Context Goals – Blowing The Smoke Away From The Finish Line

This is a blog was originally published on the Cause Nation blog. 

Over the past 10 years, there has been a significant shift in the way that companies communicate with their stakeholders. In an increasingly connected, ‘open source’ world, company marketing and communications teams no longer have full control of their story and are held up to much higher standards of transparency. For the CSR and Sustainability field, this shift has been highly influential in moving companies – both public and private – away from over-exaggerated claims of changing the world towards more authentic and credible actions and communications.

Now expectations are shifting again.

Since the Sustainable Brands New Metrics Conference in Boston last Fall, I have been reading and feeding my inner impact geek with the latest trends around measurement, storytelling, and in particular, the emerging sphere of ‘context goals.’

Context goals highlight the scope of our entire problem or challenge and a company’s role or impact within it. Instead of companies setting discretionary goals based on what they feel able to achieve and what their competitors are doing; companies will set goals based on scientifically-derived “thresholds” that determine what needs to be done to solve the world’s pressing social and environmental challenges. For example, scientists have the data to show us what GHG emissions reductions are required to prevent the devastating impacts of climate change – this is the threshold that can work back from to set goals for the corporate and other sectors to achieve.

Up until now, organizations have been racing along, edging ahead of their competitors and trying to stay at the front of the pack; context goals finally show us the finish line so that we can all train and prepare ourselves to go the distance. As Bob Willard put it during one of the SB New Metrics panel sessions “the time for incrementalism has passed and we need to act based on the realities.”

The focus of the discussions at the SB New Metrics Conference was on context goals for environmental sustainability efforts rather than social issues as the measurement methodologies are more advanced. This highlights the need to advance our understanding of social issues and viable solutions. Having said that, there is still some way to go to set environmental sustainability context goals. There still needs to be agreement on the science behind the setting of thresholds, and the complicated questions around how accountability is determined i.e. how much one company needs to do vs. another. 

Sustainability frontrunners are already leading the charge around context goals. Ben and Jerry’s is piloting the MultiCapital Scorecard Method, which not only positions social and environmental metrics alongside traditional financial metrics, but also shows progress against third party derived thresholds.

For the Cause Consulting team, the advent of context goals is very exciting. Over the past 10 years, we have been proud to work with many companies striving to make measurable progress against difficult social and environmental challenges. The ‘context era’ will continue to support them to tackle the root causes of these issues and demonstrate their important contribution.

It may also facilitate more collaboration between different organizations – both for-profit and non-profit – because there will be unified goals that everyone can rally behind and work towards. While, it will be important to maintain some competition to drive continuous innovation and improvement, by “blowing the smoke away from the finish line,” it will be clear that no one organization can or should tackle the issues alone.

The transition will not be without its challenges. In the short-term, companies will have to find a new level of comfort in, not only being transparent about their impacts and actions, but also about what this means in terms of the broader issue or challenge. In the short-term, this may continue to widen the gap between CSR/Sustainability leaders and laggards, as companies that are not so advanced in their approach to progressive business, may be concerned about exposing the true impact of their efforts.

Rome wasn’t built in a day nor will context goals be the focus of companies tomorrow; nevertheless, as Allen White, Founder, Global Initiative for Sustainability Ranking (GISR), said at the SB New Metrics Conference, “we have a future ripe for change” and context goals are an exciting tool to get us there.

More than a Sport?

I was in San Francisco recently and was lucky enough to catch the first day of racing for the America’s Cup.
In recent years, the America’s Cup has been transformed into the Formula 1 of the ocean. Teams now compete on multi-hull, high-tech vessels that literally fly across the water – it’s amazing to watch.

As you can imagine, these flying machines don’t come cheap and you’d be forgiven for questioning whether the money could be spent on something more meaningful.

The first point to make is that the design and creation of these boats is driving engineering and technological innovation, which has the potential to benefit social and environmental causes in the future. Just think of the advances made by Formula 1, which was recently praised for ‘reaching beyond the racing circuit and providing sustainable solutions to "real" life challenges’ in an article by Mike Scott for the Guardian.

Secondly, there is evidence of efforts by the America’s Cup to use the reach and popularity of its brand to raise awareness about key social and environmental issues. In their words, it's 'more than a sport'.

Beer-swilling Kiwi

Walking into the America’s Cup Village - once I’d made it through the swarms of beer-swilling Team NZ fans - I came to an area dedicated to the America’s Cup Healthy Oceans Project. This is a campaign in to raise awareness about the problems threatening the world’s oceans, namely marine protected areas, sustainable seafood, and marine debris/plastics. In the Village, there were people on hand to talk about the campaign, petitions to sign and videos and photographs showing both the wonders of and challenges facing our oceans. In addition, throughout and outside of the weeks of the competition, there have been a number of Healthy Oceans Project events taking place in San Francisco and around the world.

Walking a bit further into the village, I was asked if I wanted to sign the Clean Boater Pledge. This is an initiative run by California’s Boating Clean and Green program, which aims to protect San Francisco’s waterways by encouraging responsible boat ownership.  

Go to the America's Cup website and there's an easy-to-find sustainability section. There is also a Sustainability Plan, however, it’s a pretty dense read!

I do question whether the emphasis on delivering a ‘model sustainable event’ would have been quite so strong had the competition not taken place in a ‘world-leading sustainable city’. Motivations aside, it is refreshing to see a sporting event the size and scale of the America’s Cup, taking sustainability seriously, and using its brand influence to raise awareness about important global issues. It’s not the overriding message – nor should it be – but, it’s a start and maybe it will grow into something bigger over time.

Ruggie's Rules - The End of the Beginning

Ask the CEO of a multinational corporation “does your company respect and protect human rights?” and the answer is unlikely to be negative. But go on to ask another question “how do you know?” and you’ll probably get a much less confident response. The truth is that, until very recently, they didn't have to know. What’s more, if a problem or an accusation was filed against them, there was no international legal framework against which they could be brought to justice - existing national frameworks were inadequate or simply not relevant.

This was the challenge given to John Ruggie, Berthold Beitz Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government and an Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, by the United Nations Human Rights Council – to bridge the gap between national public governance frameworks and the governance of global businesses.

Last night, I went to a talk by John Ruggie at the Harvard Bookstore, to mark the launch of his book Just Business. He talked about his approach to the challenge and his experiences of working with governments and corporations all over the world to agree a set of guiding principles, perhaps better known as Ruggie’s Rules. It became clear to him very early on that there was no silver bullet - it wasn't about creating a legal instrument and expecting everyone to adhere to it because, as we saw with the Kyoto Protocol, this would be far too easy to ignore. What was required was a ‘building block approach’, establishing a common platform (i.e. the guiding principles) and then gradually bringing organisations on-board. For example, having agreed the guiding principles, John Ruggie and his team approached national export agencies and persuaded them that, when promoting companies overseas, there should be some due diligence built into the process to ensure that they are not promoting companies who do not respect or protect human rights. This has proved to be a clever and successful means of pushing the guiding principles out into the global corporate network and a start towards changing the status quo.

As you’d expect, the guidelines have received mixed reactions. Activist organisations don’t think they go far enough with the organization Human Rights Watch saying that the UN Human Rights Council “squandered an opportunity to take meaningful action to curtail business-related human rights abuses.” Other commentators, such as John Braithwaite, Corporate Criminologist at the Australian National University, are more encouraged by the steps taken: “I’m a strong supporter of progressive UN framework agreements that seem pretty wishy-washy at first…“ in the long run they can make a huge contribution from limited beginnings.”

Whilst, I don’t believe that extensive regulation is the answer to making companies more sustainable, it is helpful to have some frameworks in place to ensure a minimum standard of practice. As John Ruggie put it last night “it’s the end of the beginning”; in other words, Ruggie’s Rules are not going to eliminate abuses of human rights by global companies over-night but they create a baseline to support companies to start answering the question “how do you know?” with confidence.

Lights, camera... where's the action?

Each year, the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship holds a film festival, which gives companies an “opportunity to demonstrate how they have utilized video as a communication tool”. There’s a public vote online – it ends tomorrow in case you want to have your say – to decide a shortlist and then the overall winner is selected by a panel of judges at the International Corporate Citizenship Conference in April. 

There are a total of 76 entries so it’s quite a feat to watch them all; however, in my quest to find out about corporate responsibility in the States, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to explore what companies are doing and how they’re talking about it.

Video is such an engaging mechanism for telling a story and companies increasingly use it to communicate their environmental and social messages to employees and consumers. In recent years, we've seen some compelling examples of how effective video can be, from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty videos, which went viral(see below), to Virgin Media’s video-driven approach to sustainability reporting. There is some really innovative and creative thinking out there.

I have to admit that not many of the film festival entries grabbed my attention. I accepted quite early on that the majority of the videos were going to be about philanthropic activities and that I shouldn't try and evaluate them with my strategic sustainability hat on. Some of the videos made reference to the broader social and environmental objectives of the business but, where they did, it felt like a bit of an after-thought. Broadly speaking, I'd divide the entries into two categories: 

• Emotional stories: personal stories from veterans, cancer survivors, single mums, people with disabilities about how they – or the charity that helped them - have been supported by the company and the impact on their lives. 
• Volunteer montages: clips of volunteers in corporate T-shirts painting schools, packaging up food bank deliveries or completing a 5 km run. 

Videos in both of these categories used similar ‘emotional’ music, and the commentary was provided by staff members, who said very similar things using slightly different words.

Now before you accuse me of being British and cynical, I should say that I was impressed by how much philanthropy seems to go on. The videos really convey the enthusiasm and excitement among employees in the US for ‘giving back’ and there are some really nice examples of how companies are supporting the communities where they operate. Perhaps my expectations are just too high – I believe that business can be a powerful force for good and therefore it’s frustrating to see companies wasting the opportunity to show what can really be done.

Content aside, at the very least, I was looking for a strong message, some creativity in the techniques used, and, most of all, a clear aim; by that I mean that I wanted to understand why the video was made and who it was made for. Only a very small number of entries ticked all these boxes.

In the future, it would be great to see the introduction of categories for the film festival. All the entries are currently lumped together as ‘corporate citizenship’ videos, but perhaps the inclusion of categories would help companies think more broadly about what corporate citizenship means and perhaps to submit something other than the usual volunteering or philanthropy video. The added benefit - it would help balance the expectations of viewers who are (ahem) harder to please.