0362-A5
Cornelius B. Pratt 1
The purpose of this paper is to respond to the question: How can organizations, particularly global corporations, respond effectively to the challenges of sustainable forest management (SFM) in sub-Saharan Africa? It addresses that question by linking two (theoretical) constructs - corporate social performance (CSP) and SFM - and arguing that global organizations should apply them ethically as a pathway to responding more effectively to the challenges of the societies or nations in which they operate. (Industry is a key player in SFM in much of Africa.) It avers that business - a harbinger of sustainable development in the developing world - can contribute to the sustainability of forests by (a) applying normative core values of its social performance, (b) responding to community challenges, and (c) collaborating with other organizations and community groups to accomplish (a) and (b).
Africa's rain forests, like most forests, absorb industrial effluents that are potentially hazardous to the environment; yet, an estimated 77% of the continent's frontier forests are under moderate to high threat, much of it from logging - a largely commercial, corporate-intensive activity. For example, South Africa, one of Africa's most industrial nations, accounts for 39% of the continent's emissions from fossil fuels and cement; it also has a higher annual per capita emission of carbon dioxide than the global average. Integrating CSP and SFM can provide the framework for implementing community-sensitive organizational actions and for fostering an ethic for the global corporations' contribution to SFM.
This paper presents five elements of that framework: communitarianism, community engagement, mutuality of interests, the common good and commerce and citizenship.
Additionally, it recommends that the global corporations should (a) emphasize actions that encourage organization-public relationships; (b) integrate indigenous cultural practices into production and marketing practices; and (c) adopt a certification process - and encourage its widespread use domestically - by which forest products are produced and marketed in a sustainable manner.
While industry represents perhaps the single biggest threat to society and the natural world, it can also represent one of our greatest allies in our mission to safeguard it and provide for its sustainable development.-World Wide Fund for Nature (in Marsden 2000, p. 9)
The New Partnership for Africa's Development, an initiative approved 11 July 2001 by African leaders, describes the region's forests as one of humankind's most beneficial resources: they are its "ecological lung." Its rain forests, like forests elsewhere, absorb emissions and industrial effluents that are potentially hazardous to the environment. Yet an estimated 77 percent of its frontier forests is under moderate to high threat, much of it from unsustainable logging (Economic Commission for Africa 2001), a largely commercial, corporate-intensive activity. Such threat, which results in a continuing high loss of forest cover, is broadly evident in one of Africa's most industrial nations, South Africa, which accounts for 39 percent of the continent's emissions from fossil fuels and cement; it also has a higher annual per capita emission of carbon dioxide than the global average. Corporate social performance (CSP) can provide the framework for implementing community-sensitive organizational actions and for fostering an ethic for the global corporation's contributions to sustainable forest management (SFM). And this is particularly important in many sub-Saharan African countries, where demands on agriculture and the policies and attitudes of governments and social-political institutions influence production and consumption patterns, and where the 0.8 percent annual average rate of net deforestation between 1990 and 2000 well exceeds the global rate of 0.2 percent.
Pari passu with those challenges are sub-Saharan Africa's deteriorating environment and ecosystems, its faltering agricultural productivity (most recently in Zimbabwe), its heavy-handed state intervention, its inadequate foreign investment, its improper political governance, its limited public health programs, its constrained business partnerships, and its social upheavals. A statement issued at the conclusion of the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg, South Africa, August 26-September 4, 2002, underscored the enduring nature of those challenges: "Africa's efforts to achieve sustainable development have been hindered by conflicts, insufficient investment, limited market access opportunities and supply side constraints, unsustainable debt burdens, historically declining ODA [official development assistance] levels, and the impact of HIV/AIDS."
It is against that backdrop that this paper focuses on the question, How can organizations, particularly the global corporation, respond effectively to the challenges of sustainable forest management in sub-Saharan Africa?
Consider the following outcomes:
To address those outcomes, which have exacerbated environmental challenges, this paper links two (theoretical) constructs-CSP and SFM-and argues that global organizations apply them ethically as a pathway to responding more effectively to the challenges of the nation-states in which they operate. It argues that business organizations-as harbingers of much development in the developing world-apply normative core values of their social performance to evaluating and responding to community challenges and to collaborating with other organizations and community groups in their contributions to sustainable forests. WSSD acknowledged the importance of ethics for sustainable development and emphasized the need to consider such ethics in the implementation of "Agenda 21" of the "Rio Earth Summit."
Corporate Social Performance. Wood (1991a) defines CSP as an organization's responsiveness to the needs of its stakeholders. It refers to responsibilities beyond those required by law or by employee unions. It includes organizational activities such as a firm's record on environmental issues, its history of philanthropic donations, and its inclusion of women and minorities in influential positions (Carroll 1979, Sharfman 1996, Wood 1991a). It integrates three principles: (a) corporate social and ecological responsibility; (b) social responsiveness and issues management; and (c) outcomes of corporate social impacts, social programs, and social policies (Bansal and Roth 2000, Stanwick and Stanwick 1998, Wartick and Cochran 1985, Wood 1991a, 1991b).
Sustainable Forest Management. This construct, associated with environmental sustainability, conservation and ecological sustainability, means the management of ecological resources to meet societies' current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet similar needs. Beyond that, companies pledge to meet societies' expectations for affordable products and of environmental values (Heissenbuttel, et al. 2001). In 1993 the Canadian government convened in Montréal a seminar of experts in sustainable development. They developed seven criteria for and 67 indicators of SFM, more succinctly labeled the Montréal Process Criteria and Indicators (C&I).
The Montréal Process C&I, world summits on the environment, and protest movements point to a synergy in the analysis of corporate behavior vis-à-vis SFM. Bhagwati (2002) argues that imaginative institutional and policy innovation is required to address globalization's occasional downsides. For example, in the mid-1990s, conservation groups charged Isoroy, a French timber company, with building logging roads (giving poachers access to wildlife) and destroying lowland forest reserves and primary rain forests in Gabon. Consequently, Isoroy developed a 30-year management plan that had an environmental code of conduct by which it limits tree felling, plants trees, minimizes damage to other trees in the Central African rain forest, and educates employees and their families to understand and appreciate environmental issues. Integrating CSP and SFM can provide the framework for fostering an ethic for the global corporation's contribution to SFM-and for communicating such contributions with multiple audiences. Those are subsumed under five indiscrete, complementary elements, as an ethic that frames corporate behavior: communitarianism, community engagement, mutuality of interests, the common good, commerce and citizenship.
Communitarianism. For Africans, the very notion of the self is counterproductive to their penchant for communitarianism. This, in turn, explains their penchant for tribal institutions and their strong loyalty to the tribe in preference to the nation. Moemeka (1997, 1998) describes communitarianism as the supremacy of the community; it gives the community pride of place as supreme authority over the individual, who, whenever necessary, defers to community interest.
For a corporation to adopt communitarianism requires that it unify with its stakeholders who are also community residents; that it seek out areas where its citizenship can be most creatively accomplished; and that it set itself as a model of exemplary corporate behavior by telling the truth, participating in a struggle for equitable social order and embracing the ethical norm of human dignity. Global corporations that disregard the cultural attributes of African thought and behavioral patterns or whose management styles run afoul of cultural practices perpetuate hostile work environments and earn the ire of local residents, as was the case with the Shell Petroleum Development Company in Nigeria.
Its parent, the Royal Dutch Shell Company Group, had been a target of environmentalists, particularly Greenpeace and the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People in southeastern Nigeria, because its actions were largely antithetical to communitarianism. In 1958 Shell began oil exploration in Nigeria's Niger delta, where the company's pipelines, about 18 inches above ground, crisscrossed the Niger delta. Flames from intense heat at points where gas burns made farming difficult and environmental damage palpable. Oil accounts for 90 percent of Nigeria's export earnings. Yet, compensation to the Ogoni people was low; their homeland had been mired in abject poverty; unemployment was high; and environmental damage on, and raids against, Ogoni communities were pronounced. Shell had colluded with Nigeria's late dictator, Sani Abacha, to amass weapons and ammunitions for the Nigerian police, to despoil the Ogoni people's homeland, and to leave them with nothing more than a pittance in royalties. Citizen protests, arrests, assassinations and intimidation were common. Shell Oil was insular, arrogant, inward-looking, defensive, and uncommunicative (Mirvis 2000).
Community Engagement. Organizations use moral reasoning to arrive at organizational decisions, have cultures that embrace rationality and respect, and are dependent on multiple parties to create and recreate their own cultures and communities. Working with communities entails much more than getting involved in community projects; it requires setting up a system for community input well before major projects are under way; it requires searching for channels by which community views are represented in organizational decision-making; it requires that corporations, as moral agencies, enunciate and share their cultures with their stakeholders; it requires that business and community interests be aligned for their mutual benefit; and it requires the sharing of organizational symbolism with all stakeholders and being influenced by concerns and interests of the latter.
Engaging the grassroots is illustrated in Kenya's Green Belt Movement, whose operations fan across the entire continent. Began in 1977, when logging and deforestation were factors in the deterioration of the country's ecosystem, it employs some 100,000 people, mostly women, who have planted more than 20 million trees, which, in turn, supply their planters with fruits, leaves and branches that are occasionally sold to local manufacturers and retailers. The movement also collaborates with global companies to promote organic farming and sustainable practices. The local women, the business sector and the environment benefit from efforts grounded in the local environment.
Key questions have been raised regarding community engagement. For example, What stakeholders should participate in corporate governance, and what are the ways and means of their representation? (Etzioni 1998). For community representation, Etzioni suggests that communities be granted a voice in approximate proportion to the size and duration of their respective investments in corporations. And Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) point to stakeholder influence, legitimacy and urgency of claim as criteria for determining stakeholder salience.
Mutuality of Interests. From the preceding section, it is clear that the various audiences who comprise an organization's stakeholders do not have equal rank-and do not influence an organization with equal intensity. Even if they do, do they have consistent interests? Do investors have the same community-development interests as short-term employees? Do creditors and community residents have consistent interests? In June 1998, the World Bank provided a loan for further construction of a dam on the Orange River, in southern Africa, a move that irked environmentalists who wanted studies on possible environmental damage before project implementation. Residents on the path of the dam saw the project as an environmental hazard and as a precursor to economic hardships. Such chasm is sometimes also apparent internally-that is, between employee interest and the direction of organizational investments.
Common Good. This has been defined as "everything that is good to more than one person, that perfects more than one person, that is common to all" (Argandoña 1998, p. 1095). It is the fulfillment of a company's purpose as a company, that is, the creation of conditions that enable its stakeholders achieve their personal goals. The good for the individual translates normatively into the good for the community. A 1905 letter sent by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson on the transfer of authority over national forestlands to the U.S. Forest Service noted that "all land is to be devoted to its most productive use for the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies" (Pinchot 1974, p. 261). The common good, as a communication ethic, transcends the values and interests of any single group.
It can be argued that segmenting audiences as stakeholders is inherently divisive because the latter are categorized in accordance with their influence and legitimacy and the urgency of their corporate claims. It can be viewed as antithetical to the tenets of sustainable development, principles that are the armor of protest publics. If those were so, then, it stands to reason that organizational programs directed toward the common good be implemented in a fair, judicious, equitable manner that does not pit one group against another. Inter-group dynamics can determine what group is ahead of other groups in terms of returns on investment-creating group conflicts.
Commerce and Citizenship. Admittedly, public- and private-sector agencies have different goals: the former operates avowedly in the public interest, the latter in that of their investors, that is, to yield sizable returns on their investment. Perhaps that is where the difference ends. In reality, both sectors have more similarities than differences: to serve as good citizens of the societies in which they operate.
An organization's level of social performance is a key measure of its citizenship. But what is good corporate citizenship? Davenport's (2000) Delphi study identified three key indicators of corporate citizenship: (a) the use of rigorous ethical standards in business dealings; (b) company commitment to all stakeholders-community, consumers, employees, investors, suppliers; and (c) company commitment to the environment, that is, through programs such as recycling, waste and emission abatement, and impact assessment through environmental audits. Participants also identified 20 principles of corporate citizenship-such as investing in communities in which a business operates, respecting the rights of consumers, and engaging in genuine dialogue with stakeholders, in responsible human-resource management, and in fair trading practices with suppliers.
It is critical, then, that global organizations demonstrate and communicate with their stakeholders about their commitment to (a) ethical principles in business conduct, (b) all stakeholders, and (c) to the environment. That communication can be enabled by corporate participation in events or the use of innovative ideas that project activities grounded in ethics and in stakeholder and environmental commitment.
Two architectural examples illustrate the potential value of environmental sensitivity to SFM. Advanced technologies and alternative methods for home-building can improve energy efficiency, affordability, durability, environmental performance, disaster resistance, and the overall safety of housing. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory, in collaboration with the Southern Forest Products Association, the Engineered Wood Association, and the Advanced Housing Research Center, completed a four-bedroom, 2,200-square-foot research demonstration house that showcases moisture-resistant construction techniques, proper building practices for moisture control, the use of recycled materials in home-building, resource sustainability and energy efficiency.
The use of similar technologies is being planned for urban renewal in South Africa, where Earthlife Africa in 1993 conceived the Greenhouse People's Environmental Center Project. Indigenous technologies and materials will be used to build the house at Joubert Park, in Johannesburg. The house, like that in Wisconsin, USA, will be an epitome of green values and practices. Research on sustainable technologies and materials that will be used in the building is being done at the University of Witwatersrand.
The preceding analysis suggests three recommendations. First, CSP should be grounded in an ethic that emphasizes developing corporate actions that encourage relationship-building and communicate the "good news" of tangible corporate contributions to SFM in Africa-and a recognition of those contributions. It is also advisable that attempts be made to extend that communication effort to the ideal two-way symmetrical process in which organizations use communication to manage conflict and improve understanding among stakeholders and to promote organization-stakeholder change.
Second, corporations in sub-Saharan Africa should engage in both a culture-balancing act and invest in environment-sensitive programs by, for example, co-opting indigenous cultures into their practices in ways that will foster the common good of all stakeholders, in ways that are consistent with the principles of sustainable resource management, and in ways that will ensure "the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit" (Pinchot 1974, p. 216) of those corporations.
Third, granted that no protocols, ground rules or codes of corporate behavior can ever fully capture the contingencies for an ethic-driven corporate response, minuscule efforts by global corporations and by a handful of major African companies to certify tropical forest products and claim that they have been produced sustainingly are encouraging. A program such as that by the Sustainable Forest Initiative, begun in 1994 by the paper products industry in the United States, can engender widespread use of environmentally sensitive production methods that will enable corporate actions to assuage the environmental groups, to strengthen relationships between the global corporation and its stakeholders, to demonstrate sensitivity to the environmental impacts of corporate actions, to enable a number of global organizations to rise well above their occasional pariah status, and, above all, to foster and sustain a region's much-needed forest management for sustainable development.
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1 United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Washington, DC, USA. Postal address: 231 Bristol Downs Drive, Gaithersburg, MD 20877-4303, USA. [email protected]