How to Minimize ESG Risks?: Design Experts’ Advice for Reaching Ideal Shared Value

Abstract

Because growing numbers of consumers are keen to be environmentally and socially responsible, for-profit corporations have become increasingly conscious of related issues. Inadequate corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are easily criticized and yield undesirable reputations such as greenwashing. Therefore, poor environmental and social performance is considered a serious business risk. Especially when a business decides to incorporate social factors into its core business strategy, it is important to understand how to fully integrate social and business value into one strategy, that is to say, an ideal shared value creation. Seven design scholars were invited for expert interviews to share their wisdom as to how to ideally align social and business values. This yielded numerous pieces of design advice on how to attain an ideal shared value. In all, three pieces of advice were mentioned most frequently: 1. Perform user-driven need identification; 2. Understand shared value as an alignment; and 3. Employ an iterative process.