The Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS) is an ESRC funded interdisciplinary research centre combining expertise from the Business School, the Law School and the School of City and Regional Planning (CPLAN). Research at the centre focuses on business sustainability and corporate social responsibility, and particularly on the relationships between businesses and their key stakeholders (customers, suppliers, investors, workers, local communities and regulators).
BRASS pursues high quality, interdisciplinary social science research and engagement with research users to create knowledge and tools that will promote more sustainable stakeholder relationships amongst and within businesses, society and the environment.
The Centre’s research work aims to generate knowledge, skills and learning, and to facilitate practical changes within businesses and policy arenas, based on four areas of distinctive research competence which promote:
- More sustainable and responsible use of technologies and natural resources by business;
- Patterns of consumption and other behaviours, which contribute to wellbeing and sustainability;
- More resilient local economies and communities through the application of sustainability principles; and
- More socially responsible and accountable approaches to governance, management and learning.
Why ‘Business Relationships ?’
Understanding how to make progress towards a more sustainable society and economy will not emerge from researching businesses in isolation. The crucial factors determining whether and how businesses can become more socially responsible and sustainable are reflected in the relationships they have with their customers, their investors, their employees, their suppliers and the communities within which they exist. Can investors develop the patience to allow businesses to benefit from long-term investment in more sustainable technologies ? Can consumers be persuaded to adopt less carbon-intensive lifestyles ? What part can small businesses play in revitalising communities ? How can large companies assist the small firms that supply them to adopt better environmental management standards? These are the type of questions that require research into business relationships for sustainability, and they reflect a number of key themes within the BRASS research agenda.
Why Worry About ‘Accountability’ ?
Business accountability refers to the moral and legal obligation that businesses have to their shareholders, to their broader stakeholders and to society as a whole to be accountable for their products, their actions and their decisions. Recent years have seen a rapid move away from a business culture in which obeying the law and keeping shareholders and customers happy was all that was expected from a company. How businesses are governed, how they wield their power and influence, how they balance and mange the risks and benefits of new technologies and how consumers can trust the products and information provided by companies are all aspects of BRASS’s accountability orientated research.
What is ‘Sustainability’ ?
The soundbite definition of sustainable development is development that ‘meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. Delivering sustainability will require the balancing of economic activity and growth with the protection of environmental systems and the promotion of social justice and quality of life. A failure to achieve this balance will lead to disaster in future as economic prosperity is undermined by social unrest and environmental crises. The concept of sustainability provides a major new challenge for accountability within business relationships, because it requires a focus beyond the current generation of consumers, investors, employees and citizens to consider the rights and welfare of the generations to follow. It provides major challenges to the ways in which we think about, manage and regulate businesses. The sustainability challenge underpins the BRASS research agenda, and is reflected in projects with a focus on issues such as ecological footprinting, climate change, Fairtrade, environmental regulation and alternative technologies.
How about the ‘social responsibility’ of businesses ?
The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) predates the sustainability debate, and for many businesses CSR represents the practical aspects of their commitment to sustainability and ethics. The foundation of CSR is the idea that businesses have responsibilities that go beyond satisfying the needs of their shareholders and customers and staying within the law. A focus on sustainability requires businesses to consider their responsibilities to suppliers and workers along their (often global) supply chains, to those people who don’t consume their products but are impacted by their production or consumption, and to future generations of business stakeholders. For businesses understanding society’s expanding expectations and how to respond to them creates a range of challenges requiring new information, new ways of managing, and new ways to communicate and work with stakeholders. BRASS research streams with a focus on CSR include projects looking at CSR for smaller businesses, ethical investment and reporting, the impact of international companies’ CSR strategies on global development and poverty, and work-life integration.
