The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to a company’s efforts to take responsibility for its impacts on society and the environment. Benefits likely to be derived from applying CSR include enhanced reputation, customer loyalty, and better employee satisfaction.

Scion’s Dr Grace Villamor has been looking at the application of CSR internationally and comparing this with its adoption by New Zealand’s corporate forestry sector. Her aim was to establish how many forestry companies report publicly on their social and environmental impacts, as well as on their efforts to improve their performance in these areas.

She discovered that only five out of 20 companies produce an annual local or New Zealand-wide sustainability report. These reports all varied in their scope, covering a range of economic, environmental and social activities.

“It’s important to remember that a lack of reporting doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of CSR activity on the ground,” says Grace, “but we’ve learnt that CSR reporting is really not part of New Zealand forest company culture.”

Environmental foresters questioned by Grace consider that a new framework or set of standards is needed to enable consistent reporting across all of NZ’s corporate forest owners. Company managers, rather than operational foresters, are the people likely to be making decisions on adopting and reporting CSR, and bringing these people into the conversation is a future challenge for Grace and her team.