With figures released this week indicating that the Eurozone has tipped back into recession, companies across the continent are desperately seeking to maintain their market share and revenues, even as household budgets slide. In August, Unilever’s head of European operations, Jan Zijderveld said “poverty is returning to Europe” and that companies were going to have to learn to adjust to that reality. GlobeScan’s most recent public attitudes tracking certainly shows that, while economic concern may have retreated from its 2008 … “Opportunity among the bleak times for business in Europe?”
Twenty years after the collapse of the USSR, Russia continues to present a difficult business environment, with an economy dominated by an elite circle close to the seat of political power. For foreign companies, navigating the nuances of the Russian system can prove particularly challenging, and GlobeScan’s latest polling demonstrates a large degree of social alienation, which could make conditions for foreign investment yet more difficult. In 2012, more Russians feel that economic wellbeing has improved over the past 20 … “Russia: Disenfranchisement, distrust—and opportunity”
There is a widespread global consensus that the decision whether to treat people and the environment responsibly should not be left to the corporate world, but that national governments should take steps to compel companies to do this.
According to GlobeScan’s most recent polling, nearly nine in ten citizens (88%) across 23 countries support governments taking active legislative and regulatory steps to ensure social and environmental responsibility by companies, rather than leaving it to business to take steps voluntarily.
Among the populations who feel most strongly that governments should apply further pressure to force corporate responsibility are many with large, often controversial commodities sectors, such as Russia (95%), Nigeria (93%), Peru (92%), and Indonesia (91%). Other countries where over 90 percent of those surveyed feel further governmental action is required are crisis-hit Spain (97%) and Greece (91%), as well as France (94%), which recently elected a socialist government committed to higher levels of taxation for both businesses and the rich.
There are some surprises—India, location of the Bhopal disaster, one of the most infamous incidents of corporate negligence in history, has the lowest proportion of respondents who support government-mandated corporate responsibility in the survey—but even in India three out of four citizens support a firm government hand in this area.
While these results cast further light on the anti-business narrative GlobeScan has previously highlighted in the West, the breadth of this consensus—particularly in the developing world—demonstrates that business as a whole urgently needs to improve its approach to social citizenship. Continued failure in this regard risks a general upswing of anti-corporate feeling around the world, as well as specific impacts, driven by reputational damage, to the share prices of unresponsive corporations.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Previous Featured Findings have looked at the gap between the public’s enthusiasm to find out more about what companies are doing to be responsible, and their strong skepticism about the claims that companies make about their own attempts to be more responsible and sustainable.
What may be of even greater concern to companies is that their own employees often perceive a credibility gap around CSR. In a survey of more than 1,500 employees of large companies across 12 countries earlier this year, we found that a majority (58%) feel there is a gap between what their employer says about CSR and how the company actually behaves. Just one-third (35%) disagree that such a gap exists.
Revealingly, employees in developing economies were more likely to perceive this gap than those in Western economies such as the UK, US, France, and Canada, where opinion was more evenly split.
These findings suggest that better employee engagement should be a priority for companies looking to win hearts and minds with CSR. With company employees frequently cited by the public as a trusted source of information about corporate behavior, corporations need to pay greater attention to demonstrating to their own staff that their commitment to social and environmental responsibility is serious and has the support of senior management.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
When BP posted a $1.4bn loss this week (once oil price fluctuations are taken into account), many analysts pointed to the role played by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The company announced this week that a further $847 million has been set aside to pay the costs incurred by that disaster.
Yet GlobeScan’s Radar 2012 global public opinion data indicates that BP’s response to the spill may be allowing it to recover lost ground in public esteem faster than many had predicted. The British firm emerges at or near the top of the list of firms considered to be environmentally responsible. Globally, BP is one of the top twenty most-mentioned corporations when people are asked to name a large company that is a leader in environmental issues.
In the UK, moreover, BP is the firm most frequently mentioned as being environmentally responsible (6%), and in the US it is the second most frequently mentioned (5%), behind only General Electric. Note that no company is cited by more than 4% of global respondents (due to the wide diversity of national firms mentioned) and 44% of people globally, and that higher proportions still in the UK and USA could not name, or chose not to name, an environmentally responsible company.
This uptick in public perception is welcome news for the embattled company, trading as it does in a market driven by more than tangible assets. The reasons given by respondents for naming BP as a responsible company indicate that it has benefitted from low expectations for corporate responsibility in general, and oil company behavior in particular. The unstated assumption is that companies will not clean up their mess, but will “cut and run” once profits are threatened.
While many undoubtedly still see the company as an environmental villain, these figures suggest that paying substantial compensation to those affected by the spill, and pouring resources into the clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico—and being seen to do these things—has enabled BP to cut through public cynicism and start to rebuild its reputation.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
GlobeScan’s public attitudes tracking shows that the corporate world as a whole continues to suffer from a lack of trust in the eyes of consumers. Companies, and global ones in particular, are far less trusted than NGOs, and nearly half of citizens when polled this year were unable to call to mind a socially or environmentally responsible company when asked to do so.
However, the latest analysis of our findings reveals that the companies that are named as socially or environmentally responsible tend to cluster in a number of key sectors – with food companies the most frequently mentioned as socially responsible, and accounting for 13 percent of the total. As our chart this week shows – and as befits a highly consumer-facing sector, personal experience of a food company’s products or services is highly influential in making people feel that it is socially responsible, with advertising not far behind as a key information channel for communicating a sense of social responsibility.
Interestingly, though, it appears that a controversial sector does not have to be a bar to a positive reputation for responsibility for a company. Despite being rated as one of the least responsible sectors overall, oil companies are third most likely to be cited as examples of environmentally responsible companies (by 5%, same as electronic equipment / electrical appliances companies). Here, however, the consumer experience is far less significant in driving this perception, and news reports are the most significant channel by some distance – well ahead of the experience people have when filling up their cars. This highlights the need for companies seeking to engage consumers around issues of corporate responsibility to adapt the information channels they prioritize carefully according to their sector, or risk wasting precious time and budget.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
Published by The Financial Times on June 25th, this letter was in written by GlobeScan Chairman, Doug Miller, in response to a June 7th article entitled “In search of the elusive ethical consumer”. Michael Skapinker’s “In search for the ethical consumer” was good as far as it went, but missed a couple of key points. The corporate interest in the ethical consumer that he outlines is well founded. It is a significant and growing segment of the consumer marketplace, currently in the range … “Trust Wins Over Ethical Consumers”
Only 1 in 20 say their country should not commit to any international agreements Download the Press Release (PDF) LONDON, UK, 13 June 2012 – As the Rio+20 Earth Summit kicks off in Brazil this week, a new poll of 17,000 consumers across 17 countries finds that 55% of people worldwide want their government to “play a leadership role in making ambitious international commitments to reduce global poverty in ways that improve the environment.” A further 40% want their government to … “Consumers Call for Ambitious Leadership from their Governments at Rio+20 Earth Summit: Global Poll”
GlobeScan’s ongoing tracking of public attitudes towards corporate leadership in social and environmental responsibility reveals a highly disparate picture, probably reflecting persistently low levels of public awareness of corporate activity in this area. When asked to name a company they consider to be socially or environmentally responsible, the public around the world names a very broadspectrum of companies, with the only companies able to “cut through” in individual countries usually being flagship brands strongly associated with the prestige of the nation in question (for instance, Samsung in South Korea, Petrobras in Brazil, VW in Germany, or Safaricom in Kenya).
The reasons given for considering a company to be socially responsible are equally diverse, but show some regional patterns. Charitable support—particularly as governments retrenches—is highly significant in North America. Employee treatment is key in Europe, where the workforce traditionally has higher expectations of employment conditions, while in the wake of a number of product-related scandals, the quality of products and services is dominant as a consideration in Asia. This suggests that companies looking to establish reputations for responsible business will need to take care to tailor the focus of their messaging to the regional context.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 1, 2012
For more information on this finding, please contact Sam Mountford (Read Bio)
New findings from The 2012 Sustainability Leaders: A GlobeScan/SustainAbility Survey.