CSR set to have wide-reaching impact

Comment by Jeremy Skidmore (www.jeremyskidmore.com)

How many of you remember the case of Donald Pearce, the pub landlord who, in October 2005, fell asleep at the wheel of his car and killed a cyclist as he drove home?

Pearce had been on a night flight from Turkey and had slept only three hours in the previous 24. As he fell asleep, his car drifted into a lay by at 60mph and hit Zak Carr, a champion UK time trials cyclist. In January, Pearce was sent to prison for five years.

What, you may wonder, has this tragic event got to do with me?

In the new world of corporate social responsibility (CSR), where companies’ duty of care to their staff and customers will be ever greater, it could be a significant ruling.

Is that far fetched? In the future agents, and particularly travel management companies, will be expected to educate their clients about all kinds of issues, including the need to behave responsibly in the wider community.

CSR means far more than putting paper in a recycling bin or even offsetting your carbon footprint.

It’s about considering the interests of customers, employees, shareholders and communities in all aspects of their operations. Do all your hotel suppliers pass the toughest environmental tests? Are the work conditions of your employees meeting the right standards? Are employees behaving in an acceptable manner outside, as well as inside, the work place?

Exactly where the line will be drawn remains to be seen. However, there’s no doubt that media pressure (it’s always our fault) is leading consumers to become increasingly sensitive to the CSR performance – which is measurable in various mind-numbingly boring tests – of the companies from which they buy their goods and services.

Social Accountability International’s SA8000 standard for proper compliance with CSR states, on discipline, that no employees should be subjected to ‘mental or physical coercion or verbal abuse’ – all the things that were compulsory in the newspaper offices where I used to work.

If, like me, you thought the Human Rights Act was bad enough, then you haven’t seen anything yet.

The growing obsession with being seen to do ‘the right thing’ rather than simply make profits is, at the very least, time consuming and could have a frightening effect on businesses, particularly small ones that until now thought CSR was some long running crime investigation programme on Channel Five.

Of course, I don’t really think people should be bullied at work, but do we need endless procedures to ensure that we can all live happily ever after? And, really, should agents have to educate grown men and women about how to behave responsibly in a wider community?

I’d be interested in your views on this issue.

And, incidentally, you can find out more about what CSR means for your business by attending our Travel Industry Question Time debate on the issue on April 19, at the Hilton London Tower Bridge, from 16.30.