Macy's Recipe for Success in Corporate Social Responsibility

A Menu for Corporate Social Responsibility
Preparation time: 5 minutes to read proposal

BY: ANN C. PIASECKI, M.A.
Public Affairs Communicator
E-mail: apiasecki2000@aol.com

In keeping with your already successful Come Together campaign, allow me to offer some suggestions that broaden your focus. Along with the Chicago Fashion Incubator and Museum Adventure Pass programs, I propose enhancing the Corporate Social Responsibility commitment by highlighting items sold in the store’s For the Home Department. Imagine a Macy’s supper event organized to feature a menu of locally raised organic chicken served with side dishes and hors d'oeuvres consisting of urban-grown vegetables. The menu, of course, would be prepared by a celebrity chef together with some culinary arts students using cookware designs by Martha Stewart or Calphalon®.

In this instance, it would be fruitful to initiate a relationship between Macy’s and the Chicago Market, which sells urban-cultivated produce sown in the heart of the desperately poor Cabrini Green Neighborhood.

Meanwhile, a collaborative effort between Macy’s and a group of USDA-sponsored free-range chicken farmers from Hopkins Park, Illinois, would have a multitude of positive ripple effects. Like a fragile root system that takes hold once it achieves a consistent source of irrigation, the harvest works to sustain many. These particular free-range chicken farmers reside in one of the most financially-depressed communities in the country, according to recent economic statistics released about Illinois’ Kankakee region.

Rolling out the Dough

How about inviting Chicago dignitaries and a variety of Chicagoland families to partake in this public relations bonanza? This demonstrates the corporation’s creative response to the community by seeding and promoting enduring small business opportunities and non-profit organizations in your own backyard.

The name “Macy’s” would soon attract news analysis pieces and features in print, on television, on the Internet and over the airwaves, spotlighting the company for its role as an incubator of sustainable economies.

And as you know from my Sept. 22, 2009, blog posting, any effort made to partner with eco-themed fashions or accessories provides an impetus for hands-on participation in the overall effort to reduce our carbon footprint. Combined with a hefty dose of intuition from a homegrown Chicagoan, I guarantee a tasty medley of sustainable partnership possibilities. I also suggested a Chicago Public School partnership that unites the idea of conservation and profits by refashioning used clothes and old costume jewelry into fresh designs, using accessories to punctuate the look.

Coloring our World

Along that train of thought, Macy’s might consider a joint venture with the Illinois Arts Council to produce attractive water bottles for sale along with refashioned items on specialty carts run by small business ventures associated with the Rainbow Push Coalition or other small business supporters. Meanwhile, a public proclamation about the store’s commitment to reducing its waste at the stores, conserving water and composting restaurant wastes could be accentuated with exhibits featuring painted rain barrels and miniature windmills produced by university art students. The result here is dual purpose—it serves as a public service reminder about the importance of participation in pro-environment activities, and it puts Macy’s in sync with the Chicago Climate Action Plan, which is dedicated to resource conservation and the permanent reduction of the city’s carbon footprint.

I look forward to sharing my cookbook of ideas with you as they relate to the details and strategies of effective CRS.