Hi all,

Below are some notes which form a write up of an on going discussion about Shell's sponsorship within the RGS-IBG - and a recent meeting between involving 3 geographers, the director of the RGS and others.
This discussion orginated in part from the session that we held at the
2007 annual meeting on Corporate Involvment in our workplaces. The papers from ths session will soon be coming out in ACME.

We welcome comments on this feedback and other ideas people have for taking forward the ideas we present.

Best,

Paul Chatterton, Larch Maxey, Gavin Brown


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback from the meeting about Shell-RGS links. Jan 21st 2008.
Posted to geography e-mail lists and to members of the meeting as listed below.

Three fellows of the RGS-IBG (Paul Chatterton, Larch Maxey and Gavin Brown) met with Rita Gardener (Director of the RGS), Catherine Souch (Head of Research HE), Katie Willis (Council Member, Honorary Secretary - Research) and David Riviere (Head of Finance and Services) On 21st January 2008.

The meeting was arranged to discuss the on going concerns surrounding Shell's role as a corporate sponsor of the RGS. Note: at the outset Rita requested that it be an informal meeting, so no formal notes were taken. We are circulating this feedback due to requests for updates from many individuals and research groups concerned about climate change, corporate sponsorship and sustainability.

Governance Issues
By way of introduction it is important that people understand the governance issues surrounding the RGS. The RGS will only discuss RGS policy with members of the RGS. There are about 15,000 members, only approx 700 of these are UK university academics. The RGS is a charity and company incorporated by Royal Charter. All decisions are made by the Council of Trustees who act to promote the interests of the charity through its charter. Some of the trustees are UK academics and a list can be found at:

http://www.rgs.org/NR/rdonlyres/A1A18BD6-6C85-4DF6-8997-09A7B0534CBB/0/CouncilMembersProfiles20062007.pdf

The paid management staff (such as Rita Gardener) can bring up issues with the Council of Trustees when they are brought to her attention by other members of the RGS.

3 areas of discussion were covered. 

1. RGS's policy on climate change, environmental impact and carbon neutrality

It was clarified that the RGS has an emerging environmental policy especially in relation to its building management. We all welcomed this and suggested we publicise this more. It was suggested that the RGS work towards a concrete Environmental Policy through the Council of Trustees. The issue was raised that the RGS's impact goes further than the building and the impacts of its sponsors need to be taken into account. Since some of them are in the hydro-carbon sector, this is an area of concern.

ACTION POINTS: 

i)) RGS to pull together current policies and initiatives on sustainability and climate change
ii) As part of this process look into establishing a broader policy on sustainability and climate change and specifically the proposal that the RGS become a Carbon Neutral organisation.


2. Ethical investment and sponsorship policies

We discussed what kinds of mechanisms the RGS has in place so that decisions and policies are guided by ethical considerations. RGS has consulted with USS Pensions about their ethical investment policy, for example. Two years ago a Responsible Investment Policy was passed by Council, but this has not been made public yet.

ACTION POINT: 
iii) Rita Gardener will ask council if the RGS Responsible Investment Policy can be made public

There was also a review group set up in 1996 in the wake of the first Shell boycott. It was charged with reporting to Council on corporate sponsorship. It established guidelines which were ratified by Council in 1997.

ACTION POINT: 
iv) Rita Gardener will ask council if the RGS Corporate Sponsorship guidelines can be made public

We talked about best practice in the sector in terms of ethical policies. One key area for charities is the need to have in place an ethical policy to guide their engagements with the commercial sector. Guidance was laid down in 2002 in a Charity Commission Report (RS2 - Charities and Commercial Partners). See:

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/publications/rs2.asp

It is unclear whether the RGS has either a current ethical policy or a commercial engagement policy in place, and visible on its website, to guide its fundraising strategy and transparently evaluate its current sponsorships with the commercial sector. This is an area of concern as the Charity Commission (CC) report noted above states in its executive summary that:

*  Charities should consider establishing an ethical policy which clearly sets out the charity's values. This will form part of their wider fund-raising strategy and they can use it to ensure that trustees, staff and any potential commercial partners share a common understanding of the charity's ethical values.
* As best practice, charities should highlight their ethical policies and any commercial partnerships they have in their Annual Report and yearly accounts.
* Against the framework of their ethical policy, charities need to carefully consider whether a proposed commercial partnership is appropriate and in the best interests of the charity.

We stressed that the RGS was developing a very strong brand reputation in terms of addressing crucial questions of climate change and environmental sustainability. However, its connections with Shell may expose the RGS to 'reputational risk'. The CC report goes on to state that:

'in our experience, charities that enter into commercial partnerships without giving due regard to ethical issues are in danger of putting their name and reputation at risk, in addition to causing a possible breach of trust.'

There are also outstanding issues of transparency of Shell's donation. The CC report states that:

'Trustees have a duty to ensure that the name of the charity and the level of donation it is receiving from the company as a result of the agreement are clearly stated on any promotional material.'

We learnt that the amount is rather small (£50k per year approx) and does not appear on any material we have seen. It is unclear whether this small amount represents a fair deal for a company that makes £7 Million profit daily. The CC report goes on to state:

'A fair deal for a charity is one that represents full value for the charity in return for the use of its name and/or logo, based on the principles of equality, transparency and integrity. Charities should consider the level of benefit the commercial partner will receive from the agreement and be prepared to negotiate to arrange the best deal possible. If a commercial partner will not agree to a charity's reasonable terms we would expect the charity to go elsewhere.'

The Ethical Consumer Information Service has produced a guide for UK charities to help them with their engagement with commercial partners. They have also created a template of what an Ethical Sponsorship Policy might look like which is available at:

http://www.corporatecritic.org/EthicsandSponsorship/index.htm

An example of one of the best ethical engagement policies from the charity sector is the WWF-UK which can be found here:

http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/bandipolicy03.pdf

A useful recent case study concerning reputational risk can be seen by the recent decision by the Natural History Museum to pull out of a deal with Shell for the sponsorship of its annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year award. For more info see:

http://www.shelloiledwildlife.org.uk/

http://risingtide.org.uk/node/149

http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/corporates/success_stories/shell_wildlife
_photographer.html 


3. The Shell issue

10 years ago the whole 15,000 membership was asked if it wanted to withdraw from Shell sponsorship - 78% said no. Rita Gardener stated that another referendum now was not a priority as its likely that opinion has not significantly changed.

Shell's sponsorship is now time limited to a specific 3 year project called International Leadership and Capacity Building (ILCB) in the global south. They are a project funder not a corporate sponsor. This is a project that is in its very early stages and run out of a different part of the Society - Geography Outdoors. The aim is to see whether the Society's expertise of working with young people from this country can be applied in partnership with NGOs and others to enhance and promote such activities for young people in some of the world's poorer countries. The funding is effectively to see if this is feasible.

See:

http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Fieldwork+and+Expeditions/International+Leadership+programme/International+Leadership+and+Capacity+Building+programme.htm

Summary

The next council meeting is in April 2008 and Rita Gardener will seek clarity and feedback on a number of issues. These include:

Action Points
1.	Raising the issue of an environmental strategy /Carbon Neutral Policy for the RGS
2.	Making public the 1997 corporate sponsorship document and (circa) 2006 Responsible Investment Policy
3.	Clarifying if there is an recent ethical or commercial engagement policy in place

At a later date, we will also seek greater clarity on the following:

*	The opinion of the members of the Council as to whether the £50K Shell sponsorship should be replaced due to ongoing concerns over reputational risks
*	What the opinion of the Council is concerning their role to ensure 'duty of care' in the context of the absence of an ethical policy to guide commercial engagements, that there is no transparency over the level of Shell funding, and whether such a small amount represents a fair deal for the RGS.

There is a great deal of concern amongst academics in terms of RGS' corporate sponsorship and sustainability performance. We encourage individuals and groups to contact the RGS directly with concerns and ideas for action as well as informing us and helping to move this shape this agenda and move it.

Paul Chatterton, Larch Maxey and Gavin Brown. March 2008.