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Stephen Timms MP

BiTC Awards for Excellence
Stephen Timms MP

Lancaster House, London


Wednesday, June 19, 2002


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Thank you very much Julia. I am delighted to be here today to celebrate the achievements of the finalists in the Awards for Excellence 2002, and indeed to be the Minister responsible for Corporate Social Responsibility.

Twelve years ago, I became Leader of the Council in the Borough of Newham in East London. One of the first things that happened was I had a visit from the then also new Chief Executive of Tate and Lyle, the biggest private sector employer in the area.

This may be a slightly unfair characterisation of the relationship before that meeting between the Council and its biggest private sector employer, but if it is, it is only slightly unfair. The truth is they never talked. My impression was that relationship had been set in stone in the 1950s when the Labour Party wanted to nationalise the sugar industry and Tate and Lyle's Mr Cube was crusading against. And the two had barely spoken in the intervening quarter of a century. I think the only discussion had been when Tate and Lyle came in each year to complain about the rate rise – and that was it.

For the Council and the community there began with that meeting an immensely fruitful partnership which has flourished ever since. There have been benefits at many different levels and in lots of unexpected ways as well as in the ways that were originally intended. So in stating my commitment to corporate social responsibility I can draw on having seen the benefits over the past decade and more.

I often think it was just as well that that Chief Executive was a Canadian because it meant he was mercifully free from the baggage which had prevented communication, let alone partnership, in the past. The kind of initiation we are celebrating this evening does need new thinking outside some of the conventional constraints.

And what I have learned from what I have seen is that responsible corporate engagement can bring ambition and imagination and good organisation where otherwise there was just despair. It can bring new ideas and new approaches, new enthusiasm of the kind that gets things done. It can put caring people – of whom there are many – in touch with situations that need caring about, and there are lots of those as well.

And so in paying tribute today to some of the best of corporate social responsibility, we are paying tribute to initiatives which have dramatically changed things for the better. Some of them have been in education – and I know some of the award winners from the excellent work I learned about as schools minister over the past year.

Corporate Social Responsibility offers an approach that gets away from the old idea that economic, social and environmental goals must somehow always be in conflict. What we need to work out is how progress on any one of those fronts can support progress on the others – business, the voluntary sector, and public bodies all working together, not grudgingly, but because each sees it as advancing its own key interests to do so, as well as the interests of others.

A lot of businesses and other organisations accept the need for responsible behaviour as a matter of principle; but they find that these activities can help build brand value, help foster customer loyalty, help motivate their staff and contribute to a good reputation among a wide range of stakeholders. At the same time, their involvement can have an immensely positive impact on social and environmental progress.

So we want more organisations to adopt socially and environmentally responsible practices. And we also want responsible behaviour to become central to how organisations work, rather than be an afterthought.

We want to see private and public sector organisations recognising the economic, social and environmental impact of their activities and taking complementary action to address key challenges arising from those impacts, drawing on their core competences – and doing so nationally, and internationally.

So we aim to:

  • Raise the profile of corporate social responsibility, for example by encouraging more CSR reporting;

  • Promote greater transparency and clearer guidance on CSR reporting; and support international CSR;

  • Assist small and medium sized enterprises to get involved where we know there is a great deal of interest, for example by stimulating a joint approach among their advisory bodies.

The European Commission will be publishing a "Communication Document" on Corporate Social Responsibility early next month followed by a period of wide consultation. They are particularly keen to set up an EU Stakeholder Forum, to help share socially responsible practices and improve the knowledge of CSR.

The Awards for Excellence 2002 show great commitment on the part of all the organisations involved. We are delighted at the Department of Trade and Industry to be sponsoring these Awards again. Congratulations to all of you, thank you for what you have been doing, and let's keep working together to bring about the changes in our organisations and our communities that all of us want to see.

Thank you.
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