Sharing Insights on CSR
By Brenna Leary ’18.
As a student who has been interested in sustainability and the environment since childhood, attending a business school doesn’t necessarily seem like the most comfortable fit. Oftentimes, business students and professors think, speak, and act in economic terms, and it seems as though social and environmental value gets lost in the conversation. However, Babson is a different kind of business school, and it is unsurprising when visitors like Dave Stangis, the Vice President for Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability at Campbell’s Soup Company, come to campus to speak with students, faculty, and staff.
This past October, two classmates and I were given the opportunity to interview Dave and create a podcast about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to be used as a teaching tool in Babson’s flagship Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship course. We were excited to conduct the interview, but wanted to ensure the podcast would provide FME students with relevant, interesting information and spark their interest in CSR. We held a brainstorming session, and decided to answer three questions:
- Does CSR provide a competitive advantage in business?
- Can CSR be integrated into all aspects of a company, or just a few?
- Is there a way to incorporate CSR into a more traditional, non-sustainability-based job?
When it came time to conduct the interview, Dave was able to answer all of our questions in great detail, and also spoke about lessons he has learned in his career. He also described his experience working in CSR and sustainability-oriented roles, and offered advice to students who want to work in a more traditional business area—finance for example—but also want to do business in a responsible, sustainable manner.
Check out the interview below, and if you would like to learn more about Corporate Social Responsibility, sustainability, or social entrepreneurship here at Babson, check out the following resources: