We got an interesting lecture yesterday from Pall Asgeir Davidsson, who heads the Ethikos project within Reykjavik University. Ethikos’ mission is to heighten awareness of corporate social responsibility in Iceland so it is one of the most needed institutions today.

Pall Asgeir’s lecture came the day after Tryggvi Thor Herbertsson, Independence Party MP, former investment bank manager and main defender of the 2006 version of the Icelandic business model told TV audiences that it is questionable to use ethics to determine which businessmen would get to keep control of the companies they’ve ruined in the last few years. A co-dependent Social Democrat MP on the set, Magnus Orri Schram didn’t have the balls or integrity to challenge that assumption so you could say that Ethikos has its work cut out for it.

I asked Pall Asgeir about the main pressure facing western companies and their CEO’s in comparison to Chinese for example, to post favourable quarterly earnings reports, thus perhaps ignoring the long term prospects of their company. He said that it was clear that our tools of measurements needed reviewing and talked about the curious case of a tree which alive contributes oxygen and life to our planet, but nothing towards GDP. Once it is cut down on the other hand, it becomes valuable as timber and other commodities.

I also asked him about the other and not less important CSR, or consumer social responsibility. While businesses find it increasingly relevant to act socially responsible and even more so to tell everyone about it, there can be a big gap in difference between what you say and what you do. Take for example Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson who was sneeringly nicknamed “Santa Claus” in Icelandic business circles around 2005-2007 because he did not miss a chance for a photo op with sick children, struggling musicians, famous football players and poor artists who were the proud recipients of Landsbankinn’s generosity. Consumers have to provide checks and balances against such diversions by voting with their feet. And not just by choosing different grocery stores or banks, but also by examining what exactly it is that the political parties they have been voting for have been doing in the past few election terms?

Pall Asgeir agreed that the two CSR’s had to go hand in hand. He said how consumer social responsibility had pressured corporate social responsibility into actions in some areas of mining in Africa. If there is hope for a clean up in the blood diamond trade, then there could be hope for Iceland. But just not yet, while on one hand we hear Arion Bank claiming that Johannes Jonsson is the best person to lead the Hagar grocery empire, and on the other that he had been siphoning out money from his businesses in October 2008 to invest $1,5 million in a villa in Florida which is out of touch for the solvency committees trying to clean up his previous mess.

And how can Icelandic consumers ignore the inexplicably behaving Belgian bank Fortis who has demanded that Olafur Olafsson, who got to buy Bunadarbankinn by borrowing money from Landsbankinn and turn it into Kaupthing, whose wealth is dependent on his Progressive Party ties and who is under investigation for market manipulation, should be allowed to retain control of Samskip, the shipping company he also loaded with debt that needs to be written off?

Stop reading Tintin and refrain from drinking Stella?

Related posts:

1. The Curious Case Of The Social Democrats
2. Not accepting any responsibility
3. EU Membership – The Time and The Place of the Social Democrats
4. The List Of Those Who Have Accepted Responsibility
5. The More Things Change, They Don’t…A Revolt Is Needed