Bremer warns of Obama restrictions

The financial crisis could severely curtail new US president Barack Obama’s efforts to make significant progress on corporate responsibility, an American commentator has warned.

Jennifer Bremer, who headed a working group that made recommendations on corporate responsibility to George W Bush in the early days of his administration, says the scale of the economic challenges facing Obama could force him to put CSR issues onto one side.

Bremer’s working party of 27 senior corporate responsibility practitioners, assembled by the Kenan Institute at the University of North Carolina, laid out 18 possible CSR measures for Bush in 2003 – almost all of which were ignored (EP5, issue 7, p5). But Bremer says that while Bush had a genuine opportunity to change the corporate landscape, Obama’s hands may already be tied.

‘Looking back at the dialogue we had [with Bush] from the standpoint of today’s financial storm... those discussions seem almost quaint,’ she told EP.

‘The Obama administration faces an urgent need to bring government, private sector, and NGO parties into a coalition for aggressive action that, in scale and scope, dwarfs most CSR initiatives.’

Bremer, who is associate professor of public policy at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, said Obama would have been starting from a low base on corporate responsibility even before the current woes.

‘The scope for CSR action before the financial crisis – limited though it was then – is now under pressure,’ she said. ‘Even supposedly core values, such as the environment and labour standards, come under threat when survival is on the table.’

Obama has pledged to introduce a number of CSR-related measures, including to stop financial services companies ‘exploiting consumers with unfair practices’.