By Dr. Michael Hopkins. Dr. Hopkins is CEO and Chairman of MHC International Ltd.  (London & Geneva), a research and service company on CSR.  He holds a doctorate on labour economics from the University of Geneva and is a Professor at the Universities of Middlesex and Brunel in London, UK.

Much of the world’s media concentrates on future catastrophes such as global warming and consequent results on civilisation.  In recent years, the current and continuing catastrophe of billions living in abject poverty has attracted a different form of attention from a surprising quarter — private business and, in particular, major corporations.

In the past, famous corporate benefactors ranging from Rockefeller to Ford developed their foundations to help the world’s poor.  Today this tradition continues with Ted Turner, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, just to name a few.  Yet, under the guise of corporate citizenship (or corporate responsibility) a new consciousness of corporations has arisen with serious consideration on how to help the world’s poor and achieve the Millenium Development Goals.  Many, if not all, of the Fortune top companies now have activities aimed at both emerging markets, where most of the poor live, as well as our own so-called advanced countries which have not completely rid their own societies of poverty.

As Michael Porter and Mark Kramer highlighted in their path breaking article in the Harvard Business Review a few years back (the link between competitive advantage and CSR), successful corporations need a healthy society and a healthy society needs successful companies. 

Prompted by an increasing number of activist organizations of all kinds that bring public pressure to bear on corporations, these same corporations have noted that anti-poverty activities are not simply a cost on their bottom line, but can also lead to enhanced market opportunities.  Nestle, for instance, works directly with small farmers in emerging markets to source some of its basic commodities such as milk, coffee and cocoa, on which much of its global business depends.  And, Unilever has produced two outstanding studies of its own impact, both direct and indirect, on creating employment in Indonesia and South Africa.

As Porter and Kramer noted, when value chain practices and investments in competitive contexts are fully integrated, corporate responsibility becomes hard to distinguish from the day-to-day business of the company.  Yet, while businesses have awakened to these new opportunities, they are much less clear (in many cases) on what to do about them.  Much of their concern has to do with understanding the impact their anti-poverty programmes have on their bottom line. 

Happily, a new field of understanding is developing that assesses, quantitatively, the impacts of these new activities on a company’s competitive advantage.  BCLC is developing such methodologies with the leaders in the field and will make their analyses available as more and more companies become involved in their work.

This article reflects the views of the author and not necessarily the position of the U.S. Chamber or the Business Civic Leadership Center.