It’s been a number of years since we have seen any initiative lead by a power brand in the arena of corporate social responsibility. This Wednesday, Pepsi launches one of the biggest corporate social responsibility efforts that we’ve seen since the launch of (RED) in 2006 with the Pepsi Refresh Project.

Good CSR takes strategic development and an early glimpse tells us that Pepsi has hit a home run.  Why?  Here’s ten reasons Pepsi looks to have gotten it right.

1. Brilliant name leveraging what Pepsi is and what the initiative suggests (an innovative, short term experiment).  It creates expectations for the new and unthinkable.  It allows for evolution of concept.  It feels lively and substantial all at the same time.
2. Beautifully executed.  The allure of the web site demonstrates this was no Q4 afterthought.  Great colors, great graphics, modern, polished and very navigable.
3. Simple. They’ve managed to take a rather complex process and reduce it to content that makes sense and leaves you without questions.  Make no mistake, this is really hard to do.
4. Momentum builder.  This isn’t a one-time effort.  They have invested US $20 million to support this initiative over the course of 12 months.  This will create visibility for the brand and will generate hype for the process, the brand and the winning organizations, well beyond campaign time.
5. Understated. Pepsi is doing this instead of a Super Bowl ad spend.  Do they fall all over themselves telling you that?  No, they focus on the opportunity.  That’s finesse. Confidence. Leadership.
6. Scope. This isn’t simply focused on an area where you’d expect Pepsi to focus their CSR efforts.  Going beyond water and community issues, the Pepsi Refresh Project paves the way for six different avenues of social impact.  Your issues. Your ideas. Your choice.
7. Smart messaging. Consumers are inherently optimistic and respond to positive messages.  Yet we are living in difficult times and marketers need to be careful.  With “Refresh Everything”, Pepsi manages to communicate a uniquely appropriate brand and product message that aligns with a believable promotional effort that is spot-on relevant.
8. Digital advocacy. Presented online, promoted online, managed online – this campaign will be endlessly sticky with infininte opportunities for leveraging social media.  Participants will be given the tools to promote it.  There is transparent tracking.  This campaign marries the best of social media and entrepreneurial advocacy.
9. Urgency.  It is not one giant long-running campaign.  It is twelve individual months of contests.  There is a stopwatch on the main page that is counting down to launch, to enter, and to vote.  And grant winners will receive their funding in an astounding four weeks from each month’s announcement of winners.  Pepsi means business!
10. Appeal.  This isn’t drippy do-goodersim.  This is about Pepsi as the facilitator of actionable ideas.  This is about the consumer using Pepsi as the platform.  This is relationship building and brand leverage at its best.

I’m especially happy its happening virtually because my favorite CEO, Jeff Schwartz of Timberland, is giving the keynote. If you, like me are out of town, you do not to have to miss it.

It makes sense that a summit on new models of social responsibility should take place making use of a new model of communications. And the event is environmentally friendly as well. By utilizing web conferencing technology, the live summit’s carbon footprint is minimized (because large events can have significant environmental impacts).  According to the organizers:

This is a ground-breaking summit that is using the latest communications technology to reach everyone who can help add to the knowledge necessary to to make social responsibility the way all organizations conduct business.

The summit has all the makings of a must-attend event:

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Today’s business climate is more competitive than ever.  Several highly qualified MBA grads are vying for fewer and fewer corporate jobs.  According to a 2008-2009 survey by the MBA Career Services Council, business schools have experienced a drop in corporate recruiting of more than 10 percent affecting more than half of the 94 top-ranked business schools in the United States, Canada and Europe.  Scary, isn’t it…especially if you’re one of the many contemplating a return to graduate school.  So what would set you apart or give you the competitive edge to land that corporate gig?  Corporate Social Responsibility

The Aspen Institute just released the 2009-2010 edition of Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial survey and alternative ranking of full-time MBA programs that integrate issues of social and environmental stewardship into curricula and research.  Did your school make the list?

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Owned by the Taylor family of St. Louis – which also owns and operates Enterprise Rent-A-Car – Enterprise Fleet Management offers businesses with medium-sized fleets services to efficiently manage their vehicle fleet.

The award comes as no real surprise for this blogger, as Enterprise Rent-A-Car has come to our attention on several occasions for their work expanding their low emissions rental fleet, providing van pool services throughout various cities across the U.S., funding alternative fuel research, and acting generally as a good corporate citizen.

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We recently applauded Apple for its new energy efficient 17″ MacBook, but news that the company wants to stifle shareholder requests to publish a Corporate Sustainability Report has overshadowed our praise.

The shareholder resolution was proposed by an environmental group called As You Sow, and asks for detailed information about toxins, recycling, greenhouse gases, and more. This past Wednesday, Apple’s board of directors asked shareholders to vote against the resolution.

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KPMG’s International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting came out over a month ago, but at 118 pages, it has taken me a while to go through it. If you’d like to check it out, download the report from the KPMG site.

But if you’d like a quick summary, here are some highlights that stood out to me:

First, some good news: The report says, “Corporate responsibility reporting has gone mainstream – nearly 80 percent of the largest 250 companies worldwide… issued reports.” However, the continuation of that sentence says, “…and an additional four percent integrated corporate responsibility information into their annual reports.”

I’d love to hear from an annual report writer or investor relations executive, because four percent sounds very low. Maybe there is a good reason for a stand-alone report, but it seems to me that sustainability and social responsibility should be integral to corporate operations in the Twenty-first Century.

(I get ahead of myself. The punchline of the KPMG report is that companies are not integrating sustainability and social responsibility plans sufficiently. Many companies may report their plans, but very few declare their strategies and results.)

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Like corporate social responsibility (CSR), you find yourself semi-exhausted before the next sentence.

You sense inherent good in each of these phrases – sure – but just want them to make sense in a realer world.

And so to the VCS.

Voluntary carbon offsetting is big business. In 2006, there was a huge surge in this market resulting in a 200% growth.

Big brands were, and are, getting into carbon offsetting in a big way. Google, Nike, Coca Cola, Yahoo! – all are now part of this market.

I don’t think it at all beneficial at this stage to analyse their reasons for announcing green credentials. Whether it really is genuine CSR or in each case a PR exercise is redundant. Don’t muddy the waters. They’re doing it.

So, yes, multinationals are offsetting their carbon within the voluntary sector. Good.

But what’s drawing them to the market? Two reasons.

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This comes mere weeks after Gordon Brown, the UK’s new prime minister, gave his first speech on the environment. Whilst not being exactly radical, it did at least entertain some hope that we finally had a leader with green credentials.

Until London Heathrow that is.

Airport bosses must be dancing a jig at the moment because the government has decided to give the green light to a third runway. And yes, I use the word “green” witheringly.

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