Ten years from now, the Web 2.0 era will be seen as the turning point of our communication culture and collective intelligence paradigms. Business development and growth built upon collaboration, partnership, transparency and interaction will be seen as the buzzwords that best describes the decade.
This blog questions the willingness of actual industry leaders to embrace the 2.0 culture to look at corporate social responsibility and sustainable development in a different way.
Intel is the only company of these top leaders that has a CSR blog and demonstrates that CSR or SD engagements can be discussed and can evolve within a Web 2.0 culture.
Some might think that discussing about environmental externalities and community wealth is easier for an IT player than it is for a natural resource or heavy industrial player. Other might think that it is just a question of time.
Countries that can guarantee energy availability, political stability and access to natural resources are magnets for capital investments and growth. However, communities won’t keep quiet if they believe it’s not worth it. Blogs and social networks tools are the new natural channels to discuss openly about externalities linked to industrial and economic development. Ten years ago, discussion groups were often the blind spots for large corporations. Blogs have replaced them. An example of this new reality is how LNG (Liquefied natural gas) terminal projects can be challenged by stakeholders and how blogs are platforms to voice their preoccupation. The Tara Foundation uses its blog to bring local concerns to the public domain.
“Residents fear Kerry LNG gas terminal will threaten their homes”
Up to 50 people living directly adjacent to the landbank between Tarbert and Ballylongford came together at a public meeting in Tarbert on Thursday night, where they presented their issues to two representatives of the Shannon LNG company, which is behind the proposed gas terminal.
It is expected that a residents group in Tarbert, Count Kerry, will lodge a detailed objection to An Bord Pleanála outlining their fears over the proposed LNG terminal. If their objections are upheld and plannning permisison is refused, it could sound the death knell for the multi-million euro project that is expected to create 650 jobs during construction and 50 jobs when the plant is up and running”
Could industry leaders, assessing risk and forgetting to take into consideration community’s and stakeholders’ capabilities to team up virtually to discuss and evaluate their value proposition be at risk?
Excellent post Isabelle,
I couldn’t agree more with your point and your example.
First the point:
The advent of web 2.0 is no smaller (or threatening to other media) than the advent TV. Politicians, companies and interest groups that adapted well to the new media excelled, others lost out. The televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960, where Nixon chose not to apply makeup and adapt to the new medium is a prime example.
The example:
LNG terminals are an excellent example of how web 2.0 tools and thinking could help mediate controversy around these strategic, but very controversial installations. I spent the better part of the lunch hour speaking with Gaz Metro people about this very subject.
We have an LNG study around the LNG industry in Québec and see exactly some of the issues you mention here.
Looking forward to discussing this further.
On blogs an locks. First, cheers when blogs help mediate controversy. Better late than never. And better still. They can (and should) help build open public debates. In conjunction with other tools, they DO help build consensus and prevent acrimonious controversy. It happened in Baja California about what… A LNG terminal!
Second about “a natural”. Let’s be positive. Sustainability is a young work in progress which has a long, long way to go. May blogs help unlock its doors!
This is really a super post. So much of the real success of sustainability - at least from a business perspective - is listening. As information and transparency reach every corner of the planet, business’s ignore web 2.0 at their peril.