I never quite decided whether human beings were capable of performing altruistic acts or not. And, I just got even more confused.
On 3 March awards for Corporate Social Responsibility were handed out in Berlin, Germany based on the quality of 300 companies’ reports. Awards were given by CorporateRegister.com, a website that was launched to make companies accountable by obliging them to provide reports of their CSR initiatives. Only in 2007, the Corporate Responsibility Reporting Award was launched which, as the name suggests, recognises the best reports submitted.
Since the award is such a recent event, it could mean two very extremely contrasting things: that either Corporate Social Responsibility is becoming such a gigantic, positive phenomenon that it has to be celebrated in some way or that companies need an incentive, like the publicity of their brand names, to take such charitable and responsible steps. One end suggests companies are absolutely altruistic because they have, up until now, been acting without an incentive and the other extreme suggests companies are absolutely selfish or self-absorbed and need to be led onto the responsible path with hanging carrots.
Either way, the new ideas that companies have implemented do deserve a pat on the back. Even if for selfish reasons, they’re still doing the world and its inhabitants some good. Take, for example, Goldman Sachs – one of the winners of the awards. Their new initative is called the 10,000 Women programme which it launched after extensive research on the impact of women on the economy. The research was called ‘Women Hold up Half the Sky’, which outlined how the contribution of women have positive long-term benefits for the economy, found that “female education is the key source of support for long term economic growth”. Based on this, the 10,000 Women programme aims to provide 10,000 women from developing, impoverished regions with business and management education, not only as a way to help them out of hardship, but also to improve the economies of those areas. The programme joins hands with several U.S. and European universities to fund a flexible, short and practical programme around the world providing women with business and management certificates as well as some MBA and BA degrees. The initiative obviously bumps up Goldman Sachs’ already roaring reputation, with the award adding the cherry on top of that perfect sundae.
So, is this altrusim at its best? Or, just a result of a bunch of really good carrots pulling the donkey along? At least, Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of the Goldman Sachs Group managed to simultaneously make 10,000 women, or more, smile – be it intentionally or not.
