In a global recession, the need to be a responsible corporate citizen takes on even greater importance. It’s why GE’s fifth annual Citizenship Report, which was issued today, includes an in-depth discussion on the relationship between business and society during the current downturn — and more than 20 essays from global thought leaders on critical issues such as water, human rights, climate change, labor practices, education and healthcare.


Do the right thing: This year’s Citizenship Report includes feedback from our Stakeholder Advisory Panel on our reporting process; an update on GE’s human rights statement of principles implementation; updated metrics on all critical performance areas; and summaries of healthcare, energy and water products that address global needs -– such as those that will be used in the desalinization plant being constructed above.

At its core, the report provides a type of annual scorecard that evaluates GE’s work vs. its commitments on a wide range of business issues, corporate responsibility initiatives, and stakeholder engagement. Charting that progress is vitally important as it ensures that the company measures its responsibility commitments with the same rigor that it uses in its business units. However, it’s the dialogue with subject matter experts in fields both within and outside of GE’s business world that provides objective feedback — and helps to strengthen GE’s own understanding of the topics that are relevant to its citizenship efforts.

As part of the rollout of this year’s report, entitled Resetting Responsibilities, this week we’ll be highlighting some of these external perspectives — which are published on GE’s website unedited. The first one is by Sean Ansett, who’s managing partner of At Stake Advisors, a specialist in corporate social responsibility issues.

Sean Ansett

In his submission, Sean calls for companies to broaden their outlook to include their supply chains when it comes to responsibly managing the employees impacted by the inevitable disruptions that occur in a recession.

“The current economic crisis is creating new dilemmas for corporations, suppliers, workers and governments in global supply chains,” Sean writes. “The crisis has created new pressures on both buyers and suppliers. Buyers are fighting for their survival cutting orders, reducing inventories, renegotiating terms of contracts and tightening their belts. Suppliers are faced with freezing credit and cash flow problems, payment delays, difficulty making wage payments and meeting required government contributions obligations.

“In some countries there are growing numbers of ‘economic refugees’ and heightened concerns about potential social cohesion problems. So what are the responsibilities of corporations in these situations? What can be reasonably expected?

“Leading companies are beginning to formulate responsible transition policies to mitigate risks and negative impacts throughout their supply chain.”

Among his suggestions: Companies should consider conducting supplier ’stress tests’ in order to assess the financial health of suppliers susceptible to closures. They should also consider risk assessments of the potential social impact of a decision to pull orders. You can read his full submission by clicking here.

* Read GE’s Citizenship Report
* Read the announcement about the report being issued
* Read Marc Gunther’s blog about the report
* Watch a video about our Stakeholder Advisory Panel
* Read about GE’s medical equipment donation in Africa
* Read Jeff Immelt’s comments about citizenship in his recent speech
* Learn about the GE Foundation’s disaster relief efforts
* Learn about GE’s Developing Health Globally program
* Learn more about GE’s healthymagination business strategy
* Read about our donation of neonatal medical equipment in the UK
* Read about our healthymagination work in Bangladesh
* Learn more about our partnership with Grameen Healthcare Trust
* Read about Developing Health Globally expanding to six new sites in Cambodia