Creating Shared Value Blog

This post originally appeared on the Guardian Sustainable Business blog.

By basing CSR on social issues at the core of their business, companies can create social benefits and financial returns.

This post by Greg Hills and Marc Pfitzer originally appeared on Harvard Business Review's Blog Network. 

Companies seeking to create scalable social businesses need a measurement system that monitors their progress in delivering social benefits and economic value. Only by tracking both the social and business results and how they're connected can firms hope to have a large-scale social impact.

Ensuring that all children have access to and receive a quality education is a global challenge. 793 million adults worldwide do not have basic knowledge in reading, writing, and math.  Around the world, more than 131 million children of primary or secondary school age are out of school, and those who do attend often leave without learning much at all.  These education and career skills gaps threaten future economic and social welfare in developing and developed countries alike, and present a growing global crisis.

Below is a second tranche of Q&A from our corporate panelists on the 2/6/13 Measuring Shared Value webinar. In our first Q&A blog, we featured responses from Intel and Nestlé, and below are responses from Coca-Cola and InterContinental Hotels Group.

by Oliver Freedman, AMR, Sydney

The short answer: More than you might think.

Porter and Kramer’s 2011 article “Creating Shared Value” spoke about the lack of customer trust in the corporate world and that the focus of companies on corporate social responsibility (CSR), including corporate philanthropy, has been unsuccessful in building trust with the general public. This is in part because customers have trouble believing the company ultimately cares about anything other than its own profitability.