Guest blog: In defence of Unilever and corporate social responsibility
Mallen Baker is a writer, speaker and strategic advisor on corporate social responsibility and responsible marketing issues. Writes CSR-related blog The Respectful Business Blog, and produces the related Respectful Business Podcast. Founder and managing director of Daisywheel - digital agency, with a strong focus and specialism on corporate social responsibility communications and stakeholder engagement. Experience of building action networks of CEOs from top UK companies around issues of social responsibility in the marketplace. Forbes recently ran an opinion piece titled ‘Unilever and the Failure of Corporate Social Responsibility’. The importance was not in the article itself – the author Tom Borelli is a long-term ideological opponent of CSR and its case is typically overstated – but it is an indication of the particular vulnerable position we’ve reached at the moment in the development of business as an agent for sustainability. Let’s list the substantive p...