On January 23^rd 2009 Minister of the Environment and International Development, Erik Solheim, Minister of Trade and Industry, Sylvia Brustad and State Secretary, Elisabeth Walaas (for Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre) presented Report no. 10 to the Storting: Corporate social responsibility in a global economy (2008-2009). The Norwegian government has made it a high priority to map out the road for corporate social responsibility to be implemented, and has promised an ambitious and concrete Report. Their message has been repeated at international conferences, debates and in several statements throughout the last two years, hence creating great expectations.

Lacks ambition

However, the Report to the Storting is neither ambitious nor concrete. The suggested measures would not prevent cases such as Aker Kværner’s business at Guantanamo, deaths at SN Power and child labour at Telenor from happening again. Rather, the government seems committed to spending all available sources in their thesaurus in order to spell the word “hope”. Words like demand, claim or require doesn’t seem to exist in their vocabulary when it comes to CSR.

The Report to the Storting does give an indepth introduction to the field of CSR and discuss a number of positive tools that may be implemented. Several are worth mentioning, such as the changes at OECDs national contact point, that Norwegian corporations will be able to seek advice from a set body, that further measures will be implemented in order to stall capital flight to tax havens, and that Norway will continue their international encouragement for an international liable framework for CSR.

Ethics, not a value

Nevertheless, ethics was not mentioned as a value of its own during the presentation, neither any further corporate responsibility apart from care of customers, employees and reputation. The least we could have expected from the largest owner at the Oslo Stock Exchange, being the Norwegian government, is that they are obliged to report according to The Global Reporting Initiativ. This framework sets out the principles and indicators that organizations can use to measure and report their economic, environmental, and social performance. The Report to the Storting explains how the GRI G3 Guidelines can be used to fulfill companies’ responsibilities to make transparent disclosure on key sustainability issues, but does not demand it. Hence, it does not put Norway alongside many other European countries who have implemented GRI.

The government will continue their work to asses which measures that might prevent Norwegian citizens and Norwegian corporations from committing serious environmental crimes outside the Norwegian boarders.

Concrete measures like these must scare the wits out of the bad guys! It must be historic that the government can present the first national white paper on a new corporate policy without a bleep from neither the corporate nor the trade unions. The paper seems based on an underlying premise that Norwegian corporations are good, means well and are global actors in order to do good and create sustainable development. All other examples of the opposite is a result of misunderstandings and lack of guidance, it seems.

Ombudsmann

Our suggested establishment of an ombudsman has not been met in the paper. It would have been in the interest of corporations to get an independent body to evaluate allegations regarding human rights violations or serious environmental damages. Furthermore, the body would help those corporations suffering false allegations to clean their reputation. However, Minister Solheim want the NGOs and the media to do this job by “naming and shaming”. This strips the government from any responsibility and will lead to a random and incomplete treatment of the companies.

We are grateful that the government has drafted its first Report to the Storting on corporate social responsibility, but it is too little too late, and the government doesn’t seem to grasp the differences between the shareholders in this debate.

International Conference CSR: Moral responsibility and Legal Liability