News Alert: Reuters Looking to Hire Global Head of Corporate Responsibility

Hear, hear for the media community! Seems like one of them might be realizing that corporate social responsibility isn't just popular news leads but essential internally for meaningful permeation in the company culture. Take a look at a job vacancy posted by Thomson Reuters earlier this week on Sustainability Forum:

"The Global Head of Corporate Responsibility (CR) is the executive at Thomson Reuters responsible for ensuring that Thomson Reuters develops and maintains viable corporate and social responsibility policies and programs. The candidate is also responsible for ongoing internal and external positioning of Thomson Reuters as a socially responsible company. The candidate will ensure that Thomson Reuters operations are conducted, and recognized as being conducted, in compliance with industry best practice CR guidelines. The successful candidate will ensure that Thomson Reuters is - and shows itself to be - a global company with an exemplary approach to CR issues."

Interesting choice of verbiage for sure. CSR is repeated more times than the number of sentences, and the mix of emphasis on the position's requirement to create and advocate responsible policies internally as well as communicate them externally is worth noting. To their credit, while the PR functionality is referred to, they emphatically focus on the internal aspect of the position. Already, the lead this will give them among other news organizations toward becoming responsible citizens is enough to get them big brownie points.

However, this posting is commendable for yet another reason, and one that hits to the core of the one issue all CSR professionals complain of as a major roadblock in their progress: lack of access to senior management. Read a little further down and it says, "the candidate would have "exposure to the company's executive committee and board of directors." This acknowledgment and validation is huge. Because from the start, it is paving the road for the candidate to achieving some real progress.

While we're celebrating this, let me add another feather to their cap. Thomson Reuters was the only media company (unless you count Walt Disney!) to take part in Vault's Annual Green Survey last year. While their responses were short--and they didn't answer all the questions--their willingness to participate despite meager green progress is commendable. And for that, I salute them.

Read the complete job posting at Sustainability Forum.

Also, read Reuters' responses to our 2009 Green Trends in the Workplace. To see how the other participants did, visit our Green Programs section.

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