Green businesses and CSR 2.0

In my effort to grasp the exact and relative meanings of CSR in New York City, I attended a networking and social event organized by the NYC Green Business Networking Meetup. But let me start at the beginning. Meetup is an online tool that enables people to create, maintain and expand groups around shared interests for the purpose of advancing a cause, networking and socializing within that area. I think Meetup is a great resource and many people around the world are already using it. Actually, I liked it so much that I created the first ever The New York Corporate Social Responsibility Meetup Group (see the logo & link on the right).

So what does CSR have to do with green business? From as much as I learned at this meetup last night, the new, innovative and green (= environmentally sustainable) way of doing business has every chance of becoming the mainstream way of doing business in the near future. The main message of the guest speaker, Steven Salsberg of the Salsberg Group, was that today's businessmen should stay tuned to the needs and priorities of the new, most numerous generation - Generation Y. And it turns out that environment is what this generation most cares about. Therefore, more and more businesses in such industries like hospitality, catering, food retail, construction are starting to understand the significance both in turns of environmental impact and their profits. Sustainability considerations are gradually integrated into the main product of these businesses which either re-become profitable or increase they profit margins. There is demand for greener products, it is growing fast and enterpreneurs are making the most out of emerging opportunities.

The practice of green business reminded me of Wayne Wisser's - CEO of CSR International - concept of CSR 2.O. Here he lists the main features of CSR 2.0. In my view, green business incorporates at least several of these characteristics, and namely: innovative partnerships, new-wave social entrepreneurship, a change in scale from few and big to many and small and a change in application from single and exclusive to multiple and shared. Therefore, green businesses might eventually come to shape and influence the practice of corporate responsibility.