managementseries
— It’s Just Good For Business
have to confess to finding the debate about the voluntary nature of CSR practices a bit tiring. The relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and public policy has
always been a bit fraught, and most definitions see CSR as being unequivocally voluntary
in nature.
Once regulated, CSR practices cease to be ‘responsible’ and become just normal ‘
business as usual’.
As an investor I see this as being a worn-out debate. I am much less interested in definitions
of CSR and much more interested in underlying performance.
In many ways, the CSR label as a whole is unhelpful. In my experience, Chief Executives,
Chief Financial Officers and other company leaders also find it difficult to connect the language
of CSR to their core business and the underlying value drivers.
Rather than seeing energy efficiency initiatives as primarily CSR initiatives, we instead re-
view how such initiatives may have helped to reduce
operational costs and reinforce a company’s brands.
Auditing of supply chains for human rights or environmental abuses is not so much as exercise in
social conscience as an attempt to ensure a quality
and resilient supply-chain.
Henderson’s Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) team takes a long-term view of our investments. We believe we genuinely “invest” in companies rather than merely “trading” them — often
holding companies for five or more years.
Using a relatively long-term horizon in this way
enables us to consider wider non-financial issues
around environmental and social performance and
helps us to select those companies that are best
placed to succeed over the long-term.
Together with a growing number of other investors, we also pay great attention to the long-term
health of the market as a whole. For this reason
Henderson, with 181 investors representing over
$13 trillion in assets, supported a statement on cli-
mate change that calls on international negotiators
to agree on a strong deal at the UN-sponsored talks taking place in Copenhagen from Decem-
ber this year.
This position, which may appear counter-intuitive to some, is based on the realization that in
Seb Beloe, Henderson Global Investors
