CSR practices at GE and Accenture

Hearty and welcome breakfast
It was a chilly morning on November 17 when  some 70 AmCham members and guests lined up outside the US Embassy to hear two speakers outline their approaches to corporate social responsibility. It took a little while for us all to get in but we were then treated to a typical hearty American breakfast to get us warmed up again. The embassy dining room - "An American Diner in Sweden powered by Sheraton" -  has been styled as an American diner and with pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon, we almost forgot what side of the Atlantic we were on.


Berit Salheim, AmCham, Peter Kopelman, Kopelman AB, Jennie Perzon,
Accenture and Frank Mantero, GE.


As we got acquainted with one another, we were welcomed by Peter Kopelman of AmCham’s CSR Committee and William Stuart, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy.

Frank Mantero, GE
The first speaker of the morning was Frank Mantero, Director of Corporate Citizenship Programs at GE. In setting the stage for the company’s approach to CSR, he quoted Thomas Edison, inventor extraordinaire and founder of GE, who said: “I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent it.” This means that GE has a broader range of stakeholders than many other organizations, providing a good starting point, since those who take a narrow view of society will, in Frank’s view, be left behind.

The core principles of GE’s CSR efforts, he explained, are to minimize harm, maximize benefit, be accountable and responsible to stakeholders and to support strong financial results. These can be further condensed in the catchphrase: Make money, make it ethically and make a difference!

In its efforts to make a difference, GE’s citizenship work focuses on the areas of education, health, the environment and community building. In each instance, actual involvement is determined locally, since it is locally that GE employees can observe what needs exist in the local community and thus determine how GE can best make a difference.


Peter Kopelman, Kopelman AB, member of
the AmCham Board of Directors


Jennie Perzon, Accenture
Jennie Perzon of Accenture in the Nordics provided an interesting contrast since, compared to multi-national industrial conglomerate GE, Accenture is a consultancy firm that provides people and their expertise rather than products. As with GE’s CSR policy, however, the current thrust of Accenture’s CSR efforts is to make them locally relevant. In Accenture’s case, this is achieved through the company’s Accenture Development Partnerships program, in which selected organizations benefit from Accenture’s specialist services at considerably reduced prices. The program also gives employees the opportunity to contribute hours to special causes, for which they accept a 50-percent reduction in salary. This has proved important since skilled consultants of the caliber Accenture seeks to attract appreciate such opportunities and the positive impact they have on Accenture’s CSR profile.

Jennie described how she herself contributes hours to organizations including Save the Children Sweden, where she provides consulting services on – naturally – CSR strategy.


U.S. Ambassador Matthew Barzun

The ambassador drops by
We were joined by Ambassador Matthew Barzun, who asked the speakers whether they had encountered any “corporate antibodies” to the “CSR irritant” as Frank Mantero had favorably described the role of CSR units in corporate culture. The speakers responded that while there could be some hesitance towards certain CSR efforts, this was generally due more to ingrained attitudes rather than active resistance and that it was part of the CSR unit’s task to convince people of the long-term benefits of working actively on CSR issues.

Written by Bryan Mosey, Battison & Partners