May 11th, 2009

Clinton Global Initiative energizes CSR crowd

I was fortunate to attend a relatively intimate gathering this morning of less than 200 people in NYC of the Clinton Global Initiative titled “Global Challenges, Corporate Solutions: Creating Value for Business and Society.”

It was an energizing, corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related event based around the efforts, experience and results of this Clinton Foundation initiative and its partners. The plenary session included President Clinton, John Podesta and Judith Rodin, President of The Rockefeller Foundation. Four discussion groups followed this session on “Harnessing Innovation for Development,” “Strengthening Infrastructure,” “Developing Human Capital,” and “Financing a Sustainable Future.”

The focus was on how to create value for both business and society in solving our most pressing problems. The specific emphasis was on how to do this, as President Clinton said in his opening remarks — “how to spend on CSR to generate maximum positive changes.” “We’re in the how business — let someone else worry about how much…” he added.

President Clinton, John Podesta and Judith Rodin all mentioned various aspects of the Internet, social media, crowd sourcing and user-generated ideas in helping the various sectors and partners to work successfully together. This was especially encouraging to me as I steer SRB’s primary areas of focus with colleagues on similar topics to help engage stakeholders, track & measure successes, and communicate client CSR efforts in more authentic, engaging and accessible ways than just annual reports or trite “green” campaigns.

I attended the discussion group “Harnessing Innovation…” facilitated by Vijay Vaitheeswaran, a correspondent for The Economist magazine, with a brief testimonial by Carlos Dominguez, a senior executive with Cisco. Attendees brought up many challenges, from how to engage employees and the “bottom billion” in helping to solve global problems to how best to implement ideas. The facilitator mentioned the courage to fail as an important principal that GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, has brought up in the past.

The ideas of communications in CSR and metrics were also important to the people I spoke with at the event, including executives from Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation, Caterpillar and The Moody’s Foundation.