Center for Social Innovation

Published: September 30, 2011 Download  46 minutes, 21.2mb, recorded 2011-04-28

From solar shingles to locally implemented environmental waste collection, companies are creating products and corporate infrastructures that are about more than just profit. Aron Cramer, an advisor on corporate responsibility, points out several benefits in the revolution in this open-call conversation. He explains the need to bridge the gap between businesses for profit and nonprofit organizations, and how any working combination of the two would bring about social change, environmental improvements, and technological innovations.

This open phone call challenges the stereotypes of business and philanthropy, as well the degree of separation between the two sectors. Cramer explains that a synthesis between the two, with an emphasis on the results-based movement of corporations and the socially-based goals of nonprofit organizations, would create investment in small businesses and corporate-social responsibility.

Impact investing, social entrepreneurs, and locally-based businesses are part of a newly growing trend that supports local and international social goals, environmental awareness, and minimization of poverty. This trend, Aron Cramer proves through several examples and in answers to callers' question, is making the world better, and will continue to improve environmental and social standards as businesses and non-profits continue to merge and cooperate.

Aron Cramer is recognized globally as an authority on corporate responsibility by leaders in business and NGOs and by his peers in the field. He advises senior executives at BSR's 250 member companies and other global businesses, and is regularly featured as a speaker at major events and in a range of media outlets. Under his leadership, BSR has doubled its staff and significantly expanded its global presence. Cramer is co-author of the book Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World, about the corporate responsibility strategies that drive business success.

Cramer joined BSR in 1995 as the founding director of its Business and Human Rights Program, and in 2002, he opened BSR's Paris office, where he worked until becoming President and CEO in 2004. Previously, he practiced law in San Francisco and worked as a journalist at ABC News in New York.

Resources:

• The Future of Green series
• 'Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World' at Amazon
• More of Aron Cramer's ideas in the Huffington Post
• Environmental Defense Fund
• Stanford's Graduate School of Business Center for Social Innovation