05
THE
COMMITTED
Adidas
Allianz
Beiersdorf
BMW
Continental
Daimler
Deutsche Börse
Fresenius Medical Care
HeidelbergCement
Henkel
Infineon
Linde Group
Lufthansa
Munich RE
ProSiebenSat.1
Volkswagen
Vonovia
THE
STRATEGISTS
BASF
Bayer
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Post
Deutsche Telekom
Merck
SAP
THE
INTEGRATED
However, none of the DAX 30 companies has fully integrated
its Corporate Citizenship activities into its core business.
That it is actually possible to pursue a fully integrated Corporate
Citizenship approach is illustrated by the international
good practice example of Schneider Electric, which
achieves substantial results and widespread recognition
with a comparatively moderate financial outlay.
Providing affordable access to energy is at the heart of
Schneider Electric’s Corporate Citizenship strategy, which is
directly linked to their core business. The company leverages
different resources at its disposal, and orchestrates them all
– skilled volunteering, technologies, investment funds and
donations – to implement their strategy in their current as
well as in emerging markets. In addition, Schneider Electric
has developed its own measurement tool – the Planet and
Society Barometer – and transparently reports activities and
results.
To date, Schneider Electric has provided more than 3.3 million
households with access to electricity, trained over 150,000
people in energy management and conducted over 1,300 corporate
volunteering missions. In return, Schneider Electric
has been recognized as the industry leader of the Dow Jones
Sustainability Index (DJSI, 2016) for the fourth year running,
and ranks among the Global 100 Most Sustainable (Corporate
Knights, 2016) and ethical corporations in the world (Ethisphere,
2016).
It is striking that Schneider Electric is able to pursue a highly
integrated approach, despite of only donating approximately
EUR 11.5 million annually (or just 0.4 percent of EBIT, way
short of the “gold standard” of one percent (Weeden, 1998
and Walker, 2013) 1 ). This clearly demonstrates that good Corporate
Citizenship is not a linear function of how many, but
rather how wisely resources are invested.
In a way, Schneider Electric’s approach captures many of our
assumptions of what constitutes good Corporate Citizenship.
We know that our assumptions and overall approach will
not be shared by everyone in the for-profit and non-profit
sectors. However, we hope that the study will kick-start a
constructive debate and ideas on how to take the Corporate
Citizenship activities of DAX 30 companies and others to a
new level, and eventually move the entire industry from good
intentions to creating real results. ||
1 Note: Weeden even suggested 2.5 percent of EBIT as “corporate social investment”. However, this would also include product donations and other forms of payments to NGOs.
The one percent EBIT “gold standard” builds on Weeden, but refers to cash giving only as an established industry benchmark. See also Walker, 2013.