a quick and relatively painless way to save money. Cassandras who felt many CSR initiatives were little more than publicity stunts in the first place predicted that they would perish as soon as the economy fell off a cliff.
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