Inspiration and Resources for Your Corporate Social Responsibility Program Launch

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations are central to the corporate social responsibility program for $8 billion United Nations Federal Credit Union, New York.

These goals such things as living wages, clean water, ending poverty and empowering women and girls, explains Yma Gordon in this episode of the CUES Podcast. Gordon is VP/Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact for UNFCU and the Executive Director of the UNFCU Foundation. 

“Credit unions are known to have purpose,” Gordon says. “And so for us, it's about really living that value to put people, planet and prosperity ahead of profit.”

Gordon makes an important distinction between “CSR” and another common buzzword, “ESG”—or environmental, social, governance. 

To Gordon, CSR has to do with the work of delivering on the mission of its members—employees of the United Nations—to leave the world a better place. So that includes “our collective action, our policy, our investments,” work done both internally and externally.

“Corporate social responsibility is an extension for us of our mission to serve the people who serve the world, and that we first of all hold up sustainability, for example, as a value,” she explains. “And so for us, that means really conducting business as a good corporate citizen. That's important to us.”

In contrast, Gordon says, ESG is more about measuring the work of CSR. 

“It is how we see that our stakeholders can understand, rate and score our risk and value of the work … that we're doing in terms of CSR,” she says. “Increasing in our ESG journey makes total sense in terms of the (overall) journey that we're on.”

The show also gets into:

• the history of UNFCU’s CSR program
• the work of the UNFCU Foundation
• how the United in Sustainability Network supports other credit unions in their efforts
• UNFCU’s sustainability-minded product offerings
• what’s next for UNFCU’s CSR work

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
• UN Global Compact Action Manager (free assessment tool)
• United in Sustainability Network
• United in Sustainability Summit
• Get added to the United in Sustainability email list or ask a question about UIS 
• United in Sustainability on LinkedIn
• ABCs of ESG whitepaper