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Corporate Social Responsibility in the Development Industry: Apreliminary studyBy Linda Carroli
(CC) August 2009 This paper is released under a Creative Commons Licence – attribution, non-commercial use and no derivatives.
Introduction
In addressing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in urban development, the specificqualities and impacts of the development industry and the industry-specific application ofCSR are considered. While the principles of CSR that apply to industry generally equallyapply to the development industry, there are specificities in the development industry’simpact that warrant attention. The development industry is characterised by Coiacetto as anincreasingly concentrated yet diverse sector which is both “dominated by large powerfulplayers (sometimes trampling the rights of local communities and overriding the plans oflocal authorities) ... [and] comprising many [competitive] small players”.
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He states that“evidence suggests that industry concentration is rising: developers are getting bigger andfewer and more powerful as opposed to merely having some local spatial monopoly orsubmarket power.”
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In this context, noting Coiacetto’s parenthetical point about reputationissues experienced by developers, companies are adopting or considering CSR.Given that the development industry, together with government (through statutory planning),markets and financial services, profoundly shapes human settlements, there is an underlyingexpectation that industry agents are attentive to the social and environmental outcomes andimpacts of development.
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For example, the provision of community benefit, a requirement inplanning provisions, can be negotiated between the developer and local authority during thedevelopment approval process.
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Another planning/property principle is that of ‘highest andbest use’, a concept that ordinarily expresses property value or investment return.
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Thisnotion of value may increasingly be considered within frameworks of social, cultural andenvironmental sustainability such as smart growth, biobanking and incentive zoning.
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E Coiacetto, ‘Development Industry structure into the global era: The challenge for planning, cities and sustainability’.
Australian Planner.
vol 44, no 3, 2007, 50
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Coiacetto, 2007, 50
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P Fewings,
Ethics for the Built Environment 
, Taylor & Francis, Oxon, UK, 2009. 171 ff
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Fewings, 2009, 176. In the UK, ‘community benefit’ is referred to as ‘public gain’.
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MG Dotzour, TV Grissom, CH Liu & T Pearson, ‘Highest and Best Use: The Evolving Paradigm’,
Journal of Real Estate Research 
, vol 5, no 1, passim
 
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B Roberts, ‘Planning and the Economics of Development’,
Australian Planner,
vol 45, no 1, 2008, 27
 
 
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CSR and related ideas (such as corporate citizenship, triple bottom line etc) emerge fromand sometimes as critiques of late capitalism and liberal economics
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as well as of thecorporate ontologies they spawned in areas such as management and organisationalbehaviour.
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Birch proposes that “CSR is not only about the survival of capitalism, it is aboutthe creation of Sustainable Capitalism” necessitating a cultural change in business.
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CSRinvolves “building systems of corporate ethics and values in the enterprise, tacklingquestions of compliance and governance, meeting the needs of the economically andsocially disadvantaged and satisfying responsibilities to the environment”.
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Garriga andMele identify four primary motivations for CSR
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:
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producing profits
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using business power in a reasonable way
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integrating social demands
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contributing to a good society through ethical behaviour.CSR fundamentally means that “business is being asked to assume broader responsibilitiesto society than ever before and to serve a wider range of human values. They are asked tocontribute more to the quality of human life, it will depend on the quality of management aswell as how they response to the changing expectations of the public”.
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[sic] Importantly,when expressed in the language of capitalism as a capitalist imperative, CSR can also pointto ways of transforming organisations, industries, markets and capitalism itself.
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D Birch, “Corporate Social Responsibility: Some key theoretical issues and concepts for new ways of doing business”,
Journal of New Business Ideas and Trends 
, vol 1, no 1, 2003, passim
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Particularly cultures of command and control (linear) which were challenged in the late 20
th
century by disorganised capital,decentralisation and internationalisation.
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Birch, 2003, 2
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Birch, 2003, 10
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E Garriga and D Mele, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility Theories: Mapping the Territory’,
Journal of Business Ethics,
Vol 53,2004
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S Yam, M Ismail & T Yin, “Corporate Social Responsibility in Housing Development – The Developers’ Perspective.”Conference Paper. Fourteenth Pacific Rim Real Estate Society Conference, 2008, retrieved 1 August 2009http://www.prres.net/Papers/Yam_Corporate_Social_Responsibility_In_Housing_Development.pdf
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See Birch, 2003; Barrett, 1998; Senge, 1998; Kaptein & Wempe, 2002
 
 
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CSR Commitments of Development Companies
There are a range of sustainability initiatives in the development and construction industrythat advocate or aspire to higher standards. Peak bodies in the development industry, suchas the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA)
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and Australian Green DevelopmentForum (AGDF), are forming policy on and other responses to social inclusion andenvironmental responsibility. The UDIA has developed a sustainability certification protocoltitled EnviroDevelopment.
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The Property Council of Australia has released a draftdiscussion paper and guidelines on CSR in the property sector.
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Professional bodies, suchas the Planning Institute of Australia,
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are also considering such matters as they apply totheir organisation and the industry more broadly. As a diverse profession, urban planningcan be underpinned by ethical drives including stakeholder engagement, social equity, publicinterest and environmental stewardship.In order to consider the development industry’s engagement of CSR in a more granular way,a scan of eight corporate websites was undertaken. It is acknowledged that only informationmade publicly available via this media is accessed. Publication of CSR information isconsidered as an ‘expression’ of that company
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and a means of contributing to a publicdiscourse or community of interest about CSR. It may be an indication that CSR andcompany values are integral to the company’s public interface and corporate culture, andconsidered sufficiently significant to warrant communication (for reasons such astransparency or accountability). The study scanned the websites of GPT, Lend Lease, GHD,Watpac, Laing O'Rourke, Devine, Conics and Stockland Development.
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The core businessand geographic reach of each company are tabulated below:
Company Core Business Geographic
Lend Lease Integrated property solutions providers. With capabilities thatspan the property value chain, from the origination ofopportunities through to the delivery of property outcomes.GlobalGHD Professional and technical consultants in water, energy & Global
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Urban Development Institute of Australia, National Policy Statement. UDIA, Sydney, retrieved 29 July 2009,http://www.udia.com.au/resource/UDIA-National%20Policy.pdf
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Urban Development Institute of Australia, EnviroDevelopment, retrieved 4 August 2009,http://www.envirodevelopment.com.au/ 
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Property Council of Australia,
A Guide to Corporate Responsibility in the Property Sector: Draft Discussion Paper,
PropertyCouncil of Australia, Sydney, 2009, retrieved 29 July 2009,http://www.propertyoz.com.au/library/A%20Guide%20to%20Corporate%20Responsibility%20Reporting%20in%20the%20Property%20Sector%20V1.0.pdf
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Planning Institute of Australia, retrieved 1 August 2009, http://www.planning.org.au
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M Kaptein & J Wempe, ‘The Corporation as Moral Entity’,
The Balanced Company: a theory of Corporate Integrity 
, OxfordUniversity. 2002. 146
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These companies are all large companies, as per Coiacetto’s description of the industry structure, and were selected fromvarious lists of state and national top company. There is a further question about how small to medium companies are adoptingCSR and whether this presents challenges in supply chain, competition and marketplace. Smaller companies may, forexample, be less inclined to offer generous community dividends or ‘do more’.
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