EP talks
to Douglas Alexander, UK minister for corporate social responsibility,
on his year in office – and why he still believes regulation is not the
way forward
When the gourmet coffee chain Starbucks
recently declared a commitment to corporate social responsibility, it
became a target for those who ask: ‘why are they not doing more?’
As for companies, so for governments. The UK’s five-year-old New Labour
administration has been a visible proponent of CSR, yet it too has come
in for its fair share of sniping. Much of the criticism it has
attracted in recent months has arisen from frustration that, after a
good start, New Labour does not appear to be doing much at all.
As the minister responsible for CSR at the Department of Trade and
Industry – as well as e-commerce, consumer goods and the communications
industry – Douglas Alexander inevitably took some of that flak. Earlier
this year the New Economics Foundation think tank publicly accused him
of a ‘lack of vision’ in the post and said it was ‘sadly disappointed’
by his performance.
While NEF’s opinions in some respects
hit under the belt – by focusing on Alexander rather than his
department, for example – it is not difficult to find off-the record
detractors. Not just non-governmental organizations, but also many from
the corporate sector believe things have been allowed to drift in the
year since Alexander took over from predecessor Kim Howells.
Although the minister admits that co-operation on CSR across government
departments can be improved, he is vehement that there has been no loss
of momentum. ‘We’d like to think we’ve been firing on all cylinders on
CSR in the past 12 months,’ he says. ‘We’ve made real and substantive
progress.’
Ask him to quantify that progress, however, and
he quotes either measures such as the pension disclosure regulation
announced four years ago and enacted in 2000, or initiatives marginal
to the practice of corporate social responsibility such as community
investment tax credits or payroll giving.
Ask him what he
considers his greatest achievement as CSR minister, and he cites the
government’s second CSR report, published last month.
He
does, however, appear genuinely enthusiastic about the significance of
the 44-page report, which for the first time explicitly sets his
government the task of bringing CSR ‘into the mainstream of business
practice’. He warns against allowing CSR to become ‘a preserve of large
companies’ and wants the DTI to publish case studies, hold roundtable
meetings and support research to promote CSR within all businesses.
‘For me what is most important is making a difference, not making a
splash,’ he says. ‘Our job is more than cheerleading for CSR. It’s
being more intelligent than that.’ Clearly annoyed at the growing
clamour for regulation in the field, he would prefer that the
behind-the-scenes approach he favours be seen as a sign of strength,
not weakness. Alexander wants to leave behind the ‘tired and rather
sterile debate about whether to regulate or not’ in favour of a ‘more
sophisticated understanding’ of the government’s role on CSR.
Though his department reserves the right to wield the stick of
regulation, he says it is unwilling to use it. ‘If you look at how fast
the evolution of CSR has gone, it doesn’t strike me that legislation is
the right answer,’ he says. ‘What was deemed a significant step forward
on CSR last year may not be deemed so good this year, so we have to
think: “is now the right time to legislate when thinking is still
evolving on what are the appropriate boundaries of CSR?”’.
That position may not have endeared him to those (including members of
his own party) who support mandatory social and environmental
reporting, but it has muted any criticism of his performance from the
business world – which generally opposes regulation.
What
it may do, however, is move Alexander and his government onto the
fringes of the CSR debate as other European administrations – notably
France, the Netherlands, Belgium and the European Commission – all
begin to show a greater taste for CSR regulation, although recent
elections results in the first two countries may change government
priorities there.
There is a hint that although Alexander
claims he has been ‘keen to maintain the UK’s lead in the field of CSR’
he may be happy with that lower profile for his nation. ‘We want to
adopt an approach that rejects the view of the evangelists who see CSR
as the answer to every problem, but also the cynics who say the private
sector cannot advance the public good,’ he says.
