Recycling the paper clips and making sure the lights are all turned off might tick the box of corporate social responsibility in some firms, but as more and more clients demand real engagement, The Firm tried to find out how to balance moral business practice with profit.

The history of business is littered with ideas, concepts, buzz words and practices that seemed like the commercial Holy Grail at the time, but became quickly outmoded, unfashionable, stale and quite often, nakedly hollow. The “carbon footprints” of today may soon disappear into the ether of shame along with “women’s lib”, “acid rain”, “blue sky thinking”, “hotdesking”, and “time and motion studies” as quickly as a four year old disappears up a chimney. Over the last couple of years, the concept of corporate social responsibility has manouvered itself into fashion, thence to acceptability and quickly into necessity. Now it is currently enjoying across the board ubiquity, all without quite establishing or justifying its actual necessity. Its practice has become commonplace, particularly among the larger firms in Scotland, and indeed the world. Time may yet consign it to the embarrassing corporate landfill where filofaxes now gather dust, or it may establish itself as the definition of the way to profit for the 21st century. Either way, The Firm wanted to find out just exactly what is being done in its name in offices and companies across the country. The corporate psychology is psychopathic, not philanthropic, and somewhere in between those tensions, a firm must try to still make money.  The question is, can CSR be practiced as something more than gesture politics?

“It is now part of the legal landscape, and we might anticipate that at some point in the future all corporate bodies will be required to disclose their ethical, social and environmental risks in their annual reports,” says Anderson Strathern’s chairman Robert Carr, now in his fourth year in the role, and firmly in the driving seat of the firm’s practices.

“Many large corporate organisations do issue CSR reports. The belief of our board was that CSR had to be led from the top, and we began to increase our understanding of the need for an effective CSR policy, which we introduced and launched.  We see it as a concept that permeates everything we do. As the chairman I have the responsibility to lead the key business initiatives for the firm. Clearly CSR is and will remain one of these.”

There are firms out there who claim to operate a robust CSR policy, which in reality extends no further than using recycled paper, perhaps waiting for the fad to blow over. There is clearly a marketing imperative in portraying your firm as ethically and socially responsible, and even the smallest firm can make a gesture, which is laudable. However, if the boss cycles to work, separates his bottles and plastics from the rest of the rubbish and donates to charity anyway, can the firm take credit for it in its policies and use them as a marketing tool?

Even finding an agreed definition for CSR is notoriously difficult, as it is such a subjective concept.  And like it or not, neither BP nor Dundas and Wilson (for example) are Oxfam, have never claimed to be, and have a completely different set of priorities. Finding the balance between doing what is morally right and what is financially advantageous is the mark of a CSR strategy that works. But can the balance be achieved by adapting established business practices, or is it necessary to totally rewire your firm’s thinking?

“My interest in CSR was part of an evolution for the firm. It had always been of considerable interest and part of our ethos going back over many decades,” says Carr.

“Many individuals within the firm, at partner level and every level, had been involved with charitable activity of different sorts, and many of our clients are charities. From 2006 onwards, our board began to reappraise where we were in terms of our CSR thinking. If we think about the workplace, Investors in People has been led by our managing partner Robin Stimpson for over a decade. That of course is a very useful business priority, but also corporately responsible. Maximising the potential of the people you have working in your organisation is something that is good for them at the same time as being good for us and our business.”

“You want to find a congruency between what you are very good at as a law firm, and where you are going to focus your energies in terms of your CSR. Clearly it makes very sound business sense to be producing a working environment that is a friendly place for people to work, that’s safe, that focuses on the development of all those that are working within it. That is corporate social responsibility.  There has to be a linkage between the business benefits and what the business is focusing on.  As a business it is very important that we pay attention to the environment and the communities we are involved with. These bring about business benefits too. That way you continue to be doing good, whilst doing well at the same time.”

Murray Shaw, recently installed as chairman of Biggart Baillie agrees that even the most altruistic CSR policy will contain a benefit that will feedback to the profitability of the firm, and argues that a workable CSR policy has to be practical, as well as morally desirable.

“It is not a one way street. There are intangible advantages for us out of it. A lot of companies when you are tendering are looking for that sort of commitment, and they will want to know what you do. They will be looking at it to make sure it is a bit more than just lip service,” he says.

“It also gives you advantage in terms of staff. You are giving them something different to do and challenging them in different ways. They are learning to make contacts useful for business development, and they do learn different skills out of it.”

“Five or ten years ago, if you were talking about it, you were almost a bit weird – a crackpot. But now it is a serious, serious issue, and quite correctly.”

It wasn’t so long ago that corporate rape was normal, acceptable business practice, and consequences to communities, lifestyles, ethnic groups, cultures, species and landscapes were not even on the cultural radar of business. In some sectors and territories, this remains unchanged. But since the charitably minded 1980s (the decade of environmental awareness, as well as “Greed is good”), ethics in business are now part of the lexicon, if not necessarily or universally part of practice. Notwithstanding the social significance of a robust policy, Shaw is aware that there are practical limits not only to what can be imposed upon staff who may not be sympathetic or even willing to embrace CSR thinking, but also what can be practically achieved in the working environment.

“We have a pretty collegiate approach - we have a managing partner and a board of management. There are a group of us, and CSR is important. We have made a commitment in a number of ways. We are carbon neutral - I am sure that will continue. We have revamped this building and put in movement sensitive lights. Things like that will continue.” Even the pens are recycled at Biggarts.

“I do have aspirations about trying to involve our assistants and associates in social programmes.  The public sector has historically been a larger part of the economy in Scotland than in England, and we want to fulfil our full role in public sector work. Having these sorts of involvements plays in tender-type situations, if you have that sort of commitment.”

Firms of a similar scale to Biggart Baillie and Anderson Strathern have initiated drives of their own in recent years. HBJ Gateley Wareing even have an Environmental CSR Team, who have initiated projects such as a carbon clean-up campaign, joined a  Legal Sector Alliance of firms “committed to reducing the effects of climate change,” and on a more micro level, reset their printers to a default setting of double-sided copying. Promoting recycling, sending e-cards instead of paper ones, and putting teams into events with a socially responsible yield such as the Caledonian Challenge may have the added, and greatly underrated benefit of simply making work more pleasant.

“If it is giving people different interests, a change is as good as a rest. It is not legal work, it is different,” says Shaw.

“The reason we did them is because we thought they were good things to involve our staff in. The primary aim is not that it will play well in tenders. That is a by-product. The primary issue is that it is an interesting idea, and do we want to get involved? Our staff have proved themselves willing to give up what is effectively free time, because they are getting something out of it, see it as good for the firm, and good for them as individuals.  Unless you go overboard, the balance shouldn’t be too difficult to strike, making sure what you do is appropriate and not excessive.”

As Shell learned to their well-publicised cost during the Brent Spar debacle, failing to account for the ethical impact of your business practice is not only off-putting to potential clients, but is rapidly and rabidly exposed by a vigilant press when the defaulter is a well known name or brand. The damage that can be done to a smaller business in the eyes of its client base is no less significant.

“CSR has become quite fashionable, but the reality is it has been going on for years.  Partners in legal firms have traditionally served on public bodies and given up their time on charitable boards. When we go for discussions with formal tender opportunities, they will be looking to see what we do in this area,” says Shaw.

“It may not be the determining factor, but it will be a factor of some significance to them. Certainly of much greater significance now than it was, and you need to prove you have a genuine track record. You see the reverse: Primark are caught out using ‘slave labour’. It is a big, big issue, and they react instantly to it. Everyone is very sensitive to these issues.”

Robert Carr of Anderson Strathern agrees that if you are going to operate a CSR policy at all, it has to be genuine, otherwise your clients will see through it very swiftly.

“There is no question that many large corporate organisations are very interested in what your commitment is around the workplace, the marketplace, the communities and the environment. They are looking for ways you can demonstrate and authenticate that. You are faced with a number of choices each day. In that context, we want to make sure we can play our part as an organisation in leading that. It has to permeate every aspect of your business; your strategy, the way you deliver that, the way you interact with your clients has to reflect that.”