Speaker 1: The interest in corporate social responsibility, or CSR, sustainability, has increased tremendously. This graph shows the number of times the term corporate social responsibility is mentioned in media since 1989. And we see the same trend of interest among corporations. This graph illustrates the number of reports on sustainability and CSR issued by corporations. 30 years ago, it was tree huggers that were talking about sustainability and CSR. Whereas today, 93% of CEOs claim that sustainability is a key to success. And they're right. Research shows that if you have a good CSR program, you will increase employee commitment, customer satisfaction, reduce risk, and even get better access to finance. So no wonder companies spend a lot of money on being good companies showing responsibility. Actually, the world's 500 largest companies spend more than $15 billion annually on CSR. So how come then that we read again and again about companies which are behaving irresponsibly? We all remember this tragedy. At Anna Plaza, the building that fell down, more than 1,000 employees died. And these people were working under very poor conditions, making clothing for people like us, for great big international companies. Another example of irresponsibility, which is more recent, is the Volkswagen case. Volkswagen was known to be one of the most responsible companies, top rated on different screens. And still, it turned out that they had tampered with their emission technology. And that, of course, led to a major drop in their brand value. But it's also led to a drop in their share prices. Companies want to behave good, they want to be the right company, show responsibility, and yet they fail. Why is that so? The reason is that they don't have a good CSR program up and going. Companies that are struggling ask me all the time, we want to be behaving the right way. We want to be good companies. What do we do? Where do we start? How do we get going? And through studying companies and consulting companies on CSR for many, many years, many years, I have developed this five step model or manual for how to get the CSR program that works up and going. This is the model, simple, map, test, launch, implement, and report. So we'll start on the map. But before you get started, the program has to be anchored in the top management. Top management is not going to do the job, but they have to endorse the activities on the CSR. So the first thing then is to put together a group of the company across the company, five to ten people from different departments, and they together are going to find out, discuss what this company's main social impact, the main footprints of the company. A good checklist for that is the sustainable development goals, the SDG goals. Of course, which goals is relevant for individual companies depends upon which sector they're in. So let's say companies in the industry of producing clothing in developing countries, well, probably decent work, goal eight is most relevant. If the company is in the oil industry, I would say goal 13, climate issues is relevant. And if the company is in fish farming, well, it will be the 14th goal. When the most relevant goals are identified, a concrete plan with concrete targets and how to reach the targets must be set up. When that is ready, we move on to the second step. That is the test. Take the draft plan, present it to key stakeholders, ask for their input, revise accordingly. Who's the stakeholders? Customers, suppliers, other employees, non-governmental organizations, environmental organizations. These are the ones to feedback, come with feedback and then revise the plan according to that. Then we're ready for the third step. That's the launch. The launch is about making the rest of the company aware of the plan and let them buy into it. Make them put it into the day-to-day work. How do you do that? Put it on the company website, newsletter, monitors, be creative. The fourth step is the implementation. Have you had to follow up the plan? Are we reaching the targets? Are we not? Why? There will be unexpected happenings. These are great learning points. The fifth step is about reporting. The reporting is like accounting. Coming forward with what worked, what didn't work and why. And be open and honest and transparent. Not only focus on what went well but also the problems, the challenges. One might think that companies with big CSR report are doing a lot of things, are being good companies. That's actually not true. It's the opposite way around. Companies with the big reports writing a lot, those are the ones who have been criticized and have to explain that they have changed and convinced the reader. The CSR reports are a good source of finding out to which extent the CSR work is actually integrated into the company. One company I studied had two reports. One annual report which was big, glossy, didn't say anything about CSR and then the CSR report. That was some recycled paper all about CSR. Obviously, this company hadn't integrated the CSR work. The CSR report was probably outsourced when it came to production. Another example is a company that I studied over time. One year I looked at it, it had the greatest CSR plan, what to do, targets, concrete, everything. But the next year, there was nothing about CSR there at all. I couldn't find anything. So I called the company, I said, what happened? Where is your CSR plan? And this guy on the other line was, after a while he finally answered, you know, the head of CSR left the company. Okay, so everything was in this person. Then we see another example of a company where the CSR is not integrated in the company. Okay, we've been through the five steps. Are we finished? Are we complete? The work is complete? No, definitely not. This is an ongoing process with new challenges and new opportunities, so the circle has to continue. I'm gonna conclude or wrap up. Research shows that if a company has a well-designed, well-implemented CSR plan, it's good for the company and it's good for society, both in the short term and even more in the long term. Given that we are living on a planet with limited resources, a company that wants to stay in business has to have a well-planned, well-established CSR plan up and going in order to be prepared for the future. Thank you.