Martin Sime: We can make corporate citizens clean up their act

But was the cost to charities and to whatever goodwill they still enjoy with their customers worth it in terms of shareholder value?

We have become more used to this kind of thing. Tax avoidance, corporate greed, obscene bonuses, cheating, miss-selling, exploitation and discrimination – these are the headlines which dominate  the business news on a daily basis. Big companies have never had so much  bad PR.

All of which makes what they do in terms of community support, corporate citizenship and support to the third sector much more difficult to brag about. People increasingly see through the green-wash and hogwash of so much of what passes for corporate social responsibility. Putting a few pounds into the chairman’s favourite good cause (or even his wife’s) was never going to be enough to make a serious difference to our sector, let alone to the many ills and issues we seek to address.

But that’s no reason not to try. Good companies tend to be successful, not least because they put the needs of their customers first and treat their stakeholders, staff, the environment and the communities they operate in with respect.

All of which should matter a lot more than it currently does. With so much referendum talk about what kind of Scotland we want to see, the role and behaviour of our private sector needs to be addressed. Just what should we expect from companies in the future?

If, by any chance, Scotland does vote for independence there will be some interesting repercussions about how business represents itself. Watching the messages change and the structures re-form to face the new environment will be good spectator sport. In the meantime, here are some ways in which we could raise the bar of social responsibility and commitments we should expect from our private sector in the future:

• Pay policies: commit to the living wage and to a maximum salary multiple of, say x10;

• Environment: full footprint reporting and promotion of eco-friendly practices;

• Equalities: positive action so that workplaces (and boardrooms) reflect society;

• Family friendly policies: supported childcare, time off for carers and the like;

• Community investment: matched payroll giving and employee volunteering;

• Procurement: support to local social enterprises;

• Occupational health: programmes which encourage and support healthy living – eg gym membership subsidy, office fruit, cycle-to-work schemes;

• Co-ownership: worker share ownership and profit share schemes

Companies which take on this sort of agenda would be well positioned to win the respect of the communities they serve and to play their part in the Scotland that we would all like to see. We could still have class leaders in each of these fields because we know how competitive businesses can be, but what we really want to see is progress on all these fronts. One trick, of course, is not to boast about success – the ones that do usually turn out to be charlatans with paper thin commitments and large PR departments.

Another problem is, of course, that the largest companies are all headquartered outside Scotland. Their behaviour here is often dictated from outside and by much wider considerations and policies. That’s how the Starbucks tax avoidance scam came about, so can we really promote good corporate citizenship in one country alone when we live in a global economy? I think we can, but it requires all of us – politicians, civil society and communities – to be a bit sharper about what we expect and clear about the benefits of being inside the tent. Companies should be welcomed and supported to come and work in Scotland, but we ought not to beg for their jobs at any cost because that is too much of a price to pay.

The debate has stagnated for too long. Businesses of all sorts should step up to the plate if they want to be part of  the kind of Scotland most of us want  to see. They can and should be the  natural partners of the third sector in supporting community cohesion. Now there’s a good cause that needs all the help it can get. «

• Martin Sime is Chief Executive, Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations