The Hindu Business Line : `Cos must go beyond ethical minimum'

IT'S a different sort of feelgood; some 40 per cent of consumers in the US buy from companies that make them feel good to deal with, work with and buy from, according to Dr Klaus Leisinger, President and Executive Director, Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development (NFSD).

And that `feelgood' factor comes only when companies push beyond the legalities or the `ethical minimum' and take a serious look at what stakeholders expect from the company.

"Listen to your stakeholders, you will be enlightened," he told a gathering that had a sprinkling of corporate representatives brought together by the Indo-American Society.

On priorities, he said that despite the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, the Government was allocating more to military than to drugs.

On a global scale, the spend on weapons is about $900 billion, while developmental assistance is about $50 billion; protectionist support on agriculture in developed countries is to the tune of $365 billion and "a European cow gets five times more support that an African child."

He urged companies to take into account all segments affected by companies' activities, including NGOs, when working on a company framework for corporate social responsibility.

NGOs are also under pressure with the flow of funds getting limited and they would increasingly have to deal more effectively with their funds.

Big pharma companies have bad image problems, he said, since they are seen as "greedy" people making profits off people's diseases.

He underlined the need to communicate the intricacies of intellectual property and issues related to it.