ABSTRACT
Climate change and poverty are real problems and these problems are especially difficult in the ‘hard’ industries such as mining, oil, textiles and travel, for which solutions to social and environmental problems are not readily available or simple to implement. This chapter discusses how confronting poverty and environmental degradation is in the best interests of business — for medium-term profitability and long-term viability. Good companies will continuously seek to find ways to improve on their performance and to use corporate social responsibility (CSR) to gain strategic advantage over the competition. The ‘state of the art’ in CSR is to see the opportunities for business engaging fully with its social and environmental responsibilities. By providing the rural population with employment opportunities, with a stake in a brighter future, the extractive industries have the potential to create shared value. In 1989 Ben & Jerry’s, a North American ice cream manufacturer, began a new phase of corporate reporting.
