According to CSR Netherlands, Corporate Social Responsibility requires businesses to take account of their impact on the environment, their employees and the public at large. As a consumer, you also contribute to social responsibility by, for example, buying trousers from companies that are members of the Fair Wear Foundation. At the weekend you (or your children) go to a Dance4Life event. You are careful about what you buy to eat and drink. And if the conversation at a social get-together turns to good causes and the environment, you are ready with the answers.

 

But what if a Fair Wear Foundation member, a jeans manufacturer for instance, is less than scrupulous when it comes to the interests of the workers in India who make your jeans? Or a food producer does things that you, as a conscientious consumer, regard as dubious? And how socially responsible is that dancing (by your children...) really?

 

In the late 1990s, the favourite topic at every social gathering used to be investment in shares and options. Who did not have a LegioLease profit maximiser or an investment based mortgage? Very little is heard about investment based mortages these days – except from a few unfortunates who are not too embarrassed to own up to their former ignorance and materialism. Today we take part in socially responsible discussions about socially responsible matters, good causes and the attractive new constructions that make it interesting for ‘new philanthropists’ to donate cleverly.

 

Soon there will be a world mortgage. This will enable socially responsible consumers to have the added satisfaction of building a house for a family in the Third World. The world mortgage and all the other products, services, and fund raising and donation constructions thought up by marketing departments reflect a new hype and herald the end of an era.

 

Responsible consumers are becoming increasingly critical of food producers, fund raisers, pushers of good cause products and the associated (fiscal) constructions. More of them are taking their own initiatives and voting with their wallets. And the environmental and international trade problems? They are back on the political agenda.

 

Companies must avoid terms such as ‘passion’ and get back to working on the lines of ‘keep it simple – make a difference’. The responsible consumer seeks a solution for a manageable problem and goes to work for others in, for example, the Third World, facing a comprehensible challenge. The aim is to make time and money directly available. The trend towards small-scale problem solvers in the form of small organisations and foundations will move forward on all fronts. ‘The future of competition’, a book by C.K. Prahalad, is well worth reading in this context. When necessary, the problem solvers will join forces and create the new ‘CS’ movement: Citizens for Solutions’.

 

Henk J.Th. van Stokkom – www.vanstokkom.nl