Edelman believes that companies’ responsible conduct and sustainability strategies go beyond just reputation considerations and are directly related to business continuity, employee morale and market expansion. Our Global CSR & Sustainability practice provides counsel and programming to multi-national companies in a variety of sectors around issues management, communications campaigns, CR/sustainability reporting, management training, strategic philanthropy, public-private partnerships, and public affairs. Edelman also provides counsel and programming for multilateral organizations and global NGOs.
Highlights of our work include:
- Production and launch of CR reports to communicate company efforts and gain trust with key stakeholders. For a leading pharmaceutical company’s first global corporate responsibility report, Edelman engaged stakeholders to identify critical issues for the report, organized an internal task force to oversee data collection, drafted content, and advised on the launch strategy and feedback collection.
- Mapping and prioritization of stakeholders for specific corporate and/or product issues and initiatives. We worked with a global food and beverage company to identify organizations that would be most interested in a new product to gauge their level of support and opposition. We developed an analytical tool to evaluate each stakeholder and trained executives to research and prioritize stakeholders.
- Establishment of public-private partnerships with government and NGOs. For a prominent business organization, we helped create a task force to work with government and relief agencies to address how the private sector can contribute most effectively to disaster relief efforts. Our work included matching private sector donations with needs identified by government and relief agencies after Hurricane Katrina and developing policy recommendations to the White House, Senate and relief organizations.
- Building productive relationships with activists to correct misperceptions. We developed a successful strategy for a timber supplier to engage environmental activists who had been critical of the company’s forestry practices. Our work helped broker a joint declaration of shared principles that ended NGO attacks and gained recognition for the client’s sound environmental practices.
- Management training to connect CSR strategies to business practices. We trained a global energy leader’s European country presidents to incorporate social and environmental goals into their practices. We helped them develop and implement strategies for engaging NGOs on matters related to climate change, renewable energy and financial transparency.
- Integration of CSR communications and programs into traditional public affairs activities. For an international agricultural business, we helped the company address criticism and trade barriers in Europe by communicating to European NGOs, trade unions and political representatives about its new social and environmental policies and programs. The program assisted the company’s efforts to gain increased access to European markets.
Through our management consultancy, First&42nd, Edelman also works with subject matter experts in environmental technology, ethical sourcing and sustainable agriculture to provide seamless counsel for strategic communications, stakeholder relations and business practices.
