Seeing bigger value in shared value

Clear the stage for Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz. He’s the latest big name calling for a paradigm shift towards businesses thinking about how to “do more good, not just less bad”. ‘CSR’ can't be confined to a single department, he says, ‘responsibility’ must be woven into the fabric of big business.

Zeitz has seen the business benefit of this kind of approach. His comments are reported in Marketing Week in an article titled ‘The New CSR: This time it’s profitable’, which documents the rush of companies realising that good business is good for the bottom line.

From M&S' £50million benefit of Plan A, to Coca Cola's $100million saving from reduced packaging, this is valuable reading for those knocking on the Chief Financial Officer's door.

The idea that businesses can generate real business value through delivering broader societal value is nothing new. It’s something that Good Business has been helping companies to achieve since 1997! But there certainly seems to be a real and growing buzz about ‘shared value’ this year, kicking off in January with a challenge to old-style capitalist models from Harvard School’s Professor Michael Porter. Let’s hope Marketing Week can inspire the marketing world to join the charge towards responsible growth.