Forex

Companies are reshaping
our society. It is not a
new phenomenon, but
the scope and speed of
their impact are faster than ever.
In 19th-century England, canal
builders and railway engineers
recast the demographic landscape,
facilitating industrialisation,
connecting faraway places
and enabling ideas to travel too.
In the 20th century, airlines
took up the baton, carrying
goods, people, ideas and diseases
further afield. Today, the most
obvious shifts relate to electronic
communications technology.
Think of how YouTube and
Google are changing the behaviour
of Generation Y and many
of their parents, and of the
anthropologists hired by Nokia
and Microsoft in the search to
understand why a tradesman,
connected by mobile phone to a
third party, may walk into your
office giving little more than a
raised eyebrow as a greeting.
Yet these are changes wrought
by companies through their ability
to adopt and spread technology
in the search for profit.
The Corporate Responsibility
Index established by Business in
the Community is designed to do
something much more deliberate:
to spread best practice in the
way companies interact with
their stakeholders. It sounds
innocuous enough, and would be
hard to object to. Yet its impact
on society may be just as great
as, although less evident than,
the revolution engendered by the
information technology giants.
Since 2002, when it was
launched, 280 of the largest companies
in Britain have measured
themselves via the index. It is in
essence no more than a benchmarking
tool that allows companies
to assess their performance
on Corporate Social Responsibility,
discover their strengths and
weaknesses, and compare themselves
to peers.