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'CR' or 'CSR' or 'corporate sustainability' - whichever name you like best, Echo has a new qualification in it.

Last month I sat with French, Swiss, Greeks, Russians, Lebanese and Chinese in a Brussels hotel debating what good sustainable behaviour means and how to become better guides to our clients and colleagues on best CR practice. We'd come together at the global Centre for Sustainability and Excellence to stay abreast of the latest thinking about living and communicating corporate responsibility (CR). It was a chance to consider companies' greatest lapses into unacceptable behaviour, and their more elevated moments.

What became clear to me as we talked was how important 'due diligence' on reputational risks is. The mistake some companies make is to question stakeholders directly themselves about these things. But if the definition of reputation is "What people say about you when you've left the room", then doing your own investigations may not be the best way of getting at the unvarnished truth.

I was impressed to see how much value the workshop's moderators set by research. They saw it as a big tranche in the cycle of running a good CSR programme. The phases of identifying stakeholders, their needs and expectations, the opportunities and risks that might come from them, were all on the agenda.

Communicating and assessing success were said to be vital too - how the social and mainstream media deliver an echo of CR, as a distorted noise or a perfect sound replica.
CR reports were thought to need a test-bed of reader comment about how unique or transparent they are, or else risk being so much 'white noise'. Numbers alone are not illuminating, people said; measuring even distant 'echoes' and perspectives qualitatively gives important feedback on the journey ahead.

The risks from supply chains, and the need to measure supplier conformity to standards, came over as the 'hottest and hardest' topic. Here again, having access to research teams in remote and culturally disparate territories was important in winning intelligence about risks. It was about knowing how different stakeholders march to the beat of different drums, and comparing and reconciling the drumbeats - and for that, a good understanding of cultural relativity was crucial.

After writing a mini-thesis on the ideal CSR programme, and two hard-working, lively days in Brussels, Echo acquired another accreditation to add to the letterhead. (see above)