The results of Provident Financial’s 2011 ‘Responsible Business in theUK’ survey have been released this week by Corporate Citizenship. Confidence in businesses’ positive role in society remains high with over 80% of respondents believing plc’s take their responsibilities seriously.
In this third year of the survey, trends in issue prioritisation are emerging. Notable is the decline in businesses’ desire to work with Government to address social and environmental issues. On the other hand, embedding stakeholders, such as employees, within business processes continues to become more widely recognised.
The Provident Financial survey is distinguished by being the views of responsibility practitioners. By tapping the best brains in CR, the survey is particularly helpful in tracking what’s hot and what’s not. As well as considering business in general, the survey participants reflected on the financial sector. Here the focus has shifted sharply away from environmental issues, down 26% over three years. Issues rising up the sector’s agenda are less clearly defined. Ethical supply chains have rebounded in 2011 after a fall the previous year. A surprise for some perhaps is that although responsible lending remains the number one issue, its importance has decreased incrementally over the three years.
The survey also investigated communications preferences. Support for the hard copy CR report has slumped by over 40% (to 39%) with a similar drop recorded for social media. The significance of these somewhat conflicting trends will form part of a follow up study by Corporate Citizenship on the future of CR communications.
For further information about the Responsible Business in theUKresults please contact Ian Buckland ian.buckland@corporate-citizenship.com