May Day in London and a small café offers guidance to anti-globalization protesters: ‘Don’t smash our windows,’ says a sign with arrows pointing to nearby McDonald’s and Starbucks.
Poor McDonald’s and Starbucks. Poor Nike and Coke. No matter how hard they try to be good corporate citizens, their swooshes and golden Ms are magnets for protest.
And they are trying. They’re among the many companies that have produced their first corporate responsibility reports in the last several months, revealing good works around the world with varying degrees of transparency. They have senior executives with corporate responsibility responsibilities who, apart from anything else, are really nice.
Sometimes their only shortfall is the inertia of corporate culture. Nike needed a better sense of humor when a sneaky sneaker customer last year ordered personalized shoes printed with the word sweatshop. Nike’s repeated e-mail refusals spread across the internet and into the world’s headlines. Or consider Bob Langert, senior director for global social responsibility at McDonald’s, who was contacted for our cover story: ‘Human rights – a subject near and dear to my heart. I’d do an interview about it any day of the week.’ Any day, that is, except the day McDonald’s corporate communications department intervenes. Someone from another company interviewed via mobile phone couldn’t keep his mind on the subject: ‘Ooh – I’ve just seen my next girlfriend… now where was I?’
Lucky him. For most of us, it’s hard to forget human rights these days. A few months ago we related the story of Terry Meehan, whose specialist firm is now part of Fleet Specialist. Deeply affected by 9/11, he recently left Wall Street seeking some way to alleviate the misery and poverty of so many in the world. As expressed by Georg Kell, executive head of the UN Global Compact, ‘If we want to make this great experiment work, this global market, we can only succeed if it is indeed a global market for all people and not just a couple of billion.’
The Amnesty International Business Group, featured in our cover story, also believes in globalization – ‘one way to create and spread wealth around the world. And without wealth, there is no democracy.’ If only the window-smashing protesters understood this, perhaps they’d realize they’re on the same side as many of the logos they rally against. As Amnesty’s Ulf Karlberg adds, ‘We’re bringing the debate from the streets of Gothenberg and Seattle into the boardroom and into shareholder meetings. That’s where we can have an impact.’
