The Triple Bottom Line Blog

I asked Andy about what topics we ought to be writing about more on this blog, and in response he sent me this email:

I always get questions on the lecture circuit about how companies in this country [i.e. the United States] can afford to be more sustainable or more responsible when they have to compete with low-cost goods and services provided by China and the rest of the developing world.

The first point I make is to refer to one of your initial posts about how globalization means that China and the others can't get away with bad practices for long if they are planning to export to us.

The second point I make is that the chickens are coming home to roost, even faster than I would have expected. Last week, for example, there was an article in The Times about how American toy manufactures are having a resurgence because of the China toy recalls. You might want to link to the piece . . . just don't quote the whole bloody thing.

(Andy thinks I have a habit of quoting too much from the stories I link to. In deference to him I'll link to the Times story, but I won't quote a single word. Read the whole thing if you like. Seems as if retailers and consumers are happy enough to pay higher prices for toys when the cheaper alternative products are coated in poisonous paint . . .)

But speaking of chickens coming home to roost, it seems as if an entire blog about sustainability could be written using nothing but stories from China. Almost two months ago, Andy himself wrote this post about the risks of being a corporate sponsor of next year's Beijing Olympics. Between Darfur, child labor, censorship, and capital punishment--not to mention rampant pollution, product piracy, and, now, shoddy manufacturing practices--it seems as if being linked with China is an increasingly dangerous corporate strategy.

At the same time, there's no doubt that China is a rising world power than no global corporation can afford to ignore. What to do?

Today I encountered this good column about the issue from consultant David Wolf. I'll quote him--sparingly enough for Andy's taste, I hope:

Several things set the Olympics apart. The Olympics is global. It covers a wide range of sports. It is a pinnacle event, meaning that in most of the sports involved you can reach no higher than Olympic champion. It occurs every four years.

But there is one more thing that, in the mind of sponsors, sets the Olympics on a higher plane than even the Superbowl, The World Series, or the World Cup. It is the unspoken conviction that the Olympics is somehow the last form of pure athletic endeavour, and that supporting the Olympics is somehow a good thing, in and of itself.

But any company (and I guarantee you, there will be a few in the coming months) that attempts to frame their support of the Olympics as some form of corporate social responsibility should be publicly ridiculed. Olympic sponsorship is a marketing exercise, pure and simple, and should be universally acknowledged as such.

It's an excellent point. Wolf goes on to stress that any company associated with the 2008 games needs to make sure it has in place a robust sustainability program focused specifically on its China practices. The best possible response to protestors who want to attack your corporation for its sponsorship of the Beijing games is to be able to point to your policies that are bringing concrete assistance to Chinese workers, children, human rights activists, and other worthy beneficiaries. Without such a response, protestations about your good intentions as a partner of China and a supporter of the Games will ring hollow.

One last point: Although many of us assume that the "commercialization" and "politicization" of the Olympic Games--along with the attendant controversies--are recent phenomena, that's simply not true. Corporate sponsorship has been a feature of the modern Olympics since their founding in 1896. And as for controversy--well, one of the sponsors of the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics was none other than Coca-Cola.

How's that for a corporate affiliation--to be linked forever in history with the likes of Hitler, Goebbels, and Leni Riefenstahl? It might take a brand as powerful as Coke's to shrug off that kind of publicity.

So if you're a corporate manager trying to figure out how to position your company in today's interconnected, globalized world, don't feel too sorry for yourself. The problems you're wrestling with may be thornier than ever, but they're scarcely brand new . . . if that's any comfort.

Labels: China, Coca-Cola, Communications and Marketing, David Wolf, Olympics