As a business ethics speaker, ethics consultant and author, I often answer audience questions such as: “Chuck, I am curious. In terms of business ethics and corporate social responsibility – how do they intersect? Do business ethics and corporate social responsibility ever intersect at all?”
The question is often met with polite giggles or outright laughter. Why is this? Because in my role as a business ethics motivational speaker, business ethics consultant and book author I have learned there is so much cynicism toward business that combining “business” + “ethics” is seen in most cases as an oxymoron.
It is hardly so. Numerous companies have gotten the message about business ethics and CSR and they are clearly trying.
For the sake of definition, “Business Ethics” is the idea that across all social interactions such as meeting the requirements of employees, customers, vendors, contract employees, stock holders and even the broader industry an organization must behave in an ethical, socially acceptable manner. Corporate social responsibility shades the discussion toward a company’s or an associations or governmental responsibility to society.
The problem with all explanations like these is that they get lost in shadings and interpretations.
Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility – How they intersect
Therefore, to best answer the question, it is essential (I already hear the groans) yet another term: ESG. It is the key to ethically answering the situation.
One of the first formal mentions of ESG that I came across was in a Forbes article written on January 14, 2019. ESG can apply to both investment dollars a shareholder might place in a publicly-traded company or simply a situation where any consumer decides to take their business.
ESG refers to a three-legged proposition or bedrock of environmental, social and governance. The article stated that Oxford University determined ESG as helping about 80 percent of potential investors (or potential customers) to help them make investment decisions. An otherwise impressive consumer products company that pollutes the environment; a major software company with an abysmal record toward their LGBTQ + employees; a medical products company found to be price gouging or doling out bribe money to boost sales would all be unacceptable by ESG standards.
The problem with the ESG “screen” is that it requires due-diligence and a lack of hypocrisy. For example, there is a herd mentality when it often comes to present-day investing e.g., “Meme stocks.” Because a stock has gone viral, or because percentages of shares can be bought via a cell phone app, does not mean the organization cares one bit about ethical behavior. There are numerous examples of following-the-herd investment in companies that are consistent in ethical violations. This point leads to the topic of hypocrisy.
Either an investor cares about social justice – or not. Deluding oneself is an illusion. It is also personally unethical to look the other way in one case and not the other because “the stock is liked.”
Back to ethics
Whether the wish is to use the mantle of “Business Ethics,” CSR or ESG, it all comes back to an organization being receptive to ethics training and open to reinforcement of that training. As an ethics speaker, business ethics consultant and book author, I have spoken to audiences attended by 90-year-old CEOs and 22-year-old CEO’s and the dynamic is still the same: choices and consequences.
The intersection of business ethics and corporate social responsibility comes down to “you.” We can come up with dozens of acronyms to describe a commitment to ethics but ultimately the only thing that matters are doing the right things when no one is looking.
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