Are you looking for a simple way to do corporate social responsibility (CSR)? What if you offered customers experiencing hardship more favorable prices? For example, the music composer Douglas Morton invites individuals who are under-employed, stricken by a personal crisis or otherwise experiencing financial difficulties to explain their circumstance and offer to pay what and when they can. His most rewarding customer interactions are these conversations.

Compassionate pricing doesn't need to be complicated. A case in point is what Morton does: He simply added wording to his e-commerce site giving customers the opportunity to explain their circumstances. His customer service involves reviewing submissions and providing discount codes. Compassionate pricing also doesn't need to be serious and boring. Morton's' messaging, for example, offers to accept avocados as payment! What Morton does, however, is just one option.

​Other ways of pricing in a way that supports societal causes includes:

• Allowing all customers to pay whatever amount they want for your products or services. It might sound like a recipe for getting fleeced into bankruptcy. Yet, data from companies that use such Pay What You Want (PWYW) pricing (e.g., Humble Bundle) suggests that, typically, people are not greedy jerks. Most of the time, most people will treat others fairly. Done well then, PWYW is a feasible method for allowing those who are financially stressed to benefit from your products or services. · Donating 1% of sales to charitable causes. Consider, for example, joining 1% for the Planet.
  
• Inviting a nonprofit working with small or marginalized businesses, unemployed individuals, homeless families or others facing hardship to share your discount codes with their clients.
  
• Inviting customers to round up for charity. Those who choose to round their payment to the next dollar (or other currency) will be donating to a charitable cause through your company.
  
• Giving nonprofit organizations a discount.
  

You get the idea. There are many ways to conduct CSR via pricing! Might there be one that is perfect for your business?

For assistance with your CSR, contact us.

You’ve probably heard the term ESG (environment social governance). You may have heard it be interchanged with CSR (corporate social responsibility). Are they the same thing?

The answer is no. CSR and ESG, although promoting the same general concept, are distinct. CSR is everything a company does to positively contribute to societal issues that it’s not required to do by law or regulation. ESG is CSR that has been formalized into measurable criteria that are disclosed to investors and the public. As Lexology puts it: “While CSR aims to make a business accountable, ESG criteria make such business’ efforts measurable.” ESG criteria focus on quantitative data used to help investors, employees and consumers make decisions regarding a company. In essence, a company's ESG reporting shows if it’s “walking the talk” in terms of their CSR goals across:

• Environment. Measures how a company shields the environment from damage, including by minimizing carbon emissions, plastic pollution and solid waste creation.
• Social. Measures the company's relationship with employees, suppliers, customers, and communities, including wages, provision of healthcare to employees and grants to community organizations.
• Governance. Measures how the company governs itself in the CSR space including company executive pay, board diversity and shareholder rights.

There are several frameworks to help companies structure their ESG work, the most common of which are listed below.

• The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) was designed for the information needs of shareholders and is used by more than half of the companies in the S&P Global Index.
• The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) is a principles-based framework for climate-related financial disclosures.
  
• The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) helps companies report on ESG in way that serves a broad range of stakeholders, not just shareholders. GRI reporting is the most widely used ESG reporting standard globally.

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Why should your company care about ESG? If your company executes ESG right, it’s likely to be more profitable. Also, investors increasingly expect companies to disclose ESG data. For example, the newly incorporated International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is developing international ESG reporting standards and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is incorporating ESG into its work. In summary, ESG is quickly becoming a standard part of managing a business.