There’s a joke going round about corporate social responsibility – often called CSR – that the C stands for cynical. It’s an indication of our mistrust of the growing number of ways that companies compete to look good. As a concept, CSR makes perfect sense; it links businesses to environmental change and community development. According to Sophie Hooper Lea, a corporate responsibility consultant, it is more difficult than you might think to talk the talk without walking the walk. “With an increasingly investigative media and a host of NGOs and campaigning bodies like Greenpeace, spin is less of a problem than it used to be,” she says. But how do you navigate CSR and separate PR froth from fair play?

Look at the website

Does the website raise issues about responsible business? Is there any evidence of an environmental or ethical policy? “If there’s a phone number, ring up and see if the person you speak to has the faintest idea what you’re talking about when you mention CSR,” says Hooper Lea.

Wait for evidence

“Judge a company by its actions, not its words,” says Liza Lort-Phillips, the associate director of the Corporate Citizenship Company, which offers research, consultancy and publications to help businesses be socially responsible. “Be wary of companies that make promises until you hear that they have carried them through. Make sure that there are convincing figures to back up what they say.”

Be wary of short-lived campaigns

Some of the best CSR is not headline-making material. Lort-Phillips cites Vodafone as an example of good practice. Without making too much of a fuss, it has adopted a code of ethical purchasing, addressing poor labour practices in handset manufacture, illegal internet use and the destruction of gorilla habitat in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Support early adopters

It is the brands that originally shaped the CSR debate that continue to influence it. Lort Phillips says: “It’s Innocent for soft drinks, Body Shop for cosmetics and Green & Black’s for confectionery.”

Get better informed

“The public is partly to blame for poor CSR,” says Lort-Phillips. “We have short attention spans and we get bored with the detail.” What should we be doing? Read reports published by campaigning bodies, such as War on Want and Oxfam, and find out about the dangers of poor CSR.

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