CSR Group Helps Companies Progress

To help meet increased demand for socially responsible best practices, Paula Ivey, marketing and international business lecturer at the McCombs School, formed a consulting and communications firm in 2002. The CSR Group (www.thecsrgroup.com), helps corporations create a CSR strategy and incorporate it into the firm’s communications.

Employing a network of about 10 independent consultants, Ivey staffs each project with a different team of experts that specialize in specific areas, depending on the client’s goals.

When meeting with a new client, The CSR Group’s first order of business is to review the company’s mission statement and determine whether its stated corporate values match its actions. While the scrutiny might be painful at first, The CSR Group provides the company with a prescription for success.

“We open a dialogue,” Ivey says. “If the company says it values the environment, we give them feedback on whether their practices and reputation are in alignment with that.”

The CSR Group recommends ways the client can move beyond traditional practices—like charitable giving—and find avenues to demonstrate responsibility to all its stakeholders while living up to its own set values. Then, the team helps the company establish a roadmap to integrate CSR practices into the policies and culture of the company.

Ivey’s firm also creates a metrics system to track progress, offering five measurement tools with various functions, including benchmarking a company’s practices against global standards or the practices of leading companies and competitors.

“CSR is often seen as a warm, fuzzy, nice-to-have [practice] that’s not as critical to the operations of the business,” Ivey says. “But that perception is rapidly changing—having good CSR practices is good business management. At a minimum, it’s good risk and reputation management.”

While Ivey’s company is just one of a few CSR consulting firms in the United States, she says that CSR is already a large industry overseas.

“There are well over 250 companies like this in the United Kingdom alone,” she says, “and many of them are starting to move to the U.S. as more companies here begin to think about CSR.”