Our efforts and initiatives to help the planet must have gained attention in the Norwegian business world – because last week Starboard Blue was invited to speak at the annual CSR Conference in Norway.
Starboard Blue started with a desire to help the oceans – as we spend most our time of the water. We simply wanted to give back to our big blue playground. Then people started to compliment us for our good CSR. CSR? What on earth is that?
In 1953, Howard Bowen published his book, Social Responsibilities of the Businessman. He is largely credited with coining the phrase ‘corporate social responsibility’ and is perhaps the Father of CSR.
CSR is a company’s integration of social and environmental concerns into their business model. Many now believe corporate social responsibility is the future of business success.
Starboard has supported various projects since the 90’s that now go under the term CSR. We believe that sharing CSR achievements can be an important part in corporate affairs.
Why? Because it needs to be. The truth is that our forests are shrinking, our ice caps are melting, children are starving and all kinds of suffering still exist. Pollution is killing us. Poverty is killing us. These are the facts. Governments are now taking better measures, people are taking action and the ever more powerful corporate sector needs to step up to accelerate progress.
One common theme at the conference was purpose. We all need to find our purpose. That means choosing values for our companies that are important to us. At the conference we showed how Starboard Blue has chosen its purpose: to help our oceans. We talked about our achievements – our eco-projects – but perhaps more importantly; how we achieved them. It’s so important that we share our knowledge in order to make CSR a common benefit.
We need to make CSR mainstream!
That was one the most interesting topics discussed at the conference. When we implement CSR as a common value in the industry and make it mainstream – imagine all the good that would be done for the world right away.
But how do we make corporate social responsibility mainstream? We talk about it, we share it and we compete in it – as we do with most other business affairs. It’s no longer only about being best in the world, we need to challenge ourselves to be the best for the world.
You know that at Starboard we challenge ourselves everyday to be better for the world with eco-initiatives. But did you know that Starboard already 5 years ago built a school for 500 kids in Myanmar and last year opened another one for 100 kids. Have you heard about the Tiki clinic we opened 4 years ago and which we still supply medical support to?
Well, now you know, so we have shared some of our CSR projects with you and look forward to hear all about yours!
