PUBLIC POLICY ADVOCACY FOR GOOD: A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR BUSINESS

Much corporate public policy advocacy has a poor reputation, particularly among non-profits that battle corporations over environmental, health, and consumer fairness legislation. At the EU level, seventy percent of the public policy advocates represent business interests and only ten percent work for social issues.

There are three different targets for corporations that engage in public policy advocacy for good: 1) social issues that are critical to society but not immediately consequential for a company's business; 2) value chain social impacts that are the footprints a company leaves behind through its normal operations; and 3) social dimensions of the competitive context, that are the external conditions.

Many corporations leave large footprints in their wake. Public policy advocacy for good is an innovative way to reduce the negative value chain impacts of products and services. Even more valuable, though, is when a company uses public policy advocacy for good to create new standards for entire industries. The company that pushes for improved standards can create competitive advantages for itself and safer, more environment-and consumer friendly products and services. Reducing value chain impacts does not always entail removing the negative side effects of a company's existing products and services. It can also mean creating new products and services whose very design reduces the company's footprint.

Public policy advocacy for good can also target the social conditions that influence corporations' operating environments. This type of public policy advocacy has the highest strategic value for companies. Although social issues exist outside companies, they nevertheless enable or constrain success. Addressing social issues may simultaneously improve both the business and society as a whole.

Although public policy advocacy is a powerful tool for advancing social responsiblity, most firms underuse it. The leading CSR organizations barely mention how companies can use their government affairs departments and outsource specialists to advocate for social issues. And CSR executives rarely discuss public policy advocacy for good at conferences on corporate citizenship. This said, more and more companies are adopting a proactive stance viewing the improvement of relations between business and society as a new opportunity for innovation and competitive advantage.

Companies should identify more affirmatively the opportunities to use their government relations expertise and resources to advance social issues. Companies also need to recognize that public policy advocacy for good is another way to build better relationships with policy makers. Many companies today use their philanthropy and CSR programmes to show that they are making a difference with policymaker's constituents (citizens). Public policy advocacy offers a completely different approach to building relationships with government stakeholders through shared social goals.

Additing the tool of public policy advocacy for good requires resisting two kneejerk reactions: One from critics who believe that corporate public policy advocacy in any form is bad for society, and a second from corporate managers who look to public policy advocacy merely to defend the status quo. In both cases, the result is a missed opportunity for companies to create tremendous social value and business benefit, to leverage their true expertise and natural advantages, and to build more active, two-way relationships with policy makers and non-profits.

Companies that move to public policy advocacy for social issues that are relevant to them, may be practicing one of the most powerful forms of corporate social responsibility.