Creating Shared Value Blog

You want your business to succeed…and you believe in the role of business in addressing some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems of our time. This is why you have invested significant resources into pursuing a shared value strategy. Yet, sometimes you wonder: Are we actually creating shared value? You think you are, the strategy makes sense, but you cannot really demonstrate it. And you never have a convincing answer when that question comes from your CFO at the end of every reporting cycle.

We have continued to explore the question of how companies can translate the idea of Creating Shared Value (CSV) into their corporate strategy and business processes. The question of how you do CSV is top of mind of executives and CSR professionals as came out clearly in our second webinar on the topic last Wednesday (28th September). FSG's Mark Kramer and Marc Pfitzer were joined by Paul Ellingstad, Health Director at Hewlett-Packard’s Office of Global Social Innovation, Jessica Hubbard, Senior CSR Manager from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Paul Snyder, Vice President of Corporate Responsibility, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). The panel discussed pertinent questions from the audience about how to implement CSV, including how to create a culture of CSV within the organization and overcome resistance by certain business units and how to select and effectively engage external partners – be it NGOs or governments. However, and not surprisingly, most questions centered on the topic of measurement: What metrics do you use to measure shared value? What is the impact of CSV on shareholder value? How can you reconcile the short-termism of financial markets with the longer-term focus of any CSV strategy given the time it takes to bring about social change?