The 2019 -2020 State of Public Affairs in Australia found about 70 per cent of corporations in Australia manage the corporate responsibility discipline in an integrated corporate public affairs management function.

In Australia – and across Asia Pacific – where corporate responsibility is not managed in the integrated corporate public affairs function, it is managed in either a separate sustainability management area, group strategy, or in the risk and audit division.

Since the late 1990s ‘corporate responsibility wars’, during which the concept that corporations had a responsibility to external stakeholders beyond shareholders was contested, and condemned as a “fad” and “politically correct”, the concept and its practice have evolved to being embedded in the way that corporations across the world develop strategy, make decisions, and run their businesses.

Corporate responsibility is both a management discipline and area of practice, and a business unit.

When the corporate responsibility discipline is integrated in the corporate public affairs function, best practice sees the corporation’s beyond compliance responsibility for its impact on the environment, social impact on the communities in which it operates (including the impact of its corporate community investments), and its governance – including how it engages and involves its stakeholders in significant decisions.

While the corporate responsibility of a corporation is unique to itself, the concept of good corporate responsibility performance has moved from the organisation ‘doing no harm’ to communities, the environment, and its transparency to stakeholders as it does business, to good corporate responsibility performance creating ‘shared value’ - for stakeholders and the corporation.

As the management function responsible for developing the corporation’s stakeholder engagement strategy and coordinating how it is implemented, the corporate responsibility discipline, with its requirement for extensive and intensive engagement with civil society stakeholders, suppliers, and employees, fits neatly into corporate public affairs.

Understanding community expectations about an entity’s responsibility to communities requires meaningful stakeholder engagement, and astute issues management, communication, public policy coordination, and a broader understanding of the socio-political environment in which an entity operates.

The corporate responsibility performance of an organisation is an input also to the entity’s social license to operate, responsibility for which rests with the whole organisation, but strategy for which is an accountability of the corporate public affairs management function.