1. Ramón Morales Izaguirre OPC
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Discurso del Primer Ministro británico, David Cameron.
Responsabilidad social corporativa.
Londres, Inglaterra. 24 de febrero de 2012.
It is a pleasure to be back speaking alongside His Royal Highness.
Long before corporate responsibility was a big thing, before those buzz-phrases like “ethical
accounting” and “social value”, the Prince was there, urging business to do more, to give more, to
think more about the impact on the world. As in so many areas, his long-term, patient, thoughtful
interest has been proved absolutely right.
Now, of course, we have in this country a great history of business doing good, from the
welfare schemes in Joseph Rowntree's factories to the housing for workers at Port Sunlight.
But it takes dedicated champions - like His Royal Highness, like Business in the Community,
to keep this cause relevant and real. And today business needs champions, more than ever.
In recent months we've heard some dangerous rhetoric creep into our national debate that
wealth creation is somehow anti-social, that people in business are out for themselves.
We have got to fight this mood with everything that we've got.
Not just because it’s wrong for our economy because we need the jobs and the investment
that business brings, but because it is also wrong for our society.
Business is not just about making money, as vital as that is, it's also the most powerful force
for social progress the world has ever known.
It can help us to smash poverty, raise horizons, and drive the innovations, products and
services that make our lives better, longer and happier. And yes, as we’ve heard, some of the
amazing things that business is doing in our communities, helping to build bigger and stronger
societies.
I don’t think this gets celebrated enough.
So what I want to argue today is that those of us who believe in business, in enterprise, in
markets need to come together and prove the skeptics wrong.
2. David Cameron, Responsabilidad corporativa
Ramón Morales Izaguirre OPC
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We need to say that now, more than ever; we need the creative talents of business, not just
for economic innovation but social innovation too.
And let’s be clear about what we’ve heard today. That social innovation then gets
transported back into business. And the leaders that you put the out into the community will come
back as even stronger business leaders for your benefit in the future.
For me this is particularly important. Corporate responsibility is an absolutely vital part of
my mission for this government, which is to build a bigger and stronger society.
The big society is all about people recognizing that they have obligations beyond just paying
their taxes and obeying the law. Not just doing no harm, but doing good.
And this applies to businesses just as much as it does to individuals. Personal and business
responsibility go hand in hand.
Now many people have told me I should ditch this approach. They say it's not the right time,
it's not popular, or it's a distraction. But I say that core belief - in social responsibility, not state
control - is something we're never going to change.
Why?
Because if you look at the scale of the challenges that we face; from youth unemployment to
family breakdown, to drug and alcohol addiction, does anyone think we can turn these things
around just by government changing laws or passing down edicts from above?
Of course not.
We've tried the top-down approach to running a country and we've seen that it doesn’t work.
What's really going to change this nation is collaboration, cooperation; businesses, charities,
individuals working with each other and with government to make life better. Not just government
action, but social action; not just government responsibility, but personal and corporate
responsibility. That is going to make the difference for our country.
Of course, there are those who attack this approach. And as I see it, there are three main
accusations.
First, that it's just a cover for cuts- a way for government to duck its own responsibilities.
Second, that it's a fig-leaf of respectability for business- a way for companies to convince the
world they're doing great things when actually they're not.
3. David Cameron, Responsabilidad corporativa
Ramón Morales Izaguirre OPC
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And third, some people argue, that business' role in strengthening society is a distraction
from its real job - which is making money.
Let me take these three in turn.
Let's start with the argument that all this is a cover for cuts.
It goes that when politicians like me talk about responsible business, what we're really trying
to do is out-source the work of government and get social change on the cheap.
Now, there is a flaw in this argument, which is that I've been talking about building a bigger
and stronger society for years - long before the necessity for cuts.
Because even if government had ten times the money that we have today, there would still
be big problems we couldn't crack on our own.
Take the obesity crisis.
Now government can run public health campaigns it can make other interventions but if the
food and drinks industry make it harder, not easier to live a healthy life, we'll always be defeated.
That's why we've signed supermarkets and high street restaurants up to the Responsibility
Deal, asking them to play their part...like Subway and Costa putting calorie information up front
when people are buying.
The point is there are parts of our society that business can reach which the state just can't.
And then of course, there are those things that business is simply better at that government.
Think of what the Big Issue has done to give dignity to homeless people or what Marks and
Spencer is doing by employing those with mental health problems; they are changing the way
people think in a way government on its own cannot do.
Business is simply very good at influencing attitudes and coming up with fresh ideas.
That is why we set up Every Business Commits. It asks business to do more across five
areas: improving skills, supporting small business, protecting the environment, improving quality of
life, and helping local communities.
Norman Lamb, our new Minister for Corporate Responsibility, is going to be driving this
forward, and the good news for him is that real progress is already being made.
4. David Cameron, Responsabilidad corporativa
Ramón Morales Izaguirre OPC
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Take for instance apprenticeships. There are a record number of apprenticeships starts last
year, but we want more. So we sent out the call for more companies to come forward and offer
them. The response: more than five and a half thousand new apprenticeship places already offered
since the start of this year. I believe, this is a powerful answer to the critics.
Asking business to do more isn't about making do and mending, it's about making things
better.
And while we're arguing this, we've got to take on certain snobbish attitudes.
The snobbery that says business has no inherent moral worth like the state does; that it isn't
really to be trusted, that it should stay out of social concerns and stick to making the money that
pays the taxes.
We see this in the debate on education.
Put a young person into college for a month's learning, unpaid and it's hailed as a good thing.
Put a young person into a supermarket for a month's learning, unpaid and it's slammed as
slave labor.
Put a child into a great school run by a local authority that’s a cause for celebration.
Put them into a great school backed by a bank and that is a cause for suspicion.
Frankly I am sick of this anti-business snobbery.
I see companies like UBS sending their workers into the Bridge Academy in Hackney, raising
those children's sights.
I see Barclays offering over 3,000 work experience placements for pupils and I say that has
got nothing to do with cuts and everything to do with improving our country. And frankly it should
be applauded that rather be talked down at.
The second accusation I want to take on is that corporate responsibility is a bit superficial.
It's the idea that companies are winning people over without actually helping to change the
world.
Now, the truth is that when this movement first began, there was an aspect of it –there was
some of it- was quite superficial.
5. David Cameron, Responsabilidad corporativa
Ramón Morales Izaguirre OPC
5
You did get companies practicing a sort of “moral off-setting” allowing irresponsible things
to happen day after day then once a year making a big pay-out to charity to ease their conscience.
But over the last two decades corporate responsibility has changed utterly. Today it's about
integrating your values deeply into the soul of your business.
So Starbucks don't just give millions to charity they also help coffee farmers all over the
world to boost their incomes.
BT don't just support charities like ChildLine, they have a great track record in supporting
women back into work after maternity leave.
The Business Connectors approach we've seen absolutely embodies this approach.
Companies like Sainsbury's, Greggs and Lloyds aren't just saying "here's some money" -
they're saying "here are our people”, “here are some of our best people”, our store managers,
executives and directors."
They're helping shopkeepers devastated by the riots, setting up mentor schemes, giving a
boost to local charities, making a real difference on the ground. And when they're finished as a
Business Connector, they'll go back to their job buzzing with new ideas.
This is what it's all about: doing good and doing well out of it.
That links to the final argument against responsible business -that it's a distraction from the
real task of making money.
Milton Friedman once said that the social responsibility of business is to maximize profits.
In an important sense he is right. Profit-making keeps investment flowing and creates the
jobs and the prosperity that we need in our country.
Where he is wrong is to assume a contradiction between improving your prospects and
improving the world. As Prince Charles just argued so forcefully, they should go together.
Just look at what Unilever have done in India. They saw a "fortune at the bottom of the
pyramid"- millions of people who had small amounts of disposable income. So they developed
products specifically for that market, so the costumers were winning, but the business was wining
too.
There is a clear, hard-headed business case for behaving responsibly and that's especially true
for building a strong brand.
6. David Cameron, Responsabilidad corporativa
Ramón Morales Izaguirre OPC
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Businesses live or die on likeability. People like John Lewis because they know all their staff
get a share of the profits. They like the Body Shop for its work in the developing world.
But they are the exceptions because the vast majority of good business goes under the radar.
Today I can tell you we want to change that - to link the good work you're doing much more
directly with public recognition.
This is a government that believes strongly in transparency, in making public information.
We've seen how powerful it can be. Since 2010 we've released unprecedented amounts of
public data - and the response has been phenomenal. Hundreds of millions of hits online- a whole
new industry springing up to seize on the data and make it user friendly.
[Improvisation]
All this is backed by new technologies.
Amazon now has an app that lets you scan a product in a shop and see in seconds if you can
get it cheaper elsewhere.
Now just imagine the possibilities for responsible business.
You could get people choosing mobile phone companies not just on their tariffs but their
carbon emissions or supermarkets not just on price but how green they are.
Now I know many of you in this room are already very open but the truth is that not enough
are, and most consumers don't know where to find that information anyway.
We think this needs looking at - and many of you do too.
Let me be clear.
We're not talking about heaping more burdens on you. We want business to lead, devise and
shape this new era of transparency.
So today I can announce that we are setting up an informal working group called the Open
Business Forum.
Chaired by Philip N. Green, our advisor on corporate responsibility, this is going to bring
together companies like yours.
It's going to ask how we can make business more transparent without making life more
difficult and with the help of government.
7. David Cameron, Responsabilidad corporativa
Ramón Morales Izaguirre OPC
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And for smaller businesses, we've teamed up with companies to launch something else; an
online directory called Trading For Good, showing where small businesses are doing good things,
so consumers can know about it and reward them for it.
All this could be the next frontier for corporate responsibility: giving more power to
consumers, changing our culture; above all, reinforcing that vital link between responsibilities on the
one hand and profits on the other.
I want to end by reiterating my core message to you today.
Free enterprise is the best imaginable force for improving our lives and it has a powerful role
to play in renewing our country.
As we go forward together I want the relationship between this government and business to
continue as it's started -not leading you but collaborating and cooperating with you; not bossing
from the top-down but encouraging the changes you're making from the bottom up.
Working together for more responsible business, for bigger and stronger society. And above
all, for a better country.
Thank you very much indeed for listening.
